There are a lot of technical terms in the food processing industry that have made it easier for people to consume a lot of food alternatives when they choose to follow a plant-based diet. With more and more people moving towards a sustainable lifestyle and consuming more cruelty-free food items, the food industry has been revolutionizing and making new changes and inventions which is making it possible for people to take on this diet easily. Earlier vegans had a very limited food alternative when it came to their diet, but now they can even consume dairy products without actually touching dairy.
It is believed that in future the vegans will be able to consume products like cheese because of this process called precision fermentation which is going to make it possible to produce complex dairy products as well.
So, the question is, what exactly is precision fermentation?
In technical terms, precision fermentation is a technological process of producing complex organic molecules like proteins through fermentation. The scientists use microbial yeast which upon fermentation produces proteins and fats. The results are usually purer than the products used to get those. The surprising element is that this technology has been around for quite some time now and has led us to develop certain alternatives but its cost used to be high before and thus there wasn’t much development. But with the changing years and more tech and IT coming in, the cost curve of precision fermentation has been going down significantly.
How will precision fermentation take place?
The DNA protein from dairy will be encoded with the microorganisms and then put up in fermentation tanks. Yeast or fungi which is available in abundance can be used for this process. When they are in the tanks, they will eat sugar and other nutrients which will allow them to grow and become healthier. While this is happening, these microbes will be producing an alternate protein that will be similar to dairy protein and can be filtered into pure milk isolate to make new and amazing products. This information was provided by Irina Gerry from Change Foods.
This process is predicted to disrupt the dairy industry entirely because it doesn’t require a lot of changes to the ingredients. It is studied that only 3.3% of milk ingredients need to be replaced and then they can come up with an alternative that will change the vegan market. This process will help in attaining a sustainable lifestyle at a very cheap cost and the cruelty to animals could be stopped entirely. This will also allow the vegan industry to manufacture new and unique products thus attracting more and more people to be a part of this diet and work to build a better world.
Scientists believe that people might get a little skeptical because of the excess use of technology in fermentation precision but the major thing to note is that this process is just a part of food technology which is an evolving sector. Not only will they be ending animal cruelty but will also allow people to explore new domains and reduce hunger and malnutrition. There are companies in Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and a lot of other countries which are working to develop this technology.