Photo: Plantible Foods.
Duckweed to feed the world.
I admit I have not yet found a plant-based hamburger or vegan chicken that I really like, but since inventors keep working on better-tasting meat substitutes, I have hope. Today’s story is about a company investing in new protein sources — for example, duckweed.
Michael J. Coren is Climate Advice Columnist at the Washington Post.
He writes, “I came to this aquatic farm an hour outside of San Diego because I wanted to see what could be the future of humanity’s protein supply. At the moment, it looks more like a meth lab out of the drama Breaking Bad, jokes Tony Martens Fekini, the chief executive of Plantible Foods.
“Decrepit recreational vehicles squat on the property. In one corner, people tend to vials, grow lights and centrifuges in a trailer lab. More than a dozen big ponds filled with duckweed, a tiny green plant, bask in the Southern California sunshine.
“But the only thing cooking here is protein.
“Within each tiny floating aquatic plant is a molecule colloquially called rubisco. Without it, most life on Earth would cease to exist.
“Plants use rubisco protein — technically known as Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase — as the catalyst for photosynthesis, combining CO2 from the air with the building blocks for sugars and carbohydrates composing the base of our food chain.
“Rubisco is arguably the most abundant protein on the planet. Every green leaf has it. But this tireless molecule is locked inside plants’ cells, spoiling almost as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world. At the moment, eating salads is the only way to consume much of it.
“But Plantible’s farm may change that. If it succeeds, duckweed may become humanity’s first new major crop in more than a century. …
“Rubisco doesn’t just provide the protein we crave. It’s one of the world’s most versatile proteins, shape-shifting into forms resembling egg whites, meat, milk, gluten or even steak — all extracted from leaves. …
“The world grows more than enough food to feed everyone on Earth. Much of it goes to livestock. About half of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States are fed to cows, pigs and chickens to support meat-rich diets.
“This is not changing anytime soon. Even as protein alternatives proliferate, global meat consumption reached a record high in 2021, roughly doubling since 1990. The typical American consumed about 260 pounds of meat and 670 pounds of dairy last year, according to government statistics.
“Advising people to eat less of it isn’t likely to do much. In country after country, as incomes rise, meat consumption follows virtually in lockstep.
“That comes at a steep cost to ecosystems and the climate. Meat, at least how most of it is raised today, is the driver behind 57 percent of all food production emissions. …
“The challenge, then, is not to persuade people to eat more vegetables. It’s how to make plant proteins taste better than their animal counterparts.
“For a moment, it seemed like ‘alternative meat’ might succeed. Highfliers like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, after seeing sales soar in 2020, have faltered. Retail sales of alt-meat dropped more than 10 percent in 2022 amid health questions and high prices. Plant-based milk, while stealing market share from traditional dairy, still accounts for just 9 percent of the volume sold in the United States. …
“Plant proteins aren’t a perfect substitute. They can impart grainy textures, ‘vegetal’ off-flavors or fall short of the savory appeal of eggs, dairy and meat.
“So food producers are searching for the holy grail of plant proteins, one that combines the best of plant and animal proteins: affordable, abundant and easy to grow, with the physical properties that make a hamburger or milkshake so alluring. Rubisco might just be it. …
“Rubisco’s composition is a nearly ‘ideal’ protein for humans, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, boasting an amino acids profile rivaling egg whites or casein in milk. Unlike the most common plant protein in soy, wheat and peas, it offers a non-allergenic, easily digestible and complete set of all nine essential amino acids our body can’t produce on its own.
“In contrast to alt-meats, rubisco is a versatile shape-shifter on the human palate. … As a binder in plant-based meats, it retains the delicious bite of a juicy burger. In a fluffy omelet or whipped meringue, it replicates the function of eggs. …
“The problem, however, has been getting it out of the leaf. As soon as a leaf is cut, its compounds bind to rubisco, rendering it unusable as a food ingredient. At the industrial scale, harvesting rubisco has proved to be a formidable challenge.
“ ‘You just have to process the plant material reasonably quickly so you don’t end up with a brown sludge,’ says [Grant Pearce, a protein chemistry researcher at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand]. Sugar beet leaves, cauliflower, kale, broccoli stems, radishes and even invasive plant species have all been harvested as protein sources. None proved economical. And some are skeptical it will ever be. …
“Duckweed, or lemna, doesn’t get much respect in most of the world. While eaten in parts of Southeast Asia, the pond vegetation is regarded as a nuisance elsewhere. That reputation belies the plant’s remarkable biology.
“The family’s 35 or so species thrive on nearly every continent, surviving at near-freezing temperatures in water conditions lethal to many others. As the world’s smallest known flowering plant, it consists of a single floating leaf, an oval not much larger than the tip of a pen. Its delicate roots dangle millimeters below the surface. In ideal conditions, it grows at a ferocious rate, doubling in mass every two or three days.“
More at the Post, here.
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