A radical ‘artificial egg’ backed by Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel
and Bill Gates went on sale in US supermarkets for the first time on
September 10, 2013.
Made from plants, it can replace eggs in everything from cakes to
mayonnaise – without a chicken ever coming close to the production
process.
The team today started selling their ‘plant egg’, called Beyond Eggs,
in Whole Foods in California – and say it could soon be available in
supermarkets worldwide.
We want to take animals out of the equation,’ said Josh Tetrick, the
firm’s founder. ‘The food industry is begging for innovation, especially
where animals are involved – it is a broken industry.’
Tetrick’s idea was to find a mix of easy-to-grow plants that, when
mixed together in the right way, replicate the taste, nutritional values
and cooking properties of an egg.
This, he believes will allow the firm to produce its substitute for
mass market foods – and to allow developing worlds to grow their own
versions with added nutrients.
‘Eggs are functionally incredible, they do everything from hold oil
and water in mayo to making the muffin rise and holding scrambled eggs
together,’ he said ‘I started to think what if we can find plants that
can do this. We have about 12 plants pre-selected, including a pea
already widely grown in Canada. There’s also a bean in South Asia that
is incredible in scrambled eggs.’
The firm is already in talks with major food manufacturers around the
world – including several in the UK, to replace eggs in supermarket
products with their alternative.
So far, he says the team has perfected an egg substitute for mayonnaise, and one for cakes.
‘Companies like Hampton Creek Foods are experimenting with new ways
to use heat and pressure to turn plants into foods that look and taste
just like meat and eggs,’ he recently wrote of the firm.The team
initially struggled.
‘Our first attempts weren’t great, we tried to make a muffin using a mix of plants,’ said Tetrick.
‘Ours tasted really gummy, and didn’t have the ‘bounce’ we wanted.
Our mayonnaise would not hold the oil and egg together, so had what
looked like liquid syrup. Scrambled eggs were even worse – they just
wouldn’t congeal at all, and had a really bad aftertaste.
Tetrick admits the firm is struggling with artificial scrambled
egg. He says there is a ‘pretty good’ recipe, but admits more work is
needed.
‘Eventually we’ll get to one thing that will replace everything,’ he said.
The firm hopes to allow developing countries to grow and produce their own ‘plant eggs’.
‘In developing countries, we can also add in things missing from the
local diet, helping nutrient deficiencies, and we have had initial
discussion with the world food programme about this.
‘What we want to do eventually is find a way to work with farmers in
the developing world to enable them to have new cash crops that can be
used. Then we become the kind of company to be feared by the bad guys in
the industry.’
‘Even better than the real thing’:
MailOnline was able to try two of Hampton Creek’s products – its mayonnaise, and cookies made using its baking product.
The results were surprising, if a little anticlimactic. Both tasted
exactly as you would expect – and are indistinguishable from products
made with real egg.
The chocolate chip cookies we tried were excellent – crumbly, moist
and with a feel in the mouth identical to a normal cookie. Crucially,
they also look identical to a normal cookie – despite containing no egg.
Hampton Creek’s ‘Beyond Egg’ mayonnaise was also extremely similar to
‘normal’ mayo – and after trying it out on a few friends, some even
preferred to to normal mayonnaise.
No comments:
Post a Comment