这些鸡蛋和牛奶的蛋白质是在没有动物的情况下合成的

These Egg And Milk Proteins Are Made Without Animals

这些鸡蛋和牛奶的蛋白质是在没有动物的情况下合成的

Earlier today, I ate a scoop of chocolate ice cream – creamy and pleasantly fatty feeling in my mouth. This would hardly seem newsworthy, except for the high-tech ingredient that made my frozen treat go down so smoothly: dairy proteins produced in a lab, no cows needed.

今天早些时候，我吃了一勺巧克力冰淇淋——奶油味的，嘴里有一种愉快的油腻感。这似乎没什么新闻价值，除了让我的冷冻食品吃起来如此顺口的高科技成分:在实验室里生产的乳制品蛋白质，不需要奶牛。

The realm of plant-based meat substitutes has gotten a lot of buzz lately. Think the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat – companies that use biochemistry to mimic the taste and texture of meat using plant-based ingredients. There's another frontier along these lines – start-ups that use microbes to create egg, dairy and other animal proteins without the animals.

今天早些时候，我吃了一勺巧克力冰淇淋——奶油味的，嘴里有一种愉快的油腻感。这似乎没什么新闻价值，除了让我的冷冻食品吃起来如此顺口的高科技成分:在实验室里生产的乳制品蛋白质，不需要奶牛。

Their pitch: Sustainability. Livestock agriculture uses lots of water and land resources, and produces significant amounts of greenhouse gases.

他们的口号:可持续性。畜牧业使用大量的水资源和土地资源，产生大量的温室气体。

"If you can produce just the proteins that you want without keeping a living animal alive, that's going to be a lot more efficient, so it's better for the environment," says Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute, which promotes plant- and cell-based alternatives to animal protein. And he says as the technology scales up, it should be a lot cheaper to produce proteins this way, too.

“如果你能在不让活的动物存活的情况下生产出你想要的蛋白质，那将会更有效率，所以对环境更好，”促进以植物和细胞为基础的动物蛋白质替代品的好食品研究所的布鲁斯·弗里德里希说。他说，随着技术的发展，用这种方法生产蛋白质也会便宜很多。

Among the early entrants in this field is Perfect Day, producer of the aforementioned ice cream. The company took the genetic code for the main proteins in whey, a byproduct of cheese-making, then had it artificially synthesized into a molecule of DNA – so the process is "totally animal free," says Perfect Day co-founder Ryan Pandya. Then they genetically engineered microbes to produce the same proteins through fermentation.

在这个领域的早期进入者是完美的一天，生产者上述冰淇淋。Perfect Day公司的联合创始人瑞恩·潘迪亚说，该公司提取了乳清中主要蛋白质的遗传密码，然后将其人工合成成DNA分子，因此这个过程“完全不需要动物参与”。乳清是制作奶酪的副产品。然后他们通过基因工程改造微生物，通过发酵产生相同的蛋白质。

"Just like cows eat plants and make milk, it turns out [micro]flora can eat plants and make milk. And that's all we've done," Pandya says.

“就像奶牛吃植物并产奶一样，(微生物)植物也能吃植物并产奶。这就是我们所做的一切”，潘迪亚说。

"The process is really simple," he says. You take a tank of microbes, feed them, and they turn into milk protein. "Then you separated it out with filtration and drying and you're done."

“这个过程真的很简单，”他说。你取一箱微生物，喂养它们，它们就变成了牛奶中的蛋白质。“然后用过滤和干燥把它分离出来，就完成了。”

Why focus on whey? In frozen desserts, whey protein provides velvety texture – Perfect Day released its ice cream in a limited run of about 1,000 3-pint boxes as a sort of proof of concept to introduce consumers to its technology. (Bonus: It's also lactose free.)

为什么要关注乳清?在冷冻甜点中，乳清蛋白提供了天鹅绒般的质感——Perfect Day在有限的1000个3品脱的盒子中推出了它的冰淇淋，作为向消费者介绍其技术概念的一种证明。(附赠:它也不含乳糖。)

But the company's goal is actually to become an ingredient supplier to all the food companies that rely on whey to boost protein levels in a range of foods, from smoothies to power bars. The target audience goes beyond vegans — to everyone.

但该公司的目标实际上是成为所有依靠乳清来提高一系列食品中蛋白质水平的食品公司的配料供应商，从冰沙到能量棒。目标受众不仅仅是纯素食者，而是所有人。

"Rather than try to compete with all these big food makers that are otherwise just going to buy a ton of whey protein from factory-farmed cows, we can actually give them a better supply chain and in so doing, we can have a lot more impact than we would on our own," Pandya says.

“与其试图与所有这些大型食品制造商竞争，否则它们只会从工厂养殖的奶牛那里购买一吨乳清蛋白，我们实际上可以给它们一个更好的供应链，这样做，我们可以产生比我们自己更大的影响。”

Other companies looking to shake up the food supply include Motif Ingredients, which launched earlier this year with $90 million in investor financing. It aims to produce alternatives to dairy, egg and meat proteins using microbial fermentation and supply them to food makers.

其他寻求改变食品供应的公司包括Motif components，该公司于今年早些时候推出，获得了9000万美元的投资者融资。该公司的目标是利用微生物发酵生产乳制品、蛋类和肉类蛋白的替代品，并将其供应给食品生产商。

Clara Foods is using a similar synthetic biology process to create egg white proteins, including a highly soluble protein that would be used in sports drinks and other beverages. That could hit the food market early next year, says Ranjan Patnaik, vice president for technology strategy and operational excellence. Another protein in the pipeline could be used as egg whites — think vegan meringue and baked goods.

克拉拉食品公司正在使用类似的合成生物学过程来制造蛋清蛋白，其中包括一种高可溶性蛋白，将用于运动饮料和其他饮料。该公司负责技术战略和卓越运营的副总裁帕特奈克(Ranjan Patnaik)说，这可能会在明年初冲击食品市场。另一种正在研发中的蛋白质可以用作蛋清——想想素食蛋白酥皮和烘焙食品。

"We have made all kinds those of pound cake, meringue, other recipes" in their development lab in the San Francisco Bay Area, Patnaik says.

帕特奈克说:“我们在旧金山湾区的研发实验室里，制作了各种磅饼、蛋白派和其他食谱。”