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‘It should not taste marine-like’: Would you eat a burger made from processed sea squirts?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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Im having a hard time understanding why there's so much time and effort being put into finding new sustainable protein sources when we already have legumes
Especially when the people who generally refuse to eat plant-based proteins are very often also the ones who think any sort of "alternative protein sources" like insects are some sort of woke UN feminist Jewish nazi plot to sap and impurify their precious bodily fluids. Is the average "carnivore" going to be any more interested in eating sea squirt than they are in eating crickets, broad beans, blue lupin, soy beans etc?
Politely disagree. I think we're kidding ourselves if right wing conspiracy theorists are the only anti plant based crowd. There's plenty of otherwise leftist people that would never question this one unjustified hierarchy. The meat and dairy industries have done a stellar job with advertising over many decades. Most people still believe we NEED meat or dairy to thrive. And even those that don't very often wouldn't give up the sensory pleasure of the taste and texture of meat or other animal products.
More often than not those people aren't rabidly against plant-based or other such alternative protein sources, it seems like they just don't think to consume them.
That is an important distinction, true! But that just means they're the target group of all those resource-intensive innovations towards animal based proteins that are more sustainable. So I felt it important to consider them.
Seconded. Not disguising plant protein as animal is the key.
Taste and mouthfeel, generally
I feel like we should be trying to engineer fusarium venenatum to express various animal proteins.
It already does a really good job as a meat substitute, and (unlike lab grown meat) the process for culturing it is very well understood and mature.
I don't know if trying to genetically engineer a fungus would present any special challenges vs a plant or bacteria though.