Expecting consumers to pay, "artificial meat" is still a long way off.

In the recent Mid-Autumn Festival, dragon fruit mooncakes, rattan pepper beef mooncakes and other challenge taste buds, one of the imitation of the old seafood mooncakes of vegetarian mooncakes stand out, the online 1000 copies were quickly swept away. This mooncake is known
many people
"artificial meat" mooncake, the real artificial meat on the air on fire.
, an artificial meat company went public in the U.S., setting off a
food
boom in the world, with artificial milk and eggs also "in the crowd." Recently, foreign media reported that Silicon Valley dairy start-up Perfect Day used yeast fermentation to make artificial milk. Plant-based artificial eggs have appeared in U.S. supermarkets for years, and another company has recently started to follow the trend and produce artificial eggs.
artificial meat, eggs, milk, these "artificial food" can really replace farmers spend months or even a year or two of hard work out of the results? What are the "roadblockers" encountered in promoting popularity?
Scienters formula for cultivation, to create meat, egg and milk "stand-in
It is reported that the artificial meat in the moon cake is "plant meat", processed from soybeans and other plant protein, is actually meat-flavored soy products, usually considered to be one of the two kinds of artificial meat. According to people who try to eat artificial meat mooncakes, the appearance of meat filling simulation is very high, squeeze elastic and will overflow fat-like fat, really vegetable oil and coconut oil, without telling the case is really difficult to distinguish this is an artificial meat mooncake.
some food practitioners say that artificial meat, which is essentially plant meat, is essentially not much different from products such as bean-made spicy bars, but the process is more complex. Another type of artificial meat is real meat, but not from raised pigs, cattle, chickens, etc. , but in the laboratory or factory by animal stem cells as raw materials, these stem cells are usually "fed" to sugar, amino acids, fats, minerals, etc. , and constantly "grow up." In 2013, Mark Post, a professor of physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, pushed the lab-grown "meat" into the flash, and in the testimony of nearly 200 journalists, the chef fried a man-made beef burger worth 250,000 euros. Subsequently, many scholars began to join the laboratory "farm meat" team. "This approach is very costly and uncontrollable and is still in the research stage. At present, it is commonly used in plant meat. Xue Yan, secretary-general of the China Plant Food Industry Alliance, said.
like artificial meat, artificial milk is not real milk. Artificial milk is a "milk" developed in the laboratory using a variety of chemical and biological methods to develop the same taste as ordinary milk. "It's more like a processed drink, just modelled on milk in terms of taste, nutritional value, etc." Zhang Tian, a dietitian in the clinical nutrition department of Aviation General Hospital, said in an interview with Science and Technology Daily.
addition to meat and milk, eggs are also essential food in people's lives. Artificial eggs in the appearance of the most obvious changes, due to cost and transportation and other factors, artificial eggs have no shell, sold in bottled liquid. When made, it is made from green beans and other plant protein-rich beans as the main raw material, can be made on the pan scrambled eggs or egg rolls.
Former" meat to solve the real problem, artificial food into a hot spot
In recent years, artificial food has become a scientific research hot spot, the market in the pursuit of "high imitation" flavor, but also pay more attention to ecological environmental protection, and even tell stories about health. Behind artificial meat, artificial milk and artificial eggs, people's vision of healthy ecology and life is reflected.
"People are paying more and more attention to a healthy diet, compared with real meat, egg and milk products, artificial meat and egg milk can be controlled in cholesterol, fat, calories and so on, so-called 'take its essence, go to its dross', these artificial foods also provide
consumers
more than an option." Zhang Tian said. For example, artificial milk can be made into cholesterol-free, saturated fat "milk", artificial meat can also be "zero cholesterol", for high blood pressure, high blood fat "three high population", may be healthier.
a more macro perspective, "the mass production of man-made meat is of great importance for the sustainable development of mankind." Xue Yan said. Studies have shown that future carbon dioxide emissions from livestock farming will place a huge burden on the Earth's ecosystems due to the huge demand for meat, eggs and dairy products. And the invention of artificial food, or will reduce the consumption of resources.
addition, artificial foods can help solve the global food shortage problem. Hampton Creek developed artificial eggs because its founder, Josh Tetrick, came up with the idea of making artificial eggs when he saw the severity of food shortages while working on a poverty reduction project in Africa.
A WWF report shows that if global population growth continues at its current rate and food productivity and dietary preferences do not change, humans will suffer severe food shortages by 2050.
Not only to obtain energy, but also health, both to meet the desire of the mouth, but also environmentally friendly green, so artificial food in recent years has become the capital circle of the "scent", many of the world's capital tycoons, for investment in the field of artificial food is very optimistic.
is still a long way from attracting consumer interest
So, artificial meat and other artificial food, will consumers pay for it?
if there's nutrition and the price is low, I'll think about it," he said. On September 15th, a passer-by interviewed randomly in the street by a reporter from Science and Technology Daily said he believed it was also the idea of most consumers.
can artificial foods do both at the moment? "At this stage, the nutritional value of artificial meat and egg milk is not comparable to that of real meat and egg milk." Zhang Tian for example, in addition to milk is rich in well-known protein, carbohydrates, fats and other substances, there are many very low but biologically effective active substances, such as growth factors, lactoxin, immunoglobulin, etc. , but artificial milk can not really do 100% simulation of milk composition and efficacy. The same is true of artificial meat, eggs, etc.
as far as price is about price, it is one of the awkward situations facing artificial food. It has been reported that the cost of artificial meat grown by stem cells is more than 1,000 times the price of regular meat on the market today. Artificial meat mooncakes made from plant meat also sold for 88 yuan / 6 pieces, nearly double the cost of ordinary fresh meat mooncakes; Artificial milk costs more than twice as much as regular milk. Some companies will be artificial eggs priced at 340 grams of 56 yuan, these let netizens shout "can't afford to eat."
artificial meat and egg milk if you want to attract the attention of consumers, in addition to nutrition and cost of "hard work", but also in its foundation - taste up and down.
the current market or laboratory is still in the development stage of artificial food in terms of taste there is still room for improvement. Science and Technology Daily reporter in an online business shop found that some consumers who buy artificial meat mooncakes said: "bad taste "more than pork" some "more broken, inelastic, more like eating starchy ham intestines" ... At this stage, plant meat can not appear in the form of "complete meat", can not be as free to cook all forms of dishes as the real meat. Therefore, plant meat also needs to explore more three-dimensional, fiber hardness moderate, humidity and tenderness of the standard cultured animal meat production methods.
artificial milk, eggs are the same, in the national dairy science and technology innovation alliance vice president Gu Jiasheng, artificial milk can not do exactly the same as milk. "Liquid eggs" have no obvious boundaries between egg whites and yolks, and the cooking scene is relatively limited.
addition to the above factors, many consumers will also have a common psychological barrier to artificial food.
Li Yajun, a professor of nutrition at Guizhou Normal University, said that many consumers have a natural sense of rejection of man-made things, which stems from a fear of the unknown, although rapid scientific and technological progress, but whether artificial food is technically mature, whether harmless to human health and other issues, need time to test.
"From a safety point of view, artificial meat and egg milk can be regarded as a common processed food, like biscuits, fruit juice drinks, if produced in strict accordance with production regulations, its safety risks will be controlled." Zhang Tian said that in the future table, artificial food will give us more choices, but to fully address the taste, cost and psychological barriers, artificial food has a long way to go.