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Wired has a profile of "Real Vegan Cheese", a product emerging from Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, California. The DIY/biotech lab is using genetically modified yeast cells to produce 11 proteins normally found in cow's milk, which can then be used to create synthetic cheese.
The genetic engineering approach to cheese has been enabled by the rapidly falling cost of DNA synthesis. It now costs less than $0.25 per base pair to obtain a custom DNA sequence which can be delivered by mail. Why make vegan cheese using yeast? Cheesemaking is an artisanal process with centuries of history and one of the earliest examples of human-directed microbiology. Existing plant-based vegan cheeses can't reproduce the casein proteins needed to achieve a passable cheese. However, Real Vegan Cheese will not use animal fat or lactose.
The process is not limited to bovine cheese:
When I visit the lab, I discover the cheese team includes a biologist, a bioethicist, a retired clinical psychologist, an accountant, and a former Apple marketer. "This to me is a natural extension of computer culture," says Maria Chavez, the ex-Apple employee and a leader of the vegan cheese project. "What is bigger to hack than our bodies and our environment? It's one of the last big frontiers. The possibilities are exciting."
The possibilities include not just vegan cow cheese, but, well, vegan human cheese. The same basic process for synthesizing cow's milk applies to milk from any other mammal. You just need different genes. Cheese made from engineered human breast milk may not sound like a top seller at the deli counter. But the team says it can serve a practical purpose: Human milk cheese could offer an option to people who have allergies to non-human dairy products. (Chavez said the group has put its experiments with human milk on hold due to Food and Drug Administration concerns about possible autoimmune reactions.)
The team is also attempting to create a narwhal cheese, after achieving the stretch goal on Indiegogo. The recipe and experiments involved will be released as "open source"; the DNA sequence(s) will be submitted to iGEM's Registry of Standard Biological Parts.
Critics of synthetic foods worry about the use of GMOs and the lightly regulated nature of biotechnology labs and hackerspaces. The Real Vegan Cheese team notes that the cheese itself isn't a GMO, only the yeast is. Other recent forays into synthetic food include Muufri's synthetic milk, and Evolva's vanilla/vanillin and saffron substitutes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by iWantToKeepAnon on Friday April 17 2015, @02:26PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Friday April 17 2015, @02:37PM
You have to draw the line somewhere. Microorganisms don't have brains or "will" or "sentience" or "sapience". They are basically chemical machines with an input and an output. This genetic engineering is simply changing the output.
Bacteria in the human body outnumber human cells 10 to 1. You are practically a slave to your gut.
Also, are you really enslaving the yeasts? It's more like a transaction. You set the optimum temperature, you pay them sugar, they give you alcohol, casein, biofuels, etc. I don't see them complaining about working conditions.
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(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday April 17 2015, @04:19PM
Of course, but where is that line? I mean, Carrot Juice is Murder [youtube.com], right?
I eat almost entirely vegetarian, but I know full well that there are idiots who take it way too far.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday April 17 2015, @04:43PM
There are plenty of lines. There's the abortion debate based on drawing the line at conception, X weeks, birth, etc. There's the lab-grown meat debate which could become a big deal if a cost effective zero-suffering alternative to slaughter is produced. It's the no-suffering and environmentalism benefits of veganism without giving up meat. Part of the debate on GMO ethics might not relate to suffering or safety, but the ethics of say making pigs that glow in the dark just because you can do it.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @05:47AM
It is all arbitrary. Choosing to be vegan or vegetarian, even if for ethical reasons, requires an arbitrary drawing of limits at what matters and what doesn't that is no more rational than choosing a favorite color. This has been debated by philosophers for a very long time. Like anything else in that field, if it has been debated for a long time without a robustly cogent thesis, then there likely isn't one at all.
(Score: 1) by xorsyst on Monday April 20 2015, @08:13AM
But choosing to eat meat ALSO requires drawing an arbitrary limit - otherwise you'd be a cannibal. The line is just in a different place for vegetarians or vegans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @02:56PM
Yeast are not part of the animal kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal).
Usually vegans draw the line at the presence of a central nervous system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @03:17PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @03:28PM
I've never found people to be very logically consistent. People make choices based on many things and rationalize afterwards.
Many vegans try to do the least harm. There is also plenty of animal death (mainly rodents) when crops are being harvested.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday April 17 2015, @04:02PM
Interestingly, that way, taken to logical conclusion, leads to eating insects, not plants.
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/vegans-obligated-eat-insects-93767 [psmag.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 17 2015, @06:39PM
I've never found people to be very logically consistent. People make choices based on many things and rationalize afterwards.
Why don't you eat dog meat?
It probably has little to do with logical consistancy...
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday April 17 2015, @09:15PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @03:46PM
0) Other people
1) availability of a good source of healthy and safe dog meat at reasonable prices (it's likely dog is going to be more expensive than pig given that dogs tend to eat more meat and gain weight more slowly than pigs or chicken).
FWIW I've eaten fried silkworms, bamboo worms in Thailand and quite liked them.
Seems like dog meat can be quite tasty. So sure, why not - given that I eat pigs too and pigs can be about as intelligent and aware as dogs.
http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/fresh-eats-what-do-dogs-and-cats-taste-like/Content?oid=2182391 [sfweekly.com]
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-dog-meat-taste-like-1789852 [mirror.co.uk]
p.s. I've heard rumours that dogs might be able to smell that you've eaten dog meat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @05:56PM
Speaking of insects, there is a huge source of low-fat protein that is virtually untapped in "Western" culture. People in Europe or North America who routinely eat escargot, crab or lobster, react with horror when presented with say fried ant or grasshopper, or sauteed cricket. How about grilled scorpion, or boiled grubs. I've tasted all of these in Mexico and Central America and South Asia where they are part of the local cuisine.
Don't know if insects are considered vegetarian or carnivorous, probably not vegan. But still way down on the food chain, and way less costly (in both land and environmental uses) to produce than beef, lamb or pork.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by CRCulver on Friday April 17 2015, @03:26PM
Not all vegans are vegans out of animal rights arguments. Some are vegans because the environmental impact of the meat and dairy industry bothers them. Others are vegan because of the China study, which found that regular consumption of animal products may be a factor in the diseases associated with affluence. I myself try to limit my animal product intake out of health concerns and to do my part for environmental stewardship, but I do not believe animals have the rights that some vegans ascribe to them (as I worship in the Orthodox Church, which requires use of bee products for candles and eggs for painting icons, and where slaughtering a lamb annually is a venerable tradition).
With regard to the SN submission, nutritional yeast already serves satisfyingly for many vegans as a cheese substitute in pastas and oven-baked dishes. Perhaps more choice is welcome, but I'm not sure if the uptake will be large enough for this new yeast product to make business sense.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday April 17 2015, @03:26PM
Vegans are against enslaving animals to create consumable human products
i believe it's actually just animals with complex nervous systems. to my knowledge the central issue is the "enslavement and slaughter of emotional beings" which isn't completely without merit. seeing as how microorganisms do not have the capacity to feel, there is no conflict of interest.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday April 17 2015, @06:18PM
Well there is always the combine harvester to keep the numbers up.
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(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Friday April 17 2015, @06:18PM
Plants are also alive, but vegans eat them.
The line is drawn at the ability to "suffer" (which would imply some-kind-of conscience).
Yeast is even more primitive than plants, so it probably can't suffer. Or at least as-far-as-we-can-know. Also, we do need to eat something to live. Causing least-sufferening-possible sounds like a good deal for people who care. Vegans clearly realize that probably causing absolutely-no-suffering isn't practical or even at all possible.
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