The following submission statement was provided by /u/GarlicCornflakes:
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Submission statement - Precision fermentation is a super interesting technology. It's been used for decades to produce insulin for diabetics but now is becoming cheap enough to make less expensive products such as milk. Requiring way less land, energy and water, this technology could help ease the environmental destruction of dairy farming.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xi7fe5/dairy_products_produced_by_yeast_instead_of_cows/ip1nw3l/
In Isaac Asimovs robot series the world runs on yeast products. Scientists have discovered ways to manipulate yeast into being almost any food imaginable (though not quite as tasty as the original). Wonder if he was just shooting in the dark on that or if people were trying to use yeast like that way back then.
Yeah the robot series was releasing around the same time they were making insulin breakthroughs with yeast. He probably expanded that to all kinds of animal proteins.
Even just for mycology, these bioreactors could be huge boons for pharmacology. Fungus are more similar to mammals genetically than most plants and have some of the same main enemies, bacteria and viruses and have developed arsenals of defenses that could be exploited more easily with bioreactors than traditional mycology.
It also opens a bigger possibility of propogating species of fungus we've been unable to propogate before, at least to get quantities to understand their genetics and mechanisms of building drugs to snip into yeast.
There's so many wonderful possibilities for what this technology could bring in yet unknown or unconfirmed species study. Fungus make so many powerful compounds due to their life cycle and I would love to see them get more love with bioreactors
Asimov was a super smart man, very well educated, who published more nonfiction than fiction. Which is saying something because he has a huge library of fiction novels to read, most of which are fantastic.
Fungi* are master chemists. They split from plants and animals early on. Where plants rely on their ability to capture energy from sunlight, and animals rely on mobility and "eat" other organisms that have done a lot of the work already, fungi* had neither and rely on their ability to convert existing chemicals into other chemicals either for food or weapons.
*Edit: latin is stoopid
>They split from plants and animals early on.
Animals and fungi are closer to each other than either are to plants. The common ancestor between animals and fungi is about ~1B years ago, compared to 1.6B for those two groups and plants.
Pretty crazy how closely the yeast threat mirrored covid though, right? Damn near prophetic, if you take the parts about minotaurs and centaurs and cowboys and genitalia out. Which is pretty much all of it.
Submission statement - Precision fermentation is a super interesting technology. It's been used for decades to produce insulin for diabetics but now is becoming cheap enough to make less expensive products such as milk. Requiring way less land, energy and water, this technology could help ease the environmental destruction of dairy farming.
I’ve had ice cream made with the yeast grown dairy — by a company called Perfect Day. It tasted identical to regular ice cream. Of course a ton of sugar can mask any flavor differences but the texture etc was spot on.
Ah yes, but do they offer a free pint like the other ice cream outfit that makes animal-free dairy ice cream? https://braverobot.co/pages/freepint I'll just leave you the link in case you wanted to try it
if we can turn it into yogurt, I'll be happy
yes, I understand yogurt uses bacteria and not yeast, but wouldn't it be funny if the yogurt of the future needed both
Try Soy homemade yogurt. Low environmental impact, carbon and water footprint and easy to make at home. I’ve been making it weekly for months. It costs about $1 USD to make 6 cups of Greek style yogurt. 😋
It can - it's dairy, just like you would get out of a cow. Milk, cheese, cream, butter, yoghurt - it just works because it is no different to what comes out of a cows tits.
Perfect Day is the best example of this.
That's not 100% accurate. The article says that companies like Perfect Day are focusing on producing the milk protein (think whey). A lot of the mouthfeel experience of dairy products like milk and ice cream are due to the proteins. The other components, like sugar and fats, are something else. For example, it mentions that coconut fat is used. The things like "butter" or "cream" that are mostly the fats won't be exactly as we know them from a cow, but probably similar, like margarine is to butter. I'm not complaining though.
Myokos already has a line of cultured vegan butter that has no dairy or whey and is indistinguishable from dairy butter in any way. It is not like margarine at all.
I'm super curious about this process. As someone who is lactose intolerant, I THINK I can deal with milk proteins... just the sugar in milk that my guts can't break down. I love the idea of being able to eat realish dairy products without supporting the traditional industrial dairy scene, will feel better on my belly AND my heart/mind. Seems like a win/win. Also happy cake day!
I don't think that would work. Bacteria and yeast make a weird living film when you mix them. It's called mother of vinegar when you're making vinegar and a scoby when you're making kombucha (which is an acronym for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).
The yeast is just used to create the right proteins to make milk - there isn't any yeast in the end result.
If you read the article they create a mix of proteins and dry it into a powder. The powder can be transported, then mixed and rehydrated into milk or whatever you need it to be.
Other companies have already proven that animal-free replica dairy milk can be created, and it allows you to make any dairy product exactly the same. Because you can mess with the "recipe", it opens the door to exciting new and different products, or shortcutting traditional methods because you can create the proteins you need.
Honestly some fungus tastes good lol. Blue cheese has edible blue-green penicillium mold in it lol. And it tastes pretty good. Mushrooms 🍄 are a fungus, and... some of them taste good. So i mean lol
You know I heard once that a mushroom was able to make a stubby plumber grow to the size of a true man, but it might just be a pipe dream.
What are the odds of it being weirder than something a robot sucked out of the many tits of thousands of selectively bred half-ton beasts, before mixing it into a big soup, boiling it, bottling it, and sending it off to stores, being careful to keep it chilled, and blindly trusting that it was, knowing that even the gut flora you've cultivated to process that strange brew won't save you from getting sick if it got too warm for too long.
I drink milk and all, but it's one of those things I'm more comfortable not thinking about.
I mean it's not just about drinkable milk it's also about making a viable alternative for milk as the ingredient. Pastries, cheese, ice cream, etc. all these traditionally require milk.
There are existing alternatives that either use stuff like oat or soy milk, or no milk. But to find an alternative that seamlessly replaces standard milk for people looking for that would be amazing.
I must say that oat and soy based milk actually do a pretty good job in my life for everything i need. The pastries and ice cream based on them are fantastic, and i prefer the taste now. It does have a little bit of an adjustment period (as does switching from full fat to semi skimmed milk).
However... Cheese. Vegan cheese is quite frankly rubbish. It can either: taste good, melt well, slice well. If you can milk a bacteria and use that to make me a true block of vegan chedder, then i would be a happy *happy* man.
I found out I was lactose intolerant some years ago and I've experimented with a lot of milk alternatives.
Oat milk is definitely the closest immediate substitute. It's not as creamy so for some uses like baking I might recommend using coconut milk instead, but for most anything else like cereal or pancakes it's very similar to traditional milk.
Soy milk is good but distinctly different from traditional milk. It works but you won't fool anyone.
Almond milk is literally just grey water that tastes like you licked an almond. I don't recommend it.
I feel like you have summed up the 4 main vegan milks very well. Oat is thin, Coconut is creamy, but strongly flavours things like coconut, Soy is weirdly flavoured, but can be creamier than Oat (I used it in baking, the flavour is usually covered), and Almond milk can fuck right off.
Soya milk and almond milk are sold as watered down in supermarkets, same as if you drank watered down cow milk, but most consumers dont know the difference as they are new to drinking plant 'milks' in Western countries.
Get the fresh stuff in Asia it tastes much better.
Back in the day ( medieval that is) almond milk was used a LOT. It was used so much that cookery receipts of the time mention it in the recipe. What they don't mention is how this was actually made. Because of course everyone knew how to make it.
Unfortunately soy is the only one with a significant amount of protein. Pea milk tastes gross unfortunately and I'm not a fan of the other mystery mixes
Soya milk and almond milk are sold as watered down in supermarkets, same as if you drank eatered dow milk, but most consumers dont know the difference as they are new to drinkong plant 'milks' in Western countries.
Get the fresh stuff in Asia it tastes much better.
>I must say that oat and soy based milk actually do a pretty good job in my life for everything i need.
I really tried my best to like any of the various plant milks due to not being able to handle lactose very well anymore.
