Page 6 - My FlipBook

“The use of animals as a would love, he and his team of scientists
food production technol- analyzed meat at the molecular level
ogy is responsible for to understand exactly where its taste
more greenhouse gas comes from. They wanted to develop
emissions than the entire a burger patty that looks, smells, feels,
transportation system.” 17 and tastes just like ground beef. The
scientists determined that the chemical
— Patrick Brown, founder of
Impossible Foods compound in meat that gives it its fl avor
is heme. Heme is a component of the
protein hemoglobin in the blood. Heme
is the part of the hemoglobin molecule
that gives blood its color, and it is rich
in the iron that gives meat much of its
taste. Meat is rich in heme, but as it turns out, a form of heme
exists in some plants, too, such as the roots of soybeans. Us-
ing yeast to ferment and grow this heme in large quantities and
combining the result with soy protein, oils, and other ingredients,
Impossible Foods developed a product that seems to “bleed” like
real meat and taste like it, too.
Brown’s goal is to put an end to the meat and dairy industry
by 2035. He explains:

I decided to found the company because I recognized that
the use of animals as a food production technology is by
far the most destructive technology on Earth. . . . The use
of animals as a food production technology is responsible
for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire trans-
portation system. . . . This technology uses more water
and pollutes more water than any other technology by
far. It also now occupies almost half of Earth’s entire land
area, either for growing crops to feed animals or for graz-
ing land. Livestock has essentially pushed all the diverse
wildlife that used to exist on the planet to the edge of ex-
tinction. Cows alone far outweigh every other terrestrial
mammal left on earth. 17

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