Animal-Free Dairy Milk Set To Finally Hit US Retail Shelves (newatlas.com) 253
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NewAtlas: A new kind of milk will soon hit US shelves but it isn't some plant-based product designed to resemble dairy milk. Instead it is made from whey proteins produced by microflora engineered to spit out exactly the same proteins found in milk from a cow. The unique cow-free milk is the first product from Betterland foods, a new company looking to create novel and sustainable food products. Betterland is working on the cow-free milk with Perfect Day, a company formed in 2014 by two vegans looking to find a way to produce tastier animal-free dairy products.
Perfect Day's big innovation was identifying whey protein as the key element in dairy products that could only be produced by an animal. Every other element could be found elsewhere. So Perfect Day scientists engineered a type of fungus to produce cow whey proteins through a process called precision fermentation. Creating a cow-free whey protein is only the first step in the journey to getting novel animal-free dairy products to supermarket shelves. A series of ice creams using the whey proteins were the first products using Perfect Day's proteins to reach commercial shelves, but according to Ryan Pandya, co-founder of Perfect Day, a cow-free dairy milk was always the main goal. "The two new products are a whole milk and an extra creamy milk," adds the report. "The milk contains eight grams of protein and has 67 percent less sugar than conventional cow milk. It is also lactose and cholesterol free."
While the cow-free milk "will likely still trigger allergic responses" for individuals allergic to dairy, the company argues this new type of milk may be vegan friendly because their whey protein technically isn't an animal product.
Perfect Day's big innovation was identifying whey protein as the key element in dairy products that could only be produced by an animal. Every other element could be found elsewhere. So Perfect Day scientists engineered a type of fungus to produce cow whey proteins through a process called precision fermentation. Creating a cow-free whey protein is only the first step in the journey to getting novel animal-free dairy products to supermarket shelves. A series of ice creams using the whey proteins were the first products using Perfect Day's proteins to reach commercial shelves, but according to Ryan Pandya, co-founder of Perfect Day, a cow-free dairy milk was always the main goal. "The two new products are a whole milk and an extra creamy milk," adds the report. "The milk contains eight grams of protein and has 67 percent less sugar than conventional cow milk. It is also lactose and cholesterol free."
While the cow-free milk "will likely still trigger allergic responses" for individuals allergic to dairy, the company argues this new type of milk may be vegan friendly because their whey protein technically isn't an animal product.
I can't believe it's not milk (Score:2)
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Sustainability. Scalability. ... and probably customization. More or less of various components.
And, for *some* people, the ethics are a consideration.
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Yes, those people wouldn't touch this sort of unethical garbage with a ten foot pole.
Now people fundamentally divorced from ethics and reality who call omnivores "carnivores" and think that natural order of things doesn't concern humans because they exist outside animal kingdom... Those people may be interested.
You know, vegans.
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Is this is "sustainable" as walnut milk? Methane farts aside, cows grazing on grass (ok, this rarely happens in the USA but its common in europe) is about as sustainable as you can get.
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Is this is "sustainable" as walnut milk? Methane farts aside, cows grazing on grass (ok, this rarely happens in the USA but its common in europe) is about as sustainable as you can get.
With precision fermentation, you give microbes about 2 units of plants to produce 1 unit of protein (that could be meat protein or milk protein). In contrast, you can feed cattle about 100 units of plants to produce 1 unit of protein. Likewise, the amount of water required for precision fermentation is orders of magnitude less than that required for raising cattle. In addition, cows produce methane gas, while precision fermentation does not. Also (when precision fermentation technology matures enough) there
No whey... (Score:2)
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Solving the Wrong Problem (Score:3)
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""Humans drink cows milk because it is ... superficially similar to human milk" - do you have any evidence that this is why people drink cows' milk?"
People get brain-washed from early child-age that it's good for you.
Got milk?
We have this nice bovine gland-secretion, full or hormones and antibiotics, care for a drink?