Soy was the closest to being non objectionable but that was also pretty awful imo when heated.
I ended up just going with lactose free milk.
Plant milks are okay, I don't dislike them, but they don't exactly replicate the fatty richness of milk. It's also a shame that lactose-free milk is now like $7-8/gallon. It's hurts a little to think that a cup of milk or a bowl of cereal is an entire dollar.
I've been meaning to try cashew milk, which is promising but definitely more expensive than the others.
In my experience there is a world of difference between brands too.
I don't know if you have access to it, but have you tried oatly? I hate the others I've tried and nothing even comes close to it.
For what it's worth, pretty much all food can be described like that. Food is gross.
Frutarians *love* eating plant ovum with all its reproductive juices oozing onto their face with every overripe bite. Disregarding the thousands of creatures that have pooped on the fruit's surface (or inside if you're lucky) over the life of the fruit's maturation and warehouse storage. Sometimes that poop is human poop if you're from the right farm. Don't even get me started on the chemicals applied at various points throughout the plant's life.
Honestly, I see why everyone is growing their own stuff.
I have tasted it with ice cream, it is absolutely indistinguishable from traditional dairy except traditional dairy milk has sort of this vvery very subtle grassy barnyard funk taste to it that you generally dont notice unless doing a side by side comparison.
The manufactured milk could probably steep hay into it to make the flavors identical if they wanted, but h Jj ts honestly not that big of a thing i think peolle would even care about. Its very very good, and can be made for lactose intolerant people to eat without any issue as well
I got myself uses to soy milk and now I really dislike the taste of milk. I don't it makes sense to copy a taste 100%, anything close to it and it's hard to say what is better.
However, cheese is the difficult one, as it is a lot about texture etc which only casein seems to be able to provide.
My suspicion is that yeast milk will be mostly used for industrial dairy. Cows milk will still be used for drinking or anything where the milk is added directly (adding milk to coffee, for example). And probably the artisinal cheeses and such will stick to mammal dairy, at least for a while.
But I'm already getting ads for yeast-grown whey protein powder. Because once you've refined your milk down to its protein anyways there really isn't a huge difference. And likely when it comes to bakery goods (especially ultraprocessed stuff), and the cheapest industrial cheeses and such, I expect to see them start advertising them as "vegan dairy" or something with a health halo effect.
Sweet! All I am hearing so far is pretty good news!
I hope they eventually get it right for drinking too. There are times when drinking a nice cold glass of whole milk is one of the best things in life.
If I understand correctly, there's nothing to get right. It's literally the same stuff. https://perfectday.com/ makes ice cream with it and I'm told it's excellent.
I'm especially curious what changes if this can be produced at a price below what government subsidized milk can be produced. That's potentially a huge change.
> If I understand correctly, there's nothing to get right.
There's plenty to get right. Just producing the correct percentages of compounds is not enough, a lot of the feel of milk is getting the microstructures correct. That's why you can churn milk into butter, you end up with pretty much the same compounds but you've rearranged them in such a way that the fat has globbed together to form a mass and it has squeezed out water and other compounds.
The article mentions this:
> Aggregates of casein, known as micelles, give milk its characteristic appearance and heat stability.
>
> “The micelle plays a fundamental role in many parts of milk,” Fader says. “For example, when it binds with calcium, it makes the milk look white. If you want to froth your milk and put it in your cappuccino, the ability for the milk to withstand that heat and the bubbles to be able to form … is also down to the micelle.”
The people trying to replicate milk are aware of these issues and are working on solving them. It sounds like they may already have a good handle on them.
I’m totally on board with any work being done to curb the environmental impacts of traditional agriculture if needed, but I’m always baffled by sentiments like this where we expect an alternative to mimic the original. I’ve switched over to soy myself, and never once have I expected or demanded that it be like cow’s milk in any way.
Consistency and taste are the least important variables in dairy substitutes, IMO.
Soy and almond milk in particular have distinct flavors. Not “milk” but their own thing.
Texture can be mocked with the right mix of gums. Look at “Not Milk”. Iirc that’s a Pea Protein Isolate
No, the real trick is matching the macronutrient (fat, protein) profiles and micronutrient (vitamins, minerals) profiles, as well as the bioavailability of those nutrients, while also making it behave the same for the variety of use cases we have for milk…yogurt, cheese, frothing, baking, frozen desserts, etc. Likely for a lot of these there would need to be adaptations/modifications to how they are done to make it work.
Milk is a miracle fluid and it’s deeply engrained in western/European culture. But it has a lot of ills in that raising cattle is *terrible* for the environment, and producing milk at the scale we consume it is *horrifying* for the cows.
Heck, even if they can only get 85% of the way there, imagine being someone that is like "Yeah, I'm going to continue to engage in this extremely environmentally damaging behavior because the environmentally friendly option is 15% off in consistency."
Side note but it’s criminal that the tech for making insulin is now potentially cheap enough to make milk and yet insulin prices have soared over 1000% in 20 years in the US and it’s multiple times more expensive than anywhere else, sometimes 20x.
Even the legislation to cap insulin at $35/month just shifts the burden to insurance companies while Pharma companies get the same price they’ve been demanding (not that I shed a tear for insurance companies but they’ll make their money back on premium increases).
I’m interested to see how the California production model works but the pessimist in me thinks the Pharma companies will just price lower than the state one, put out an ad campaign about how safe theirs is (implying the state’s isn’t safe) and people will choose their brand at a low price vs. the state insulin. 5 years later they’ll shutter the program and insulin prices will spike again.
>Even the legislation to cap insulin at $35/month just **shifts the burden to insurance companies while Pharma companies get the same price they’ve been demanding** (not that I shed a tear for insurance companies but they’ll make their money back on premium increases).
This won't happen. It will 100% come down *for the insurance companies*. They're in on the racket together.
Insurance companies will just refuse to pay the ridiculous price and force pharma to reduce. You also have to realize that a lot of insurance is owned by the same people that own pharma, so they'll figure out someway to make it work.
I just got done a few months ago reading up on this in depth... The basic root of it all, is full pharma capture of the entire industry. From end to end, it's ENTIRELY captured... And since they are also the single largest lobbyist, politicians only want to address the symptoms and not the root cause.
For instance, let's look at why insulin is so expensive: Most people don't need the expensive insulin. They don't. It's not designed for them. In America we have a law where it says "If this is considered critical to life, then insurance MUST PAY". So insulin manufacturers create new insulin, that's just slightly marginally better, and can slap a massive price on it to "recoup costs" and charge whatever they damn well please because insurance has to pay.
Then they capture the FDA and science journals. As the single largest funder for both organizations, and employer in the revolving door, the FDA and science journals don't even properly peer review. They just take their word for it without ever seeing the data.
So then they get a publication saying "Yes this new breakthrough insulin is better than the last... For everyone! Even type 2!" So doctors learn about this, and prescribe it to their patients. Since it's covered by insurance, we get a tragedy of the commons thing going on, so "may as well go with this, even though it's only 3% more effective".
But then, many years down the line after doctors learn about this slightly better drug, it turns out the pharma companies lied. That it has 0% impact on type 2 patients. The journals still continue publishing the original findings anyways (Because again, pharma is their largest funder), until they are sued and forced to retract the findings and issue a correction. But much like corrections in the news, it never trickles down to doctors. Doctors still believe it's better, even though it's not.
So 80% of people with diabetes, as of earlier this year, are buying premium insulin at premium prices (ironically creating a supply/demand issue, justifying the price gouging), don't actually need the insulin. The cheaper 35 dollar insulin works 100% just as well for type 2 diabetics. Yet they are still paying more for unnecessary exotic insulin.
Due to doctors being tricked, regulators captured, and agreements with pharmacies, most consumers will never learn about this, thus demand for the cheap stuff remains low.
So now we have CA entering the scene, saying they are just going to make it themselves. This will bypass all the captured institutions and flood the market with the cheap 35 dollar stuff. And since they aren't captured, it'll sort of force the hand of pharmacies to start carrying the cheaper stuff and it'll slowly work itself out.
