When you started hearing reports a few years ago that beef and dairy production were significant contributors to the world’s excess of carbon dioxide emissions, you knew what was coming.
Apparently, it has arrived. A report on The Washington Post website includes the headline, “Cowless dairy is here, with the potential to shake up the future of animal dairy and plant-based milks.”
With apologies to those in Mississippi who have roots in the once-thriving dairy industry, the story is actually a pretty interesting account of how science has been harnessed to get yeasts or fungi to produce milk proteins. It’s a look at what lies ahead, particularly if the planet continues warming over the coming years.
This alternative-dairy movement calls its process “precision fermentation.” It has its own trade organization, and perhaps most important, it already has some big-time customers like Nestle, Starbucks and General Mills.
On one level, these new dairy products are a cut above what cows provide. The new stuff has none of the elements considered unwelcome for humans: cholesterol, lactose, growth hormones or antibiotics.
“Consumers concerned about climate change or animal welfare have been anticipating the U.S. launch of cultivated meat, which is grown in labs from animal cells,” the Post reported. “But cultivated dairy could have just as much of an impact on the environment — with fewer regulatory hurdles to clear.”
On another level — what’s all the fuss about? Are people who enjoy meat, milk and cheese really to blame for global warming? How can cow gases seriously compare to electricity generators and other factories that belch plumes of whatever into the sky 24 hours a day?
One website, carbonbrief.org, cites a United Nations agency in saying that meat and dairy production alone accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That sounds like an awful lot of cattle methane.
Another legitimate concern is land use. All food production, not just meat and dairy, takes up half of our planet’s habitable surface. If the human population keeps growing, we’re going to need more land for homes — and more efficient ways to provide food.
As for dairy products, the largest challenge appears to be developing tasty cheese substitutes. Producing cheese is harder on the environment than milk: Making one pound of cheese requires 10 pounds of milk. And worldwide cheese demand is increasing, while the fluid milk market is not.
One reason these new dairy products appear to have a bright future is that large companies are eager to tell customers they’re generating less carbon emissions. At the end, though, the success of these new milk, cheese and meat products will come down to one test: How do they taste compared to the real thing?
If “precision fermentation” flops in that regard, no level of environmental concern is going to make up for an obvious shortcoming.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