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I wouldn't say you couldn't market it to "anybody" over the age of two. There's a pretty strong fetish for human milk among certain crowds. Granted, most of them want it straight from the source, but you know. Beggars can't be choosers.
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Lots of people buying baby formula and paying a pretty high price to get a close analog to human milk. And even if this were dramatically more expensive than cow's milk at scale, it would still be a competitive product.
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Moo? (Score:3)
This is *EXACTLY* the same thing as non-meat meat. STOP trying to make something that tastes like something else - it's never right and ultimately costs more for something less.
Soy Milk and Almond Milk are 'popular alternatives' that do well because they're not TRYING to taste like actual cow milk. My preference is Skinny Cow since I need to stay nonfat and it tastes good to me.
Almost everyone will switch to Krill patties or pickled bamboo chutes if they're inexpensive and yummy without you trying to sell it as something else.
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Yeah, it's an interesting question regarding "dairy" and I imagine the dairy industry would dislike such a product being marketed that way. I think fermented products is a step in the right direction, much of what makes milk special is the microbiome living in the gut of the cow. I'd agree that avoiding trying to reach parity with animal products is probably a solid idea, especially since many substances fall short once you start to look at details like protein efficiency.
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STOP trying to make something that tastes like something else - it's never right and ultimately costs more for something less.
Meanwhile the market for fake meat keeps growing every year. You can cry "STOP" all you want of course but how about you try just letting people eat what they want instead of crying about it?
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It's strange & disturbing to me how many meat eaters bitch about people eating meat substitutes they enjoy and then turn around and complain about how all vegans are loudmouths who are trying to force their opinions on everyone. And I'm not even vegan.
Which begs the question... (Score:2)
Perfect Day scientists engineered a type of fungus to produce cow whey proteins...The company argues this new type of milk may be vegan friendly because their whey protein technically isn't an animal product.
Really makes one wonder how many vegans will have no issue with "biologically engineered" bacteria to make animal-equivalent proteins. The ones I've met have very strong opinions about GMO foods as well.
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I'm not a vegan but would prefer to eat fewer animal products for the usual reasons (health, animal welfare, eco etc).
I object to GMO not on technical grounds but ethical ones around IP and the perverse incentives there would be for private companies owning GM tech and where those would lead.
I'm not obsessive about all this but I do use quite a lot of milk so if I could find a substitute that tastes reasonable, has fewer calories and isn't an eco-disaster I'd be up for it. Unfortunately most fail on the fir
What is Vegan (Score:2)
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The GMO point is very rel
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I'm not sure if the concept that it could be about both or either passed you buy or you just forgot to include them. I doubt there are many people who eat vegan who do it with no interest whatsoever in animal welfare, purely because you could clearly eat healthily while drinking a bit of milk in a cup of tea every so often or having a few slivers of chicken every few days but that's no reason to think that people aren't also influenced by what they see as healthy dietary choices.
Yea and/or would have been a better choice of words since I did not mean to arbitrarily exclude it being both.
The GMO point is very relevant though; my experience, which involves working with brands that produce vegan products, is that there is a huge overlap in the vegan and the anti-gmo/natural demographics. However there is also a very large demographic out there that is buying cows milk because that is what they are used to, and for that demographic a direct replacement may well be attractive if the price is right.
I suspect, as with anything, there is a wide range of what an individual considers vegan; starting with vegan vs. vegetarian. And if tehy are like any other broad group with many subgroups, much argument over who is pure and correct.
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I'm not a vegan but I know a few, and they say it's a combination of environmental reasons (meat farming generates a lot of greenhouse gas), animal welfare reasons, and only occasionally health reasons.
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Foods sourced from factory-farmed animals tend to be extremely unhealthy. IMO, it is best for everyone to avoid them insofar as possible.