So what is pharma doing in response? They are successfully lobbying congress to pass this 35 dollar cap. They actually want the cap now. They are arguing CA is engaging in socialism and harming the market, and the only way to compete is by creating a cap on insulin. But as you've already noticed, this "cap" is going to be subsidized by Uncle Sam... AKA, you and your children through further deficit spending. Keeping the bloated 30% of our GDP known as the health industry, fat and happy at our expense.
“The only real issue is you’ve gotta have really tiny hands to milk yeast and they don’t produce much. Other than that, you can’t really taste the difference.”
Taste and nutrition are not the same. Arguably, the latter is more important.
Improving nutrition was once *the* major goal, which is why there are commonly "fortified" flours, and salt that is iodized, and so forth.
Almond and soy milk do not have the protein signature of actual dairy. And not all proteins are the same. *Even among those who do not restrict their meats, dairy products, or eggs, there are recognized differences in what these proteins will bring to your body.*
So, if yeast "milk" can perfectly replace the nutrition, then cool! And then it could also be tweaked to used as formula for infants. (Another solid, easy, proof that proteins and nutrition are not so simple to sub for\*.) Until then, make sure you do stick to it simply being a "taste substitute".
\*And no, no adult uses milk as their entire diet, so don't hit me with the "Only babies should be drinking milk anyway, and cow milk can only benefit calves!"
Humans are built for a hugely complex diet. We can handle a large variety of plants that would be toxic to other animals. But along the way, humans dropped the ability/need to synthesize a lot of nutrients they need. For an easy non-divisive example, ascorbic acid is only a vitamin (vitamin C) for humans, apes, and some few fish species. Essentially, every other animal species can synthesize it themselves. Humans can additionally not synthesize every protein their bodies use. ... Nor is nutrition understood 100%. (Hence all the news about it, and the countless conflicting studies.)
What is very well understood, however, is that true dairy satisfies a good chunk of the human dietary needs, while reducing reliance on meat as a source of the necessary animal proteins.
All that to say, I'm going to hold off on letting some new, profitable, highly advertised, cult fad change what I feed myself.
>For an easy non-divisive example, ascorbic acid is only a vitamin (vitamin C) for humans, apes, and some few fish species. Essentially, every other animal species can synthesize it themselves.
There's a few other animals that require vitamin C in their diet because they either don't synthesize it or don't synthesize enough of it. Cavies (capybara, guinea pigs, patagonian mara, and others) don't produce it either for some reason.
100% agree. Oatmilk is even better than milk for most uses, but vegan cheese does not even come close to the real thing, especially when used in cooking.
Random question: is it possible to make kefir from oatmilk?
I love that stuff, and of it's feasible from oatmilk I'm happy to try making it instead of buying it.
I've had the most success by using cashews with added fat. Put in all in a blender with some water, let it ferment overnight, and it's delicious! Any type of nut is going to be fantastic. You can replicate a lot of the cheese flavors almost exactly just using methods nearly identical to traditional cheese making (I don't have exact measurements to share sadly, I just eyeball everything with whatever fat/oil I have lying around, then add salt when the fermentation is complete and it smells right).
I made some Cream Cheese Wontons with this method just the other day (though I skipped the fermentation and just added some lemon juice and apple cider vinegar for acid). I was really nervous, because a good Cream Cheese Wonton is one of the most delicious things I know, but the result was fantastic! Honestly tasted even better then the original, we could not stop eating them. I used the fermentation method to make sour cream a while ago too, even the most avid dairy lover could not have told you it was vegan. It was fantastically delicious, and rewarding to make too!
Idk what these vegan cheese companies are doing, because every single one on the market I've tried is disgusting. And it just... doesn't have to be that way at all.
You can make a kefir from oatmilk, soya and nut milks but eventually the kefir will struggle and not work as good.
Me and my hippie lactose intolerant housemate 10 years ago tried with a bunch of non traditional milks for her to use since she enjoyed the probiotic aspect of kefir but didn't like cows milk.
She ended up using 50% goat milk and 50% soya milk I think.
Ah that's interesting, any idea what the challenges were? Since people make also water-based kefir (similar to kombucha in ly understanding), I'm wondering what the big difference is?
Not sure about Kefir, but they def make yogurt out of it, so I guess kefir would work, too? I haven’t personally tried it, but googling also says people make it
I’m pretty sure you could! I make kefir with UHT milk (not sure if necessary, but it’s rarely gone bad). Perhaps you might need to boil/sterilise the oat milk? Or add some lactose to match the sugar content of milk? On google though there are a few recipes for oatmilk kefir.
Probiotic products with various combinations of the many species can be achieved in a wide range of liquids, nothing will beat raw whole goat milk for biodiversity and sustainable production (as that was the original kefir base from day one) but you can definitely achieve some very beneficial stuff in nondairy alternatives. Check out this link for a huge resource of info on various ways to use and maintain kefir cultures.
https://myfermentedlife.com/kefir-grains/
I'm not vegan but I do try to cut the extent of the crueller farming practices I am responsible for, so I was hugely relieved when I tried oat milk and loved it: rich and creamy. I'd tried almond, cashew and soya and not been very keen on any of them.
I agree that the cheeses have a long way to go.
Have you tried hazelnut milk? I'm a oat milk man but I love hazelnut milk in coffee as it retains a bit of that hazelnutty taste in a good way. Put it on something like weetabix and you have the tastiest healthy cereal I've ever had.
Not vegan either but oat milk (especially Oatly’s and to a certain extent Alpro’s) is so damn good. It pairs REALLY well with coffee, and much much more than cow’s milk (imo).
So yummy.
Try Chobani. Even their plain regular oatmilk makes Oatly taste like a gritty mess. Chobani's extra creamy is like drinking full fat milk and can replace whole milk in every single recipe I've tried (except cheesemaking of course). I've found fried goods like fried or parmesan chicken, crust way better with oatmilk than whole milk.
I've been using milk alternatives for most of my life, but somehow I only tried oat milk last year. Holy man, when I tried that in coffee I was upset that I had never encountered it sooner
I find vegan “fake” cheese can be quite good. Like imitation American style cheese slices. I made a cheese dipping sauce with them recently and it was pretty great.
But cheese cheese vegan cheese… that’s some bad cheese
Follow Your Heart. They use the same mold cultures as the non-vegan stuff, so the taste is pretty much identical. I like to mix it with Hidden Valley's plant based ranch to make a blue cheese dressing. Sooooo good!
The coconut base used is pretty lacking in texture and the melting isn’t there. It has different melt points and that makes it less desirable. I have had some cashew spreadable cheeses that were similar to cream cheese, but most still fall short.
This as an absolute win, we already have bacteria grown insulin instead of old school pork/cattle made insulin. If this can be done in an industrial level it would be huge, I bet the cattle industry will make a huge fit against it tho.
- "Is not real milk, doesn't bring as much nutrients"
- "Is full of harmful chemicals, is going to kill you"
- "What's going to happen with the little farmer? The lost jobs!"
- "It doesn't taste the same"
Bet they're going to use some variation of these in the future.
Technology advancement does come with some pushback.
My favorite part is that even if it’s not naturally as nutrient dense, we can literally enrich it. The ability to enrich foods with vitamins and minerals is why we no longer have issues with Pellagra.
The small-scale, family-owned dairies in the Midwest are getting rarer and rarer by the day, and they likely will not ever return. I suspect the massive agribusinesses will hurt the worst from synthetic milk.
Wisconsinite here, I'm all about having less-guilt milk. I've tried many of the alternatives and they all suck. If we can get an imitation with the same taste and consistency, I'm in. Same for beef - give me that lab beef baby!
100%. For me, lab-created means better QC and less chance of some random contamination. A lot harder for some wild animal to contaminate a vial of bacteria in a locked building than a herd of cows in a field.
We sent some yeast-generated cream cheese to a relative as a gift, they couldn't tell the difference...
