This one is for my Dad. (Who used to work in this area).
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/12/coming-soon-3-vegan-scientists-lab-grown-milk/
Brace yourself for udderless dairy.
What can science do better than a cow? That’s the question a trio of vegan bioengineers are trying to answer with Muufri, synthetic milk made from yeast cultures and dreams.
They say that milk is actually a relatively simple chemical structure to fake. Muufri is a compound of six proteins and eight fatty acids. To make it, they add chemically synthesized cow DNA to yeast cells, then harvest the cultures the yeast grows. (It’s kind of like a sourdough starter.) From there, they added things like calcium and potassium and emulsify the mixture into milk. They tinkered with the ratios to create something that tastes and feels like cow’s milk, but left out lactose, using a different sugar instead to make it drinkable for the lactose intolerant. They liken it to making beer or penicillin.
The rest of it just talks about bioengineering and stuff that is way over my head, but I just found the notion of making fake milk interesting in the sense of nothing is out of limits, nothing is out of bounds, nothing in nature is good enough for some people…..
I think it’s more about the human state than tech, but eh….