People adopt vegan diets for many reasons. The above tends to be one of them, but there are many more. For instance, in my case, because I cannot properly digest most animal-derived foods. This also means I can't digest chemically-similar substances even if they are plant-based, such as tropical and/or hydrogenated/interesterified oils and fats. It also means that the
Shelf Life? (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't believe an article about milk doesn't mention shelf life.
In the last five years, I've started drinking all sorts of milk, in addition to cow's milk. Hemp milk was by far the best (nice and grassy), with oat being a decent second. I won't say that they are better than cow's milk as a straight beverage, but I will say that they are better than cow's milk as a flavoured beverage, or as a flavour, or in coffee (if your coffee is so bad that it needs anything added to it).
But in covid, they have a shelf life of years, which made it very very easy to keep ten liters lying around.
So what's the shelf-life of fungus milk?
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Powder milk will be fine for decades if you store it in sealed dry and cool environment. Flash heated milk preserves for something like half a year in room temperature in a sealed container.
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Powdered milk is, unfortunately, the most disgusting thing I was ever forced to consume as a child. To be fair, my knowledge is thirty-years old -- which is pretty much how it tasted.
I've never heard of flash heated milk. Is that something I can DIY?
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I think that "flash heated" is the same as "ultra-pasteurized", in which case, no, you can't do it yourself. It involves really rapid heat/cool cycles to particular temperature points in a sealed sterile container.
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Can't believe an article about milk doesn't mention shelf life.
You want dog's milk. Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other milk, dog's milk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Dog's milk is bad...
The real deal is she-wolf milk.
Romulus and Remus grew up with it, and put the bases of an empire that thrived for close to a millennium.
Cow milk is for cows... (Score:2)
Given that dairy is linked to a lot of health issues (osteoporosis and heart disease in particular) and isn't actually tolerated by the vast majority of people in the world (congestion, inflammation, bloating, gas, etc. are all common reactions), why try to re-create it?
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The primary intolerance of milk is lactose intolerance, the natural loss of enzymes needed to digest lactose that all infants are born with. This can be suppressed by constant ingestion of milk, as for most people as long as you keep taking in lactose, enzymes continue to be secreted.
And osteoporosis link for milk is that if you don't drink enough of it, you're going to suffer loss of calcium and may develop osteoporosis. I.e. the link is that "drink milk to avoid it". Heart disease on the other hand is lin
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The primary intolerance of milk is lactose intolerance, the natural loss of enzymes needed to digest lactose that all infants are born with. This can be suppressed by constant ingestion of milk, as for most people as long as you keep taking in lactose, enzymes continue to be secreted.
Lactose is only one small part of it - most cheese has no lactose (consumed by bacteria in the cheese making process) yet many have an inflammatory response. Whey protein isn't easy for the body to assimilate (one of the reasons it is constipating) and if it gets through your intestinal wall before it is digested you'll get an immune response, causing inflammation.
And osteoporosis link for milk is that if you don't drink enough of it, you're going to suffer loss of calcium and may develop osteoporosis. I.e. the link is that "drink milk to avoid it". Heart disease on the other hand is linked to ingestion of far too much fat. Not really related to milk, so much as being obese because of totality of life choices.
Um, no. Humans cannot assimilate the calcium in milk (it isn't in the right form) and in order to deal with the acidity your body draws on your c
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Seconded.
As with other factory-farmed animals, most dairy cows tend to be extremely unhealthy, due to the conditions of their confinement. Their milk, also, is designed to feed baby cows, not baby humans and especially not adult humans. It also tends to contain numerous substances that can harm us. Lactose, as you mention, is only one of them, and my kids, who don't eat dairy at home but do enjoy cheese elsewhere, have grown intolerant to it, even though many cheeses contain low amounts of lactose if any
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Given that dairy is linked to a lot of health issues (osteoporosis and heart disease in particular) and isn't actually tolerated by the vast majority of people in the world (congestion, inflammation, bloating, gas, etc. are all common reactions), why try to re-create it?