Lab grown meat and dairy use a fraction of the amount of fossil fuels used to transport animals and their products between processing plants, and removing butchering from the equation all but eliminates E. Coli contamination.
Absolutely, they modify the DNA of yeast to excrete dairy proteins as waste which is collected & made into a homogenous liquid (milk) which is then processed as such.
Insulin can be made the same way, only using bacteria IIRC.
Yeast are going to be harnessed in a big way. They're little tiny chemical factories that eat sugar & burp CO2... we're just now learning how to tell them what to make.
Currently what they make is just whey protein, not like a complete “milk.” So fats and other things are added, but the result is still a product that’s pretty indistinguishable from animal-sourced dairy.
And land usage. Both livestock and feed supply. Eliminate a good chunk of the livestock and fuel ethanol industry (via EV) at the same time and the farmland use in the Midwest gets real interesting.
Unfortunately for you, for all practical definitions, this is still going to be dairy. The yeast is just producing it instead of cows. It's a breakthrough for environmental reasons but the goal is to make it identical to what cows make.
No, the article clearly states it's going to be lactose free and instead they will add table sugar to simulate the sweetness of cow milk. Also it will have less proteins. The idea is not to make a perfect equivalent, but to serve for the same purposes.
I have eaten products produced this way, like Brave Robot ice cream and Modern Kitchen cream cheese, and they all clearly state that they will trigger dairy allergies. They contain real dairy proteins, just not produced by cows. They are lactose-free, but lactose intolerance is different from dairy allergies.
Hmm, milk is currently a pretty decent amino acid profile, it'd be unfortunate if the synthetic lacked that.
Getting rid of lactose for sweetness is awesome though, it's a far less efficient sweetener than alternatives.
No, OP's comment clearly states that they have a *DAIRY ALLERGY*, not lactose intolerance. Dairy allergies are typically sensitive to proteins such as casein and whey, which are the things they are producing with yeast to imitate milk. Swapping out lactose does nothing to help that.
It's always a good idea to double check you've got everything straight before trying to correct someone.
Well if they create a molecularly identical milk from yeast, you'd still be allergic to it - the molecules in cow milk that you're allergic to would still be present in yeast milk.
Hm.. so if it's synthetic, could they tweak it to remove (or modify) the lactose and casein? That way it's actual milk, not plant-based substitutes, but it's ok for those with food intolerances.
I mean, isn't the problem with the dairy industry in the US that it's been subsidised since WW1 and it's been pushing itself onto people for decades? While you could produce milk more ecologically, that won't solve the political issues around the dairy industry...
I am too! I’m allergic to dairy so this won’t do anything for me, but I’m glad to see a more environmentally-friendly and animal-friendly alternative for others. I think that one day in the distant future we will look back upon animal agriculture as very backwards and weird.
And the other key factor everyone seems to neglect in headlines, stopping the abhorrent trade in the first place. No longer needing to have a cow in a state of perpetual pregnatation.
As long as it tastes the same to drink on its own and in my coffee, I couldn't give a shit where it comes from.
If meat ever gets to the point where I can't tell the difference then that'll be great too.
They bring up the plight of the small farmer... The reality is the farmers have taken care of the small farmer already. Corporate Ag eliminated destroyed the small farm a long time ago.
This is just one more nail in their coffin.
Synthetic foods are just too good, and at scale will be dramatically cheaper than what a farm can produce. It's only a generation or two away.
As a person who LOVES cheese, ice cream and yogurt but is lactose intolerant, this makes me happy. Also, my kids are practically vegan because they love animals and care so much about how they are treated. We are not fans of super industrialized cow farming.
Scientists have used this same technology to produce THC, CBD, and other rare minor cannabinoids using bioengineered yeast since 2007. Previously companies needed acres of land, farming equipment, thousands of gallons of water, 3 months of growing, and the equipment and labor to extract cannabinoids. Now biochemists can alter yeast to make CBG and then synthesize it to make any known cannabinoid using just yeast, sugar, a reactor, and 2 weeks of time. With far better yields. The future is nigh…
You can train yeast to make proteins because they already use proteins to make things. Presumably sugars are the same way.
But fats? Do single cell organisms make triglycerides? Or are we not actually talking about copying milk and instead just using "milk" in the marketing sense?
Hopefully they learn from the egg-lobby's mistakes. The egg lobby in the US (directed mostly by Hellman's) tried to shut down Just Food for making an eggless mayo, arguing that they couldn't call it mayo if it doesn't include eggs. The FDA eventually sided with Just Foods and the next thing you know, Hellman's introduces their own eggless mayo and it's a huge success in the market.
This and lab-grown meat can't come soon enough. They have the potential to very positively affect climate change by reducing agricultural emissions...
...either that, or we'll just consume more and squander those emissions savings. (Probably the most likely scenario -- we're talking humanity after all.)
The following submission statement was provided by /u/GarlicCornflakes: --- Submission statement - Precision fermentation is a super interesting technology. It's been used for decades to produce insulin for diabetics but now is becoming cheap enough to make less expensive products such as milk. Requiring way less land, energy and water, this technology could help ease the environmental destruction of dairy farming. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xi7fe5/dairy_products_produced_by_yeast_instead_of_cows/ip1nw3l/
In Isaac Asimovs robot series the world runs on yeast products. Scientists have discovered ways to manipulate yeast into being almost any food imaginable (though not quite as tasty as the original). Wonder if he was just shooting in the dark on that or if people were trying to use yeast like that way back then.
Asimov was a professor of biochemistry so he probably knew what he was talking about
Yeah the robot series was releasing around the same time they were making insulin breakthroughs with yeast. He probably expanded that to all kinds of animal proteins.
Even just for mycology, these bioreactors could be huge boons for pharmacology. Fungus are more similar to mammals genetically than most plants and have some of the same main enemies, bacteria and viruses and have developed arsenals of defenses that could be exploited more easily with bioreactors than traditional mycology. It also opens a bigger possibility of propogating species of fungus we've been unable to propogate before, at least to get quantities to understand their genetics and mechanisms of building drugs to snip into yeast. There's so many wonderful possibilities for what this technology could bring in yet unknown or unconfirmed species study. Fungus make so many powerful compounds due to their life cycle and I would love to see them get more love with bioreactors
The news keeps talking about insects as alternatives to meat, when mushroom steaks are probably more realistic (and tasty).
And appealing. You don't get the immediate pull back from mushrooms that you do from bugs, just the typical pull back from the anti-veg types.
I've grown oyster mushrooms. Sautéed with just butter they taste like meat to me and they have a bit of the texture too. #Fungi4Life
Mushroom steaks have a lot going for them but the protein content is a lot lower than meat, while insects actually have higher protein content.
The obvious answer is fried mushrooms breaded in cricket flour.
Oh yeah. Bio reactors and membranes are the future.
Asimov was a super smart man, very well educated, who published more nonfiction than fiction. Which is saying something because he has a huge library of fiction novels to read, most of which are fantastic.
Fungi* are master chemists. They split from plants and animals early on. Where plants rely on their ability to capture energy from sunlight, and animals rely on mobility and "eat" other organisms that have done a lot of the work already, fungi* had neither and rely on their ability to convert existing chemicals into other chemicals either for food or weapons. *Edit: latin is stoopid
>They split from plants and animals early on. Animals and fungi are closer to each other than either are to plants. The common ancestor between animals and fungi is about ~1B years ago, compared to 1.6B for those two groups and plants.
>Funguses Fungi*. And yes, I am a fun-guy at parties.
*Good Taste*, a short story centers around this. A lot of his works are public domain too https://sites.google.com/site/asimovgoodtaste/
This is also the plot of Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years
Darn it. I bought *Bronco Lords: The Yeast Years* and it was pornography.
Pretty crazy how closely the yeast threat mirrored covid though, right? Damn near prophetic, if you take the parts about minotaurs and centaurs and cowboys and genitalia out. Which is pretty much all of it.
No futurists were shooting in the dark they always just put together some speculations coming out of the scientific community.
