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Plant-based meat substitutes taste and chew remarkably similar to real beef, and the 13 items listed on their nutrition labels—vitamins, fats and protein—make them seem essentially equivalent. But a Duke University research team's deeper examination of the nutritional content of plant-based meat alternatives, using a sophisticated tool of the science known as "metabolomics," shows they're as different as plants and animals. Meat-substitute manufacturers have gone to great lengths to make the plant-based product as meaty as possible, including adding leghemoglobin, an iron-carrying molecule from soy, and red beet, berries and carrot extracts to simulate bloodiness. The texture of near-meat is...

After five years and $8 million dollars, sustainable seafood alternative company New Wave Foods is ready to launch its first product: plant-based shrimp. The shrimp alternative, which the company says has the same flavor and “snap” texture of real shrimp, is made of seaweed and plant proteins derived from mung beans. New Wave Foods is also announcing that it closed an $18 million Series A funding round, led by New Enterprise Associates and Evolution VC Partners (Tyson Ventures, the VC arm of Tyson Foods, had invested in the company in 2019), which will help it scale up its shrimp alternative...

With bugs, algae and other resource-efficient foods we could feed one million people on Mars within a century of arriving there. Scientists even invented a martian diet. Cannon and colleagues modeled the food needs of a human population on Mars that grows to one million over about a hundred Earth years through a combination of immigration and reproduction. Though the settlement would need to import a lot of food at the start, it could transition to an entirely Martian-grown diet in about a century with the right food choices, they found. The major limiting factor is space — or rather,...

AN AMBITIOUS pig farmer raising muscle-bound mutant porkers for the bacon market is selling their sperm on Facebook. The Cambodian-based breeder is flogging the semen - along with insemination kits - to others looking to move into the 'Frankenswine' market. Mutant ...one of the giant pigs greedily gobbles up his massive dinner at a farm in Cambodia ______________________________________________________________ Scientists in South Korea have been credited with originally genetically-engineering double-muscle hogs to avert a future pork shortage crisis. They carefully altered pig genes to create super-sized swines capable of producing more meat than usual breeds. Farmyard footage shows similar porky 'monsters'...

In Romania, they have a saying: “The best vegetable is meat.” Actually, it might be an “old Alsatian saying,” or from some other primeval region, depending on how you Google. But joke like that at a dinner in Brooklyn — or anyplace, really, where identifying with the progressive vanguard has made eating a serious form of self-definition — and someone just might denounce you between forkfuls of heirloom greens. Mealtime, in these rooftop-gardened corners of the world, has become a theater for a kind of culture war. And that evangelist with the fork is hungry for combat, no matter which...

A new bill introduced in Congress looks to ban states from implementing their own labeling laws when it comes to food containing genetically engineered ingredients. According to Reuters, US Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) introduced the legislation on Wednesday, which is intended to head off bills in about 24 states that would require companies to inform customers when their food is produced using genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Titled the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act,” the proposal would forbid states from enacting such proposals....

In what may seem more like a Hollywood science-fiction plot, as in the forthcoming movie "Splice," lawmakers are trying to prevent scientists from combining human and animal embryos to make "human-animal hybrids." In "Splice," two scientists defy ethical boundaries and splice together human and animal DNA to create a new organism, also known as a chimera.

Researchers investigating the use of phenols, phthalates and phytoestrogens, used in packaging as well as perfumes, lotions and shampoos, has found evidence they can cause harm by interfering with the body's hormones. A study of the effects of the three compounds on 1,151 pre-pubescent girls in the US found they caused a variety of problems in puberty. Dr Mary Wolff, an oncologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, said: "Research has shown that early pubertal development in girls can have adverse social and medical effects, including cancer and diabetes later in life. "Our research shows a connection...

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock. Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms. However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the...

UTRECHT, The Netherlands (Reuters) - Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals. ... But it will take years before meat grown in labs and eventually factories reaches supermarket shelves. And so far, Roelen and his team have managed to grow only thin layers of cells that bear no resemblance to pork chops. Under the process, researchers first isolate muscle stem cells, which have the ability to grow and multiply into muscle cells. Then they stimulate the cells to develop, give them nutrients...

The Supermarket's Unnatural Selections By Henry I. Miller Agricultural practices have been "unnatural" for 10,000 years. With the exception of wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all the grains, fruits and vegetables in our diets have been genetically modified by one technique or another. Many of our foods (including potatoes, tomatoes, oats, rice and corn) come from plants created by "wide cross" hybridizations that transcend "natural breeding boundaries." More than 80 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves -- soft drinks, preserves, mayonnaise, salad dressings -- contain ingredients from gene-spliced plants, and Americans have consumed more than a trillion servings...

The Famine LobbyBy Chris WeinkopfFrontPageMagazine.com | July 2, 2003 FIGHTING HUNGER, purging the vestiges of colonialism, cleaning up the environment—these are all causes the left ostensibly supports. Someone ought to tell that to the 2,000 leftist protesters who took to the streets of Sacramento last week. There, dressed as giant ears of corn, butterflies and tomatoes, protesters assembled outside what would have otherwise been an unremarkable event: a gathering of agricultural ministers, scientists, and health-care experts from more than 100 countries to discuss methods for using advanced technology to combat famine and improve nutrition. While the dignitaries met inside, the...

"...Testifying earlier this year before the House Agriculture Committee, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) explained that GM foods are banned in Europe "under the cloak of food safety" while protectionism is the true object. If higher yielding, less expensive and more nutritious foods enter their markets, domestic European agriculture is threatened. If Third World farmers are more able to feed their domestic populations with such crops, competing European imports would also be threatened - so much for Green Benevolence vs. Corporate Greed..."