Dairy and meat availability is linked to higher stature, intelligence and life expectancy. Nutrition is still a bigger issue for the majority of the world than too much of a good thing.
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Given that dairy is linked to a lot of health issues (osteoporosis and heart disease in particular) and isn't actually tolerated by the vast majority of people in the world (congestion, inflammation, bloating, gas, etc. are all common reactions), why try to re-create it?
Dairy and meat availability is linked to higher stature, intelligence and life expectancy. Nutrition is still a bigger issue for the majority of the world than too much of a good thing.
Meat, yes, dairy no. Dairy consumption only started around 6000 years ago while humans have been eating meat for a lot longer, at least 2.6 million years. Humans, like all mammals, are not supposed to be drinking milk once they can eat food, and we certainly don't need milk that is formulated to produce an 800-1000kg cow.
Agriculture and learning to preserve meats were bigger changes for "modern" humans that allowed people to stay in one place and have food throughout the winter months.
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Who adjudicates what people are supposed to eat/drink?
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What I find interesting about this is that they use the term "microflora" for the creation of synthetic whey. It is not plant based - it is fungal based. And over the years - fungi, which are in their own kingdom.
What is more - while once considered plants - over tim
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Now if I were an ethical vegan, I would not consume any products created by fungi, because there is a big question mark as to what exactly they are.
This is one of the strangest comments I've seen today. They are fungi. Even if you read some of the astoundingly dubious articles about fungi intelligence, that only applies to mycelial networks, not single celled one and even then, the mushrooms only grow out from the network as fruiting bodies.
Because if a person offhand decides they are plants - they are wron
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You find it strange that animals that have evolved over thousands of years to prefer certain foods prefer certain foods ?
You indeed need to "learn just a little bit more".
You need to go back and re-read what I wrote. because your reply is a non sequitur.
Allow me to simplify this a bit for you.
Vegan Bacon looks like pork bacon, Veggi burgers look like hamburgers, and if you put a slice of vegan cheese on top it looks like cheese. Vegan hot dogs look like meat hot dogs, vegan sausage links look like animal sourced sausage links.
Has nothing to do with evolution - I doubt protohumans were knoshing on cheeseburgers or vienna sausages back in the day.
Here's the takeaway -
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Exactly, as a vegan for over 30yrs, and seen so many cases why we shouldn't be drinking the milk from other species....I'm confused why anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Cow's milk is completely unnecessary, offers relatively little helpful nutrition (and very common in plants, that's what cows eat after all), and is an extremely common allergen. 'Yeah, let's make more of that!'
Not to mention the 'uncanny valley' effect, just like in video, it'll be the same thing with food: the closer it gets, the worse it
Unemployed cows? (Score:2)
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The day the Vegans win, to celibate their victory billions of animals will be set free and die a slow painful death, as they were domesticated and bred to produce goods, and live with human assistance. Animals like pigs will grow feral, and be a threat to the local ecosystems and people as well.
While especially Americans should eat less meat, and animal products for environmental and health reasons. Cutting it all off is just a bad idea, it should decline to a set of small farms, where the animals are trea
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Thanks. As an ex-dairy farmer now I'm picturing a line of cows standing around waiting for their welfare checks. In jaunty hats. 'Cause out of work peeps need jaunty hats.
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Haven't you heard of the Universal basic income ?
Real chocolatey goodness (Score:2)
"No f*cking chocolate." - George Carlin
It's not actually vegan either. (Score:2)
Perfect Day performed animal testing on this, so if dish soap or cosmetics that's tested on animals isn't vegan, how is this?
Did they get the microfloras' consent first? (Score:2)
The above is said about half-sarcastically, but that is the way Vegans think -- which just illustrates how ridiculous Veganism is, and why it should be disregar
Re:Not much like milk (Score:5, Funny)
It's funny. I remember getting a question wrong on a piece of science class homework in 1985 that asked if milk had sugar in it. I said "yes", but I got the question wrong. I disputed it in front of the class and the teacher vehemently refuted the presence of sugar in milk.