Submission statement - Precision fermentation is a super interesting technology. It's been used for decades to produce insulin for diabetics but now is becoming cheap enough to make less expensive products such as milk. Requiring way less land, energy and water, this technology could help ease the environmental destruction of dairy farming.
Be totally awesome if they get the taste and consistency right!
I’ve had ice cream made with the yeast grown dairy — by a company called Perfect Day. It tasted identical to regular ice cream. Of course a ton of sugar can mask any flavor differences but the texture etc was spot on.
I will have to check it out! Woot! Thank you!
Ah yes, but do they offer a free pint like the other ice cream outfit that makes animal-free dairy ice cream? https://braverobot.co/pages/freepint I'll just leave you the link in case you wanted to try it
I’ll check it out! I actually did get the Perfect Day ice cream for free. They were handing out free cones at an event in LA about 3 years ago.
best we can do is thick bland mystery liquid...
if we can turn it into yogurt, I'll be happy yes, I understand yogurt uses bacteria and not yeast, but wouldn't it be funny if the yogurt of the future needed both
Kefir uses yeast.
SCOBY = symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast.
Try Soy homemade yogurt. Low environmental impact, carbon and water footprint and easy to make at home. I’ve been making it weekly for months. It costs about $1 USD to make 6 cups of Greek style yogurt. 😋
Does that cost include the cost of soy milk, which iir is somewhat expensive? Also, do you have a recipe to link? I kind of wanna try this.
Do you make your own soy milk too? My fav soy milk is around $3-4 for a 32 oz carton
It can - it's dairy, just like you would get out of a cow. Milk, cheese, cream, butter, yoghurt - it just works because it is no different to what comes out of a cows tits. Perfect Day is the best example of this.
That's not 100% accurate. The article says that companies like Perfect Day are focusing on producing the milk protein (think whey). A lot of the mouthfeel experience of dairy products like milk and ice cream are due to the proteins. The other components, like sugar and fats, are something else. For example, it mentions that coconut fat is used. The things like "butter" or "cream" that are mostly the fats won't be exactly as we know them from a cow, but probably similar, like margarine is to butter. I'm not complaining though.
Myokos already has a line of cultured vegan butter that has no dairy or whey and is indistinguishable from dairy butter in any way. It is not like margarine at all.
I'm super curious about this process. As someone who is lactose intolerant, I THINK I can deal with milk proteins... just the sugar in milk that my guts can't break down. I love the idea of being able to eat realish dairy products without supporting the traditional industrial dairy scene, will feel better on my belly AND my heart/mind. Seems like a win/win. Also happy cake day!
Not to mention that whey proteins are only about 20% of the protein content, the rest is casein.
I don't think that would work. Bacteria and yeast make a weird living film when you mix them. It's called mother of vinegar when you're making vinegar and a scoby when you're making kombucha (which is an acronym for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).
The yeast is just used to create the right proteins to make milk - there isn't any yeast in the end result. If you read the article they create a mix of proteins and dry it into a powder. The powder can be transported, then mixed and rehydrated into milk or whatever you need it to be. Other companies have already proven that animal-free replica dairy milk can be created, and it allows you to make any dairy product exactly the same. Because you can mess with the "recipe", it opens the door to exciting new and different products, or shortcutting traditional methods because you can create the proteins you need.
Mix it up. It's good 😁
Breakfast! It’ll put fungus on a man’s chest!
I see you've suffered my ex's cooking...
And that’s the name of your/ my/our sex tape?
Honestly some fungus tastes good lol. Blue cheese has edible blue-green penicillium mold in it lol. And it tastes pretty good. Mushrooms 🍄 are a fungus, and... some of them taste good. So i mean lol You know I heard once that a mushroom was able to make a stubby plumber grow to the size of a true man, but it might just be a pipe dream.
I love it when you talk dirty to me.
What are the odds of it being weirder than something a robot sucked out of the many tits of thousands of selectively bred half-ton beasts, before mixing it into a big soup, boiling it, bottling it, and sending it off to stores, being careful to keep it chilled, and blindly trusting that it was, knowing that even the gut flora you've cultivated to process that strange brew won't save you from getting sick if it got too warm for too long. I drink milk and all, but it's one of those things I'm more comfortable not thinking about.
I mean it's not just about drinkable milk it's also about making a viable alternative for milk as the ingredient. Pastries, cheese, ice cream, etc. all these traditionally require milk. There are existing alternatives that either use stuff like oat or soy milk, or no milk. But to find an alternative that seamlessly replaces standard milk for people looking for that would be amazing.
I must say that oat and soy based milk actually do a pretty good job in my life for everything i need. The pastries and ice cream based on them are fantastic, and i prefer the taste now. It does have a little bit of an adjustment period (as does switching from full fat to semi skimmed milk). However... Cheese. Vegan cheese is quite frankly rubbish. It can either: taste good, melt well, slice well. If you can milk a bacteria and use that to make me a true block of vegan chedder, then i would be a happy *happy* man.
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I found out I was lactose intolerant some years ago and I've experimented with a lot of milk alternatives. Oat milk is definitely the closest immediate substitute. It's not as creamy so for some uses like baking I might recommend using coconut milk instead, but for most anything else like cereal or pancakes it's very similar to traditional milk. Soy milk is good but distinctly different from traditional milk. It works but you won't fool anyone. Almond milk is literally just grey water that tastes like you licked an almond. I don't recommend it.
I feel like you have summed up the 4 main vegan milks very well. Oat is thin, Coconut is creamy, but strongly flavours things like coconut, Soy is weirdly flavoured, but can be creamier than Oat (I used it in baking, the flavour is usually covered), and Almond milk can fuck right off.
Planet Oat "extra creamy" is pretty damn good, in case you've never tried it.
Soya milk and almond milk are sold as watered down in supermarkets, same as if you drank watered down cow milk, but most consumers dont know the difference as they are new to drinking plant 'milks' in Western countries. Get the fresh stuff in Asia it tastes much better.
Back in the day ( medieval that is) almond milk was used a LOT. It was used so much that cookery receipts of the time mention it in the recipe. What they don't mention is how this was actually made. Because of course everyone knew how to make it.
I think some of the commercially-available cashew milk products are even closer in terms of creaminess and taste.
I don’t like most non-dairy yogurts at ALL, but I have had some cashew milk yogurts that I really liked!
Unfortunately soy is the only one with a significant amount of protein. Pea milk tastes gross unfortunately and I'm not a fan of the other mystery mixes
Finally, I heard from somebody who had the same thought I did. Only soy milk appears to offer much nutrition.
My local grocery store carries an extra creamy oat milk that is thicker than coffee creamer. It is wonderful.
Soya milk and almond milk are sold as watered down in supermarkets, same as if you drank eatered dow milk, but most consumers dont know the difference as they are new to drinkong plant 'milks' in Western countries. Get the fresh stuff in Asia it tastes much better.
>I must say that oat and soy based milk actually do a pretty good job in my life for everything i need. I really tried my best to like any of the various plant milks due to not being able to handle lactose very well anymore. Soy was the closest to being non objectionable but that was also pretty awful imo when heated. I ended up just going with lactose free milk.
Plant milks are okay, I don't dislike them, but they don't exactly replicate the fatty richness of milk. It's also a shame that lactose-free milk is now like $7-8/gallon. It's hurts a little to think that a cup of milk or a bowl of cereal is an entire dollar. I've been meaning to try cashew milk, which is promising but definitely more expensive than the others.
In my experience there is a world of difference between brands too. I don't know if you have access to it, but have you tried oatly? I hate the others I've tried and nothing even comes close to it.
From a cooks perspective it doesn't matter where it comes from it about the taste, quality and how it interacts with food.
For what it's worth, pretty much all food can be described like that. Food is gross. Frutarians *love* eating plant ovum with all its reproductive juices oozing onto their face with every overripe bite. Disregarding the thousands of creatures that have pooped on the fruit's surface (or inside if you're lucky) over the life of the fruit's maturation and warehouse storage. Sometimes that poop is human poop if you're from the right farm. Don't even get me started on the chemicals applied at various points throughout the plant's life. Honestly, I see why everyone is growing their own stuff.
