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Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates (www.cbsnews.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

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[–] 69 points 1 year ago (19 children)

They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

A reminder that "natural flavor" doesn't mean healthier or even something you might want over the artificially created flavors. It just means it comes from a natural source and is not lab created.

Castoreum, sometimes used for vanilla and raspberry flavoring, comes from beaver anal secretions. That would be labelled under a "natural flavor" and you'd never be told more than that.

I'll take the artificial stuff any day just on principle there.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    I think it's worth pointing out that vanilla extract is from vanilla beans and artificial vanilla is whatever the fuck they feel like that tastes like vanilla. Also, modern artificial vanilla extremely rarely, if ever, is derived from Castoreum because it's hard as hell to farm beavers and expensive as all fuck. The "artificial vanilla comes from beaver anal glands" is basically a prevalent internet myth that gets passed around like the, "You eat 7 spiders a year in your sleep." myth.

    Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/does-vanilla-flavoring-actually-come-from-beaver-butts-180983288/

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Incorrect, vanillin is the primary component of real vanilla beans and responsible for like 90% of the flavor.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I don't understand what this would be correcting in what I said above. Can you show me what part this is correcting? Cause I'm legitimately confused.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You said artificial vanilla is whatever the fuck. It's not, artificial vanilla is the main ingredient of natural vanilla, but without the other flavors

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ah gotcha! I for sure was not following what you were saying. I don't know if that's he real thrust of the point in my above comment, but I was more referring to the fact that artificial vanilla doesn't necessarily come from vanilla beans. I should've been more precise with my language, but it's worth noting that artificial vanilla is largely synthesized and comes from a variety of sources, not just vanilla beans (see below for the source/pertinent excerpt).

    It also gets weird as to how the FDA regulates the term. I believe the key term is actually "Pure" in the "Pure Vanilla Extract" but don't quote me on that. Not sure how it's done by other regulatory agencies but it's probably equally convoluted in a lot of places.

    Source: https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/technical-documents/technical-article/food-and-beverage-testing-and-manufacturing/flavor-and-fragrance-formulation/vanilla-regulations

    Pertinent excerpt:

    However, many alternate routes to vanillin are well documented, including vanillin derived from spruce tree lignin, corn sugar, rice or wheat bran, clove oil, curcumin, or guaiacol.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Also, poop has natural flavour. Natural flavour also doesn't mean it tastes good.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    My ex wife's uncle was the director of the south American division of the arm that made coloring and flavorings of one of the big Food/Chem groups, Procter & Gamble, or unilever, or one of those. Can't remember.

    No one in his household ate any processed/ultra processed foods.

    Do the math.

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