Finally, I am vindicated! Take *that* 4th grade science class teacher!
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It's funny. I remember getting a question wrong on a piece of science class homework in 1985 that asked if milk had sugar in it. I said "yes", but I got the question wrong. I disputed it in front of the class and the teacher vehemently refuted the presence of sugar in milk.
Finally, I am vindicated! Take *that* 4th grade science class teacher!
It also contain naturally occurring salt but most people don't realize that.
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What do you mean "naturally occuring"? Dairy farmers put out salt blocks to spike the milk with salt. :-)
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They put out the salt blocks because the cows need it for their own nutritional purposes, not to spike the milk.
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Cows have kidneys. Salt blocks only correct deficiencies.
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"Dairy farmers put out salt blocks to spike the milk with salt. :-)"
They should do it for chickens as well, then soft- and hard-boiled eggs wouldn't need salting.
Re: Not much like milk (Score:2)
It also contains naturally occuring trans fat, but people would freak at that so they just round down to zero. Non-fat milk is the only way to escape this.
https://www.dairy.com.au/dairy... [dairy.com.au]
Re: Not much like milk (Score:2)
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We started separate subject classes in fourth grade back in the eighties. It's entirely plausible to me. I even had a science teacher back then that was utterly disconnected from reality to the point where if it wasn't in his book, it wasn't "real science." I don't doubt the story above at all.
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Much like science "journalists," science "teachers" are by and large ignoramuses.
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Maybe, maybe not. Lactose isn't all that sweet, so using another sugar instead might be able to replicate the taste with a smaller amount of sugar.
It'll be interesting to try it and see.
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It will also probably screw up all of grandmas old recipes too.
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"The milk ... has 67 percent less sugar than conventional cow milk" - so it won't taste anything like it.
The lactose is of minor importance. What really makes milk and dairy products taste good is not the whey protein or the lactose, but the butterfat.
Until they can synthesise that, the cow Armageddon is averted.
Re:Not much like milk (Score:4, Interesting)
As with veggie soy whatever burgers, by the time you've added non-animal product fats matching animal products to make something indistinguishable, you're technically vegetarian but eating unhealthy as if it were real meat.
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Most milk is not consumed as just raw milk. You can milk with cereals, milk with hot and cold beverages, milk in all sorts of food recipes, milk in bread, milk chocolate, all sorts of stuff.
A lot of people already drink non-cow milk anyway, e.g. goat's milk or sheep's milk. Then you have the plant based ones like oat milk and soy milk.
Even if it doesn't taste exactly like it came out of a cow's udder by itself, it might be fine for a lot of other uses. It might even open up new uses that cow milk is unsuita
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"A lot of people already drink non-cow milk anyway, e.g. goat's milk or sheep's milk. "
68% of the world population are lactose intolerant and as for the rest, more and more people refuse to drink such an animal gland-secretion because they find it disgusting and only suitable for calves.
But you might get a shiny coat from it.
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"The lactose is of minor importance. "
68% of the world population are lactose-intolerant and would disagree.
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Based on those specs, it'll probably taste similar to the current crop of ultra-filtered milks, such as Fairlife.
Which, as a milk junkie, I find ultra-filtered milks chalky and otherwise undesirable. When you take lactose out and replace it with more protein, you get something approaching the nutritional value (and taste) of a protein shake. Which is fine enough, I suppose, but lactose is part of what makes milk tasty!
In any case, I surmise there has to be a market for ult
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Lactose is not very sweet. You can put in a fraction of regular sugar to make it sweet enough without noticeably altering the taste.
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Bet it costs a lot more than real milk, too. Just like those fucking veggie burgers
Veggie burgers don't, on the whole, cost any more than pre-made beef patties that are ready for cooking.
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They can cost less if you make them yourself, although of course that's true of most things.
They can be varying combinations of mushrooms, beans, soy (optionally), seeds, onions, other veggies, and some type of binding agent. You do want them to hold their shape, which depends on the moisture content, so a little experimentation may be needed to get the optimal result.
Re:It's a scam for your money (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how angry people get over something driven by the market. People wanted these products and companies answered. Nobody is forcing you to eat the fucking things. Change sure is a scary thing... /s
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My mind is right. Ergo yours is wrong!
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Then why do veggie people go around telling meat eaters that they should eat less meat? Where's your logic in that?
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Different vegetarians have different reasons for doing that, and not all of the proselytize. Some are against animal suffering. Some blame cattle for methane emissions. Some think animal fats (or heme) are unhealthy. And there are a multitude of less common reasons.
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Health reasons. But some are spiritual, up to and including lab-grown meat. Beyond the original cell line needing to be harvested (even humanely) there are some who think there's some kwrmic infraction to eating meat per se, even if lab grown, with respect to violence or whatnot.
Nope. (Score:3)
Bet it costs a lot more than real milk, too.
Let's take away the subsidies for dairy/cattle and then we can talk about costs. I the mean time, try to act like less of a jackass.
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It makes it more likely for me, a meat eater, to afford a house, since all the "healty choice" consumers won't have any savings left.
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The same veggie burgers which turn out to be so ultra-processed that they are a few fold worse for our health than normal burgers. Great alternative lol
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It actually depends on *which* veggie burgers it you want to call them "ultra-processed". Your statement is true for SOME of them.
My complaint is that they are high in non-fibrous carbohydrates and low in proteins. This *claims* to have "the same proteins" as regular milk. Believe it if you want to. I'll wait to read the label. If it looks good, then I may consider trying it.
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Adults shouldn't be drinking milk at all.
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Most of us in the Western world get not too little protein for optimal health, but too much. Sometimes causing kidney and other problems.
The typical vegan diet does tend to have less protein, but not dramatically less, and still more than enough for optimal health.
Protein deficiencies are unusual in developed/industrialized nations, though not unknown. Much more common in the Third World, unfortunately, along with other problems caused by insufficient diet.
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I recently became interested in the field of "precision fermentation" as a potential investment opportunity. What I have learned so far is that the technology is at early stages. You can think of it as being akin to a Tesla Roadstar or a Mainframe computer in terms of (lack of) maturity. Most companies working in this areas are still in the pre-IPO stage and are being funded by venture capitalists. The aspiration is that there will be an exponential growth over the next decade, thus driving down cost substa
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It's a scam
It's not a scam simply because you, personally, don't like it.
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I would try it, though the lack of lactose has me concerned. If one goes without lactose for too long, lactose tolerance can be lost. I don't want to lose my lactose tolerance. So, until they make a with-lactose version, this is probably a no-go for me.
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I think you're forgetting why you would need lactose tolerance at that point.
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"Bet it costs a lot more than real milk, too."
Not for long. They don't have to kill male cows at birth, like farmers, they don't produce methane, don't need large amounts of freshwater and they don't shit in rivers.
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Animal glandular secretions vs. fluid harvested from plants
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Sorry - I'm a boob fan and I don't discriminate based on race.
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Species, not race.
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Well, this is explicitly (per the summary) not plant based milk. I suppose it could be fungus based, as some microorganisms are fungi, but that isn't what I assumed. I assumed it was protozoa based.
Nit picking, I know. But for some folks it might actually make a difference.
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Per the summary it is explicitly a fungus.
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Have a squirt bottle of Lamasil Creature Suqueezin's(tm)
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" Oftentimes, male calves which the mothers have a strong instinctive bond with are being slaughtered within hours or days of being born because they of course can never produce milk "
And the female cows have to get regularly raped to get them pregnant.
Some people seem to think that cows produce milk just all year round for the fun of it.
They don't.
Their offspring gets fed crap to give the animal gland secretion to humans.
It's really disgusting.