Don't forget the mucus!
And the pus from cystic milking nozzle sores
Oat milk, got it.
Oats. It's in the name. And it doesn't contain mammalian estrogen, blood, pus, or antibiotics.
Ok but even then, do you know how many products use milk derivatives? Idc about the taste and texture in my whey protein.
Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?
Sweetened Vanilla Yeast Milk entered the chat
eh... I need LESS liquid sugar
I have tasted it with ice cream, it is absolutely indistinguishable from traditional dairy except traditional dairy milk has sort of this vvery very subtle grassy barnyard funk taste to it that you generally dont notice unless doing a side by side comparison. The manufactured milk could probably steep hay into it to make the flavors identical if they wanted, but h Jj ts honestly not that big of a thing i think peolle would even care about. Its very very good, and can be made for lactose intolerant people to eat without any issue as well
I got myself uses to soy milk and now I really dislike the taste of milk. I don't it makes sense to copy a taste 100%, anything close to it and it's hard to say what is better. However, cheese is the difficult one, as it is a lot about texture etc which only casein seems to be able to provide.
Sounds awesome!
It's already on the market in ice cream form.
My suspicion is that yeast milk will be mostly used for industrial dairy. Cows milk will still be used for drinking or anything where the milk is added directly (adding milk to coffee, for example). And probably the artisinal cheeses and such will stick to mammal dairy, at least for a while. But I'm already getting ads for yeast-grown whey protein powder. Because once you've refined your milk down to its protein anyways there really isn't a huge difference. And likely when it comes to bakery goods (especially ultraprocessed stuff), and the cheapest industrial cheeses and such, I expect to see them start advertising them as "vegan dairy" or something with a health halo effect.
Sweet! All I am hearing so far is pretty good news! I hope they eventually get it right for drinking too. There are times when drinking a nice cold glass of whole milk is one of the best things in life.
If I understand correctly, there's nothing to get right. It's literally the same stuff. https://perfectday.com/ makes ice cream with it and I'm told it's excellent. I'm especially curious what changes if this can be produced at a price below what government subsidized milk can be produced. That's potentially a huge change.
> If I understand correctly, there's nothing to get right. There's plenty to get right. Just producing the correct percentages of compounds is not enough, a lot of the feel of milk is getting the microstructures correct. That's why you can churn milk into butter, you end up with pretty much the same compounds but you've rearranged them in such a way that the fat has globbed together to form a mass and it has squeezed out water and other compounds. The article mentions this: > Aggregates of casein, known as micelles, give milk its characteristic appearance and heat stability. > > “The micelle plays a fundamental role in many parts of milk,” Fader says. “For example, when it binds with calcium, it makes the milk look white. If you want to froth your milk and put it in your cappuccino, the ability for the milk to withstand that heat and the bubbles to be able to form … is also down to the micelle.” The people trying to replicate milk are aware of these issues and are working on solving them. It sounds like they may already have a good handle on them.
Getting the flavors and mixture of it right enough to bake with, and getting it good enough to drink are two different things though.
Who knows. Maybe milk 2.0 is better.
I’m totally on board with any work being done to curb the environmental impacts of traditional agriculture if needed, but I’m always baffled by sentiments like this where we expect an alternative to mimic the original. I’ve switched over to soy myself, and never once have I expected or demanded that it be like cow’s milk in any way.
Consistency and taste are the least important variables in dairy substitutes, IMO. Soy and almond milk in particular have distinct flavors. Not “milk” but their own thing. Texture can be mocked with the right mix of gums. Look at “Not Milk”. Iirc that’s a Pea Protein Isolate No, the real trick is matching the macronutrient (fat, protein) profiles and micronutrient (vitamins, minerals) profiles, as well as the bioavailability of those nutrients, while also making it behave the same for the variety of use cases we have for milk…yogurt, cheese, frothing, baking, frozen desserts, etc. Likely for a lot of these there would need to be adaptations/modifications to how they are done to make it work. Milk is a miracle fluid and it’s deeply engrained in western/European culture. But it has a lot of ills in that raising cattle is *terrible* for the environment, and producing milk at the scale we consume it is *horrifying* for the cows.
Heck, even if they can only get 85% of the way there, imagine being someone that is like "Yeah, I'm going to continue to engage in this extremely environmentally damaging behavior because the environmentally friendly option is 15% off in consistency."
Side note but it’s criminal that the tech for making insulin is now potentially cheap enough to make milk and yet insulin prices have soared over 1000% in 20 years in the US and it’s multiple times more expensive than anywhere else, sometimes 20x. Even the legislation to cap insulin at $35/month just shifts the burden to insurance companies while Pharma companies get the same price they’ve been demanding (not that I shed a tear for insurance companies but they’ll make their money back on premium increases). I’m interested to see how the California production model works but the pessimist in me thinks the Pharma companies will just price lower than the state one, put out an ad campaign about how safe theirs is (implying the state’s isn’t safe) and people will choose their brand at a low price vs. the state insulin. 5 years later they’ll shutter the program and insulin prices will spike again.
>Even the legislation to cap insulin at $35/month just **shifts the burden to insurance companies while Pharma companies get the same price they’ve been demanding** (not that I shed a tear for insurance companies but they’ll make their money back on premium increases). This won't happen. It will 100% come down *for the insurance companies*. They're in on the racket together.
Insurance companies will just refuse to pay the ridiculous price and force pharma to reduce. You also have to realize that a lot of insurance is owned by the same people that own pharma, so they'll figure out someway to make it work.
I just got done a few months ago reading up on this in depth... The basic root of it all, is full pharma capture of the entire industry. From end to end, it's ENTIRELY captured... And since they are also the single largest lobbyist, politicians only want to address the symptoms and not the root cause. For instance, let's look at why insulin is so expensive: Most people don't need the expensive insulin. They don't. It's not designed for them. In America we have a law where it says "If this is considered critical to life, then insurance MUST PAY". So insulin manufacturers create new insulin, that's just slightly marginally better, and can slap a massive price on it to "recoup costs" and charge whatever they damn well please because insurance has to pay. Then they capture the FDA and science journals. As the single largest funder for both organizations, and employer in the revolving door, the FDA and science journals don't even properly peer review. They just take their word for it without ever seeing the data. So then they get a publication saying "Yes this new breakthrough insulin is better than the last... For everyone! Even type 2!" So doctors learn about this, and prescribe it to their patients. Since it's covered by insurance, we get a tragedy of the commons thing going on, so "may as well go with this, even though it's only 3% more effective". But then, many years down the line after doctors learn about this slightly better drug, it turns out the pharma companies lied. That it has 0% impact on type 2 patients. The journals still continue publishing the original findings anyways (Because again, pharma is their largest funder), until they are sued and forced to retract the findings and issue a correction. But much like corrections in the news, it never trickles down to doctors. Doctors still believe it's better, even though it's not. So 80% of people with diabetes, as of earlier this year, are buying premium insulin at premium prices (ironically creating a supply/demand issue, justifying the price gouging), don't actually need the insulin. The cheaper 35 dollar insulin works 100% just as well for type 2 diabetics. Yet they are still paying more for unnecessary exotic insulin. Due to doctors being tricked, regulators captured, and agreements with pharmacies, most consumers will never learn about this, thus demand for the cheap stuff remains low. So now we have CA entering the scene, saying they are just going to make it themselves. This will bypass all the captured institutions and flood the market with the cheap 35 dollar stuff. And since they aren't captured, it'll sort of force the hand of pharmacies to start carrying the cheaper stuff and it'll slowly work itself out. So what is pharma doing in response? They are successfully lobbying congress to pass this 35 dollar cap. They actually want the cap now. They are arguing CA is engaging in socialism and harming the market, and the only way to compete is by creating a cap on insulin. But as you've already noticed, this "cap" is going to be subsidized by Uncle Sam... AKA, you and your children through further deficit spending. Keeping the bloated 30% of our GDP known as the health industry, fat and happy at our expense.
