"Animals
convert grass and grain to meat. My mission was to do the same without
involving animals"
In 2011,
at the age of 57, Stanford biochemistry professor Pat Brown quit his job to
launch his plant-based “meat” company
'Impossible Foods'
Like it
or not, plant foods will increasingly have to feed the world's population.
The use
of animals to convert grass and grain to protein is inefficient and destructive
to the planet, and will become an extravagant luxury, Professor Brown tells
CNBC 'Make It ' Programme.
We
will have to feed more people from less land - to show
what is at stake for the planet - the plant crop of soybean occupies 8% of
earth’s land area and produces 150% more protein than animals do from a similar
area of land.
It also
uses less fertilizer pesticides and water, and is far cheaper.
Professor
Pat Brown's 'Impossible Foods Company' with its 'Plant Meat Burgers', is a fast
growing $4 billion Brand.
'Impossible Food's' juicy meat-tasting vegan burgers, are served in more than 17,000
restaurants worldwide, including Burger
King, White Castle and Starbucks. They are also sold in 8,000 grocery stores.
In a
video, Professor Brown talks with a Presenter on CNBC 'Make It' programme,
about his life before 'Impossible Foods' - (Link to video interview at bottom
of this post)
CNBC
Presenter - 'How did you create the Impossible Foods Burger'?
Professor
Brown - 'Animal meat is popular because it's delicious - but the animal is
converting grass and grain, just as we wanted to do without involving an
animal.
We
thought this is a scientific problem. We needed to understand how animal meat
gets its flavour.
We hired
molecular biologists, biochemists, biophysicists and basic scientists, to find
and unlock what makes animal meat delicious.
How could
we find and isolate the properties in animal meat that people enjoy so much?
We
discovered when animal meat is cooked a kind of magic happens – there’s an
explosion of aroma and the flavour completely changes.
A change
of chemical activity like that, told me it was caused by a catalyst that we had
to find.
We found
the catalyst creating that magic flavour
is - Heme!
If you
throw Heme into vegetable broth it tastes like meat'.
Professor
Brown said that last year 'Impossible Foods' sales increased threefold. This
year it’s set to increase again.
It is The
Future.
Article
summarised by jibberjabber
For
article in full and video interview with Professor Brown click this link-
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/08/31/impossible-foods-turned-plant-based-burger-into-a-billion-dollar-brand.html
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