Impossible Food’s plant-based beefy hamburgers edge closer to market

[T]he more attention consumers paid to the realities of feedlot farming, the more they wanted out. But organic, grass-fed, and local meat is expensive, and vegetarianism appeals to surprisingly few Americans — just 2 percent.

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[C]ompanies have been trying for decades to concoct a veggie burger that is as …  toothsome as a … beef burger, but so far no one has come close. Plant stuff just doesn’t act like animal stuff. But [Patrick O. Brown of Impossible Foods] thought [he] could….

… the make-it-from-scratch approach can potentially change the economics of producing meats. It’s not easy to see that happening in the current version of the process, in which the building blocks are extracted from plants, legumes, and seeds. But in the long run, it is possible, maybe even likely, that the company will obtain some of them through bioprocessing. The pharmaceutical industry has been using fermentation-based technology to produce insulin, enzymes, and other protein-based drugs for decades. The process requires genetic engineering, but it is possible that consumers will see a difference between inserting a plant gene in yeast cells to produce protein and inserting foreign genes in a plant or animal intended to be eaten. 

 

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: The Biography of a Plant-Based Burger