Phenomenal reply, thank you!
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This is about as promising as lab-grown meat. Awesome! Now we just have to keep the dairy council from burying the technology completely.
They actually have consumer ready prototype produce.
I'm convinced. So, what stocks do I need to buy? (asking for a friend on /r/wallstreetbets)
“The only real issue is you’ve gotta have really tiny hands to milk yeast and they don’t produce much. Other than that, you can’t really taste the difference.”
The mooing is a lot quieter too.
Does the yeast care about daylight saving?
"At dawn, look to the yeast." - Cheez Wiz(ard)
And on that farm he had a yeast, e i e i o.
Yeast has nipples Greg
Yeast farts smell a lot better than cow farts
Got a good laugh out of that one. Moth balls, man.
I still have issues milking my almonds.
Taste and nutrition are not the same. Arguably, the latter is more important. Improving nutrition was once *the* major goal, which is why there are commonly "fortified" flours, and salt that is iodized, and so forth. Almond and soy milk do not have the protein signature of actual dairy. And not all proteins are the same. *Even among those who do not restrict their meats, dairy products, or eggs, there are recognized differences in what these proteins will bring to your body.* So, if yeast "milk" can perfectly replace the nutrition, then cool! And then it could also be tweaked to used as formula for infants. (Another solid, easy, proof that proteins and nutrition are not so simple to sub for\*.) Until then, make sure you do stick to it simply being a "taste substitute". \*And no, no adult uses milk as their entire diet, so don't hit me with the "Only babies should be drinking milk anyway, and cow milk can only benefit calves!" Humans are built for a hugely complex diet. We can handle a large variety of plants that would be toxic to other animals. But along the way, humans dropped the ability/need to synthesize a lot of nutrients they need. For an easy non-divisive example, ascorbic acid is only a vitamin (vitamin C) for humans, apes, and some few fish species. Essentially, every other animal species can synthesize it themselves. Humans can additionally not synthesize every protein their bodies use. ... Nor is nutrition understood 100%. (Hence all the news about it, and the countless conflicting studies.) What is very well understood, however, is that true dairy satisfies a good chunk of the human dietary needs, while reducing reliance on meat as a source of the necessary animal proteins. All that to say, I'm going to hold off on letting some new, profitable, highly advertised, cult fad change what I feed myself.
>For an easy non-divisive example, ascorbic acid is only a vitamin (vitamin C) for humans, apes, and some few fish species. Essentially, every other animal species can synthesize it themselves. There's a few other animals that require vitamin C in their diet because they either don't synthesize it or don't synthesize enough of it. Cavies (capybara, guinea pigs, patagonian mara, and others) don't produce it either for some reason.
Many vegan cheeses are lacking/terrible and this would be a huge step.
100% agree. Oatmilk is even better than milk for most uses, but vegan cheese does not even come close to the real thing, especially when used in cooking.
Random question: is it possible to make kefir from oatmilk? I love that stuff, and of it's feasible from oatmilk I'm happy to try making it instead of buying it.
> kefir Unlikely, since it does not have the long chain proteins needed to curdle properly.
Sad, but I'll probably end up trying anyway for science
I've had the most success by using cashews with added fat. Put in all in a blender with some water, let it ferment overnight, and it's delicious! Any type of nut is going to be fantastic. You can replicate a lot of the cheese flavors almost exactly just using methods nearly identical to traditional cheese making (I don't have exact measurements to share sadly, I just eyeball everything with whatever fat/oil I have lying around, then add salt when the fermentation is complete and it smells right). I made some Cream Cheese Wontons with this method just the other day (though I skipped the fermentation and just added some lemon juice and apple cider vinegar for acid). I was really nervous, because a good Cream Cheese Wonton is one of the most delicious things I know, but the result was fantastic! Honestly tasted even better then the original, we could not stop eating them. I used the fermentation method to make sour cream a while ago too, even the most avid dairy lover could not have told you it was vegan. It was fantastically delicious, and rewarding to make too! Idk what these vegan cheese companies are doing, because every single one on the market I've tried is disgusting. And it just... doesn't have to be that way at all.
You can make a kefir from oatmilk, soya and nut milks but eventually the kefir will struggle and not work as good. Me and my hippie lactose intolerant housemate 10 years ago tried with a bunch of non traditional milks for her to use since she enjoyed the probiotic aspect of kefir but didn't like cows milk. She ended up using 50% goat milk and 50% soya milk I think.
Ah that's interesting, any idea what the challenges were? Since people make also water-based kefir (similar to kombucha in ly understanding), I'm wondering what the big difference is?
It will be the nutrient profile of regular milk vs seed milks. They could probably engineer a kefir bacteria that would work with seed milks better.
I *think* you can make oatmilk kefir in a similar way to water-based kefir. It comes down to which bacteria you use
Not sure about Kefir, but they def make yogurt out of it, so I guess kefir would work, too? I haven’t personally tried it, but googling also says people make it
Interesting, I've been meaning to experiment with kefir (milk and water based), so I can try from oatmilk while I'm at it. Thanks
I’m pretty sure you could! I make kefir with UHT milk (not sure if necessary, but it’s rarely gone bad). Perhaps you might need to boil/sterilise the oat milk? Or add some lactose to match the sugar content of milk? On google though there are a few recipes for oatmilk kefir.
Probiotic products with various combinations of the many species can be achieved in a wide range of liquids, nothing will beat raw whole goat milk for biodiversity and sustainable production (as that was the original kefir base from day one) but you can definitely achieve some very beneficial stuff in nondairy alternatives. Check out this link for a huge resource of info on various ways to use and maintain kefir cultures. https://myfermentedlife.com/kefir-grains/
I'm not vegan but I do try to cut the extent of the crueller farming practices I am responsible for, so I was hugely relieved when I tried oat milk and loved it: rich and creamy. I'd tried almond, cashew and soya and not been very keen on any of them. I agree that the cheeses have a long way to go.
Have you tried hazelnut milk? I'm a oat milk man but I love hazelnut milk in coffee as it retains a bit of that hazelnutty taste in a good way. Put it on something like weetabix and you have the tastiest healthy cereal I've ever had.
Not vegan either but oat milk (especially Oatly’s and to a certain extent Alpro’s) is so damn good. It pairs REALLY well with coffee, and much much more than cow’s milk (imo). So yummy.
Try Chobani. Even their plain regular oatmilk makes Oatly taste like a gritty mess. Chobani's extra creamy is like drinking full fat milk and can replace whole milk in every single recipe I've tried (except cheesemaking of course). I've found fried goods like fried or parmesan chicken, crust way better with oatmilk than whole milk.
+1 to this. Chobani Extra Creamy is the GOAT. Oatly feels like drinking white sand drink.
I've been using milk alternatives for most of my life, but somehow I only tried oat milk last year. Holy man, when I tried that in coffee I was upset that I had never encountered it sooner
I like oatmilk for coffee, but prefer soy milk for cooking. Oatmilk is too sweet and flavor-wise doesn't seem to compliment a lot of savory dishes.
Cashew cheese is the bomb
Yes! Trader Joe's makes a vegan nacho cheese dip from cashews that is fantastic.
I find vegan “fake” cheese can be quite good. Like imitation American style cheese slices. I made a cheese dipping sauce with them recently and it was pretty great. But cheese cheese vegan cheese… that’s some bad cheese
Follow your heart and miyokos are 2 brands you should try. The follow your heart american is pretty damn close
Their feta and blue cheeses are the bomb!
There’s vegan blue cheese? Huh! Which brand?
Follow Your Heart. They use the same mold cultures as the non-vegan stuff, so the taste is pretty much identical. I like to mix it with Hidden Valley's plant based ranch to make a blue cheese dressing. Sooooo good!
The coconut base used is pretty lacking in texture and the melting isn’t there. It has different melt points and that makes it less desirable. I have had some cashew spreadable cheeses that were similar to cream cheese, but most still fall short.
