WEBVTT - Impossible Burger Time 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:07.200 A company out of California, is using biochemistry and tech 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.559 to transform the hamburger by taking the meat out of it. 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:19.040 I'm Johnson Strickling, and this is tech stuff Daily. There 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.080 are about fifty restaurants in the United States that carry 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.200 a special item on their menu. It's a burger from 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.480 the company Impossible Foods, and it doesn't have any meat 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.240 in it at all. Instead, the burger consists of plant proteins, 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.840 with the active ingredient being soy leg hemoglobin. That's the 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.680 ingredient that contains hemi, a substance that makes the Impossible 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.959 Burger smell and taste like meat. Some other ingredients include, 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.760 but are not limited to, coconut oil and wheat and 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.760 potato protein. The company held a round of venture capital 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.600 fundraising not long ago, and some big players jumped into 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.600 contribute to the seventy five million dollars in investments. Among 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.520 those parties were Bill Gates and also Alphabet, the parent 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.440 company for Google. So what's the big deal and how 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.840 do these burgers match up with the real thing? The 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.480 big deal is that it takes a lot of resources 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.000 to produce meat. According to National Geographic it takes about 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.160 six hundred sixty gallons of water to produce a single 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.480 one third pound burger. That's not to say that if 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.279 you squeeze a burger you could fill six hundred sixty 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.880 gallon jugs with the water that came out. That would 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.560 be gross. The water was used mainly in the raising 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.839 of beef. Livestock need a lot of drinking water, which 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.600 is a precious resource. Livestock also require lots of space, 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.120 and it takes time to raise them. There are many 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:47.080 resources required to procure, raise, slaughter, and ship beef, and 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.200 while you also need resources to switch to plants. With 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.400 the right agricultural approach, you can make the change, produce 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.480 more food and use fewer resources per unit. In this case, 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.360 the unit is per hamburger. According to the company, their 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.760 approach requires one of the land you need to raise 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.400 livestock to make the same amount of food. It also 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.720 requires one quarter of the water and produces one eighth 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.000 of the greenhouse gases. In other words, it's kinder both 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.760 to animals and to the environment, at least by those metrics. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.400 To achieve this, the company had to overcome a big problem. 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.919 HEMI is found in organic material, but it's far more 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.880 abundant in animal muscle tissue than in say, plant fibers. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:34.040 Soy leg Hemoglobin contains hemi, but in levels so low 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.800 that it would take an entire acre of soybeans to 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.840 produce a single kilogram of soy leg hemoglobin. That's not 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.760 a sustainable strategy. Impossible Foods turned to genetic engineering for 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.840 the solution to this problem. Scientists remove the genes responsible 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.480 for the soy leg hemoglobin protein. They then transferred those 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.359 genes into a type of yeast. They fed the yeast 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.840 minerals and sugars to encourage it to grow and replicate. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.080 The yeast began churning out he mei like gang Busters, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.919 far outperforming natural soybeans and reducing the amount of resources 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.400 in real estate needed to make the stuff that makes 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.000 the fake burgers taste like real ones. Producing the raw 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.800 materials is really just the first step. There's a whole 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.880 lot more tech and science needed to turn various proteins 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.120 and oils into something that can pass for an actual 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.160 burger made of meat. To do that, the team had 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.040 to scientifically analyze beef so that they could find a 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.800 way to replicate the aroma, texture and taste. This included 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.960 throwing some meat into a gas chromatography and mass spectrometry system. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.720 The system heats up beef so that it gives off aromas, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.800 which have a specific chemical fingerprint. The team would then 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.720 attempt to match this fingerprint as closely as possible with 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.680 their mixture of plant based ingredients. To get the texture right, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.720 researchers look for plant proteins that most closely resembled those 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.520 found in beef. Then they had to tweak those proteins 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.200 because of their effect on the taste of the burger. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.920 Several people who have tried the burger and spoiler Alert 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.760 Times Sadly not one of those people have said that 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.480 it does taste more like real meat than other meat alternatives. 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.000 Speaking as someone who hasn't eaten meat for more than 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.320 twenty years, I'd be really curious to try one of 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.840 these burgers. Sadly, none of the restaurants that serve Impossible 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.840 Burgers are anywhere near where I live. But maybe I 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.040 shouldn't be too sad about it. The food isn't without controversy. 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.600 Some people object to any food that includes genetically modified 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.240 components in it. