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"A meat-eater with a bicycle is much more environmentally unfriendly than a vegetarian with a Hummer."
--Dr Mark Post
The world's largest food concern, Unilever, has opened a new research lab at the world's most prestigious agricultural university, the University of Wageningen (the Netherlands). Unilever will locate all elements of its foods R&D there. A spokeswoman on Dutch radio stressed plant-based meat alternatives as an important research subject.
Wageningen University has strong credentials in that respect, with the development of shear cell technology.
Shear cell technology strings plant proteins together in tightly controlled fibers, resulting in a meat substitute where texture (fibrousness, bite, mouthfeel) can easily be controlled, and changed at will. This, combined with 3D food printing, offers the possibility of creating multiple meat (substitute) variations in future.
Unilever's food campus is open to startups, innovators and partners. One of the first to have build its own lab on the same grounds is Symrise, an industrial flavours and scents group.
About half of Dutch people call themselves 'flexitarians'. This means that they don't eat meat with their main meal at least three times a week. The proportion of vegetarians is stable, at just under five percent of the Dutch population.
Wageningen researchers believe, however, that feeding 9 billion people with animal meat will not be sustainable for the planet.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday December 06 2019, @04:06PM (5 children)
Plant-based meat is a vague term. I'm vegetarian and I prefer my meat substitute to be clearly marked. There's no need to say you can't call a vegetarian sausage, a sausage. But, I'd really not like for you to label something as plant-based chicken. When in fact what you have is something that you want to taste or have the consistency of chicken, but is actually plant matter.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @04:28PM
They should market it as REAL (tm) chicken. With REAL in big letters and tm the tiniest possible while remaining legible.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday December 06 2019, @05:31PM (3 children)
Particularly because in the context it's clear they mean 'meat substitute.'
I often eat vegetarian, and there are some good vegetarian meals that don't need meat in them. I'm a fan of that sort of cooking. I don't see why I would be a fan of this though.
The 'meat substitute' idea seems to be to somehow concoct some strange brew of vegetables and chemicals that will *fool* people into thinking it's beef. Which is just such a strange thing to be seeking, so odd. Why?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday December 06 2019, @07:31PM (1 child)
Think about sausage: a hull around processed meat i.e. proteins. If you can replace part of that protein with this kind of manufactured meat, based on (far) cheaper plant protein, you've got a double win. Your profit increases, and you're seemingly doing something for the environment.
That's just sausage, an obvious example: but note also the 3D food printing stuff, and the focus on bite and mouth feel. It is not very hard to see upcoming regulation stating that something like your steak can still be sold as 'beef' as long as it contains a certain percentage of animal meat, is it?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday December 06 2019, @11:23PM
People have been doing that for centuries if not millenia. That's not what we're talking about here.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:54AM
Perhaps because it's actually about deception.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.