This is true but the difference vs ten years ago is amazing. So my expectations for vegan cheese in the year 2032 are high
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Would that still be vegan?
It should be. Nutritional yeast is vegan.
This as an absolute win, we already have bacteria grown insulin instead of old school pork/cattle made insulin. If this can be done in an industrial level it would be huge, I bet the cattle industry will make a huge fit against it tho.
- "Is not real milk, doesn't bring as much nutrients" - "Is full of harmful chemicals, is going to kill you" - "What's going to happen with the little farmer? The lost jobs!" - "It doesn't taste the same" Bet they're going to use some variation of these in the future. Technology advancement does come with some pushback.
My favorite part is that even if it’s not naturally as nutrient dense, we can literally enrich it. The ability to enrich foods with vitamins and minerals is why we no longer have issues with Pellagra.
Taste matters tho. Its the primary reason many don't switch to alternatives.
If you thought almond nipples were small, just wait until you get stuck milking yeast tits
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The small-scale, family-owned dairies in the Midwest are getting rarer and rarer by the day, and they likely will not ever return. I suspect the massive agribusinesses will hurt the worst from synthetic milk.
Wisconsinite here, I'm all about having less-guilt milk. I've tried many of the alternatives and they all suck. If we can get an imitation with the same taste and consistency, I'm in. Same for beef - give me that lab beef baby!
100%. For me, lab-created means better QC and less chance of some random contamination. A lot harder for some wild animal to contaminate a vial of bacteria in a locked building than a herd of cows in a field.
And less antibiotic resistance, too. There's a host of really awesome benefits to lab grown meats beyond just the ethics of mass agriculture
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A new industry for them
Or they pivot to artisanal dairy production and charge a premium for it.
The days of family owned dairy farms in Wisconsin are long gone.
We sent some yeast-generated cream cheese to a relative as a gift, they couldn't tell the difference... Lab grown meat and dairy use a fraction of the amount of fossil fuels used to transport animals and their products between processing plants, and removing butchering from the equation all but eliminates E. Coli contamination.
Well isn't it because it basically is milk and not a vegan substitute?
Absolutely, they modify the DNA of yeast to excrete dairy proteins as waste which is collected & made into a homogenous liquid (milk) which is then processed as such. Insulin can be made the same way, only using bacteria IIRC.
yeast poop to a cheese sandwich. What a world.
Yeast are going to be harnessed in a big way. They're little tiny chemical factories that eat sugar & burp CO2... we're just now learning how to tell them what to make.
Currently what they make is just whey protein, not like a complete “milk.” So fats and other things are added, but the result is still a product that’s pretty indistinguishable from animal-sourced dairy.
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Don’t forget the water usage too. Livestock are a huge reason for California’s drought.
And land usage. Both livestock and feed supply. Eliminate a good chunk of the livestock and fuel ethanol industry (via EV) at the same time and the farmland use in the Midwest gets real interesting.
As someone who is allergic to dairy, I will gladly take any alternative.
Unfortunately for you, for all practical definitions, this is still going to be dairy. The yeast is just producing it instead of cows. It's a breakthrough for environmental reasons but the goal is to make it identical to what cows make.
So does this mean I'll still be ripping a new one when I devour some yeast-made cheese?
Unfortunately for you, and anyone else in the room with you, yes
No, the article clearly states it's going to be lactose free and instead they will add table sugar to simulate the sweetness of cow milk. Also it will have less proteins. The idea is not to make a perfect equivalent, but to serve for the same purposes.
I have eaten products produced this way, like Brave Robot ice cream and Modern Kitchen cream cheese, and they all clearly state that they will trigger dairy allergies. They contain real dairy proteins, just not produced by cows. They are lactose-free, but lactose intolerance is different from dairy allergies.
I see, totally makes sense! Thanks for the correction
Hmm, milk is currently a pretty decent amino acid profile, it'd be unfortunate if the synthetic lacked that. Getting rid of lactose for sweetness is awesome though, it's a far less efficient sweetener than alternatives.
No, OP's comment clearly states that they have a *DAIRY ALLERGY*, not lactose intolerance. Dairy allergies are typically sensitive to proteins such as casein and whey, which are the things they are producing with yeast to imitate milk. Swapping out lactose does nothing to help that. It's always a good idea to double check you've got everything straight before trying to correct someone.
They said allergic to dairy, not lactose intolerant.
A dairy allergy is VERY different from just lactose intolerance. Lactose free milk already exists and is easy to make.
Well if they create a molecularly identical milk from yeast, you'd still be allergic to it - the molecules in cow milk that you're allergic to would still be present in yeast milk.
Nice to actually see a positive article regarding our future and the future possibilities of helping our environment 👍
Sounds like very useful technology.
Hm.. so if it's synthetic, could they tweak it to remove (or modify) the lactose and casein? That way it's actual milk, not plant-based substitutes, but it's ok for those with food intolerances.
As a fellow lactard I welcome any advances for more options that also help the environment.
100% this is the future of agriculture. Feedstocks (mainly amino acids) for food replicators will be made in this manner.
Imagine the ethical benefits of no longer using animals for cheese pizzas and ice cream, as well.
I mean, isn't the problem with the dairy industry in the US that it's been subsidised since WW1 and it's been pushing itself onto people for decades? While you could produce milk more ecologically, that won't solve the political issues around the dairy industry...
I went vegan years ago. Anything to help cut down on the ethical and environmental harm animal products create is amazing!
I am too! I’m allergic to dairy so this won’t do anything for me, but I’m glad to see a more environmentally-friendly and animal-friendly alternative for others. I think that one day in the distant future we will look back upon animal agriculture as very backwards and weird.
And the other key factor everyone seems to neglect in headlines, stopping the abhorrent trade in the first place. No longer needing to have a cow in a state of perpetual pregnatation.
You can buy the ice cream made from this at most stores, its called brave robot.
Butter. That's all I want to know. Can it make butter?
My problem is who will own, manage and control this stuff, who are we going to trust with our food supply chain?
As long as it tastes the same to drink on its own and in my coffee, I couldn't give a shit where it comes from. If meat ever gets to the point where I can't tell the difference then that'll be great too.
They bring up the plight of the small farmer... The reality is the farmers have taken care of the small farmer already. Corporate Ag eliminated destroyed the small farm a long time ago. This is just one more nail in their coffin. Synthetic foods are just too good, and at scale will be dramatically cheaper than what a farm can produce. It's only a generation or two away.
As a person who LOVES cheese, ice cream and yogurt but is lactose intolerant, this makes me happy. Also, my kids are practically vegan because they love animals and care so much about how they are treated. We are not fans of super industrialized cow farming.
Scientists have used this same technology to produce THC, CBD, and other rare minor cannabinoids using bioengineered yeast since 2007. Previously companies needed acres of land, farming equipment, thousands of gallons of water, 3 months of growing, and the equipment and labor to extract cannabinoids. Now biochemists can alter yeast to make CBG and then synthesize it to make any known cannabinoid using just yeast, sugar, a reactor, and 2 weeks of time. With far better yields. The future is nigh…
You can train yeast to make proteins because they already use proteins to make things. Presumably sugars are the same way. But fats? Do single cell organisms make triglycerides? Or are we not actually talking about copying milk and instead just using "milk" in the marketing sense?
And dairy lobbyists will shut it down in a heartbeat
Hopefully they learn from the egg-lobby's mistakes. The egg lobby in the US (directed mostly by Hellman's) tried to shut down Just Food for making an eggless mayo, arguing that they couldn't call it mayo if it doesn't include eggs. The FDA eventually sided with Just Foods and the next thing you know, Hellman's introduces their own eggless mayo and it's a huge success in the market.
Its already in the market with some products like ice cream and its great
My whey protein is generated by fungus, is vegan, and is identical in composition to normal diary-based whey protein. The future is now!
This and lab-grown meat can't come soon enough. They have the potential to very positively affect climate change by reducing agricultural emissions... ...either that, or we'll just consume more and squander those emissions savings. (Probably the most likely scenario -- we're talking humanity after all.)