![]() While its protein levels match those of whole milk, Betterland’s formula requires just one-third of the sugar and no cholesterol-laden animal fats. The result is indistinguishable from cow milk - velvety smooth straight up, thick and foamy when frothed into a latte. The lightness of the alt-whey, Falsetto says, makes it highly soluble and stable when suspended. The company, in Napa, California, uses Perfect Day’s powdered whey to reconstruct milk from its core components: protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and water. “We were flabbergasted by how beautiful this protein was,” Lizanne Falsetto, the founder of Betterland Milk, says with a reverence often reserved for prized cattle. Evolving into the industry’s mother cow of sorts, the Berkeley, California company now supplies alt-dairy whey to producers who use it to craft a wide range of consumables. The startup’s pilot batch of ice cream proved to be a big hit, with all 3,000 pints selling out within hours. They then founded Perfect Day, the world’s first lab-grown dairy company, to launch a new field of moo-less milk products made from precision-fermented whey. Five years later, two bioengineers copied the genetic code for producing whey, a key component of milk that’s responsible for its swirl, into the DNA of yeast, programming the microbes to brew dairy protein instead of alcohol. National Institutes of Health sequenced the genome of a cow from a Montana ranch. Unraveling the secrets of bovine genetics took a huge leap in 2009, when scientists from the U.S. Already, the German startup Formo is looking to replace a tenth of Europe’s conventional supply by 2030. It’s an innovation that could send dairy stampeding toward a more sustainable future. ![]() Thriving on just water and carbohydrates, the genetically engineered yeast and fungi pump out the creamy base for dairy products to deliver the same taste, texture, and performance - froth, whip, melt, and all - as their bovine-sourced counterparts. Using precision fermentation, a process commonly used to produce insulin and vitamins, food technology startups are cultivating microbes to produce milk proteins such as casein and whey. Although plant-based analogs have never managed to fully capture the taste and texture of the real thing, a new crop of startups say they’ve found a better way to remove cows from the equation - by milking microbes instead of udders. With the market projected to reach over $1 trillion by 2026, simple economics would dictate the need for many more cows. Meanwhile, the world’s appetite for dairy is exploding. ![]() To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. All of those bovines consume vast resources - feed, water, land, and, often, hormones and antibiotics - and each one can burp about 220 pounds of methane per year, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Globally, the $871 billion dairy industry relies upon some 270 million cows to produce more than 600 million tons of milk annually. But as more of the world develops a craving for cheese, ice cream, and lattes, cattle farms like this air-conditioned operation in Dubai are appearing in unexpected places. Soon, the cattle, as seen in a newsreel, seem none the wiser to the scorching conditions outside - or at least comfortable enough to pump out milk in volumes once possible only in cooler climates.Ī desert dairy ranch seems a bit dystopian, a vision of a distant, overheated future. Overhead, propeller-sized fans and industrial air coolers roar into action as chilled water circulates through the troughs. The herd settles under hangar-like roofs, crowding in the shade to escape the 120-degree F heat. Try them yourself with the recipes in our Climate Future Cookbook. Fix’s Future of Food Issue explores that reality through the lens of foods that show what sustainable, equitable, and resilient eating could look like. As our climate changes, so will our diets.
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