Posted on 03/15/2013 10:55:15 AM PDT by Red Badger
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A San Francisco food producer wants to make you an omelet without breaking any eggs – and they may be able to do it with one key ingredient they make in a lab – no chicken required.
From their Mission District laboratory, Hampton Creek Foods and CEO Josh Tetrick are taking aim at the egg farming industry.
“We just cannot go on eating like we all are right now with our food system,” Tetrick said. “It’s just unsustainable.”
Many Bay Area farms let chickens roam the pastures, but the Humane Society says more than 90% of the country’s egg-laying hens are kept in cramped conditions. Tetrick takes issue with the restrictive quarters, with the resources needed to feed the chickens, and the diseases they may catch and spread to humans.
“We just kind of look at that and say ‘this is absurd,’” Tetrick said emphatically. “Our product is just better.”
That’s right – Tetrick claims Hampton Creek has improved on the egg. They call their product “Beyond Eggs.”
“It’s made up of a variety of plants, including peas. We use different gums. We use a host of different plant-based protein sources,” Tetrick explained.
It’s hard to believe a blend of plants can imitate not only the taste of an egg, but the ability to whip up into foam like an egg, or coagulate into gel like an egg, but Tetrick said his team is clever about selecting plants that not only replicate, but surpass the egg in food products.
Hampton Creek Foods is already baking Beyond Eggs into cookies and mixing it into mayo. Their next mission is to recreate that taste and texture into dishes like scrambled eggs and even omelets.
Former Top Chef contestant Chris Jones is Hampton Creek’s Director of Culinary Innovation. On the day of our visit, he was seated close to the floor, working with a giant mixer to produce a batch of mayonnaise using Beyond Eggs.
“An egg is such a miraculous thing, and all the culinarians understand what it really does in a recipe,” Jones said with the mixer whirring beside him. “So working with vegetable products, all natural products, to try to make what an egg does is challenging.”
Jones was excited about the idea of blending the expertise of the chef with the skill of the scientist.
“We can make a difference,” he remarked. “We can do something special besides making wonderful food. Let’s take our knowledge and pour it into doing something for the first time.”
Tetrick said Hampton Creek is about three months away from getting Beyond Eggs into baked goods made by two top food companies that will replace the “farmed” egg in some products. We asked him what he would say to egg farmers who might find themselves out of work.
“Change happens,” he replied. “But when change happens, jobs are created. We’re really interested in the company in engaging with farmers.”
Unlike the egg, Beyond Eggs are cholesterol free. It’s likely you’ll be able to buy them in the grocery store within a month, and according to Tetrick, you’ll pay about 15% less than regular non-organic eggs.
Bendare... alotlately.
Are these the same people who inflicted tofurkey on us?
I agree.
This seems ok, if not good, for scrambled eggs or omelettes, although the taste and consistency may be questionable. I’d like to try it.
For baking or sauces — sounds good — again, if their claims to “functional equivalence” stand up.
But I like eggs over easy, or soft boiled, or even hard boiled.
I want that yolk and white not all homogenized. Softly cooked yolk mixing with cooked potatoes is delicious and is something that they can’t replicate.
***It’s hard to believe a blend of plants can imitate not only the taste of an egg, but the ability to whip up into foam like an egg, or coagulate into gel like an egg, but Tetrick said his team is clever about selecting plants that not only replicate, but surpass the egg in food products. ****
Sounds like a highly processed food product to me! What is wrong with a real EGG! They are about the cheapest thing in the grocery store!
Amen.
I even like over easy eggs on sammiches.
It’s possible.
Those green Araucana eggs are the best!
And yet, they claim it to be ‘natural’............
“Those green Araucana eggs are the best!”
They are wonderful. She has chickens runnin’ all around her back yard. They’re cheap eggs at $3, because she gets more than she can use, and sells the extras to neighbors and friends.
The yolks on those are fantastic.
A reddish orange.
Now THAT is 'frankenfood".
Notice they were careful to try to imply that the plants are used; not chemically digested plants, which then have their proteins separated, and then some of the purified proteins recombined into...
WAIT FOR IT...
YELLOW SLIME!
Also, a fallacy was listed: The plants we've identified not only achieve this, but are able to be sourced at a price that is disruptive to the long-term price of egg ingredients.
On a small scale, perhaps; but when scaled to NATIONAL (perhaps even state) levels, supply & demand will kick in, and suddenly those sourced prices will soar.
I saw what you did there.
We keep our own chickens for eggs: We know that they have excellent environmental conditions and what goes into their
feed. The eggs are delicious: to heck with your phony eggs.
We keep our own chickens for eggs: We know that they have excellent environmental conditions and what goes into their
feed. The eggs are delicious: to heck with your phony eggs.
I just don’t get liberal logic.”
Suggest you never try to have a conversation with a tree hugger about why it really is okay to cut down a tree, use it for timber and paper products and replace it with another one. For them to acknowledge that animals and plant life can reproduce and replenish their own species would require them to do an about face and that’s not going to happen.
I also doubt if most of them have any idea about the reproductive cycle of a chicken.
Yes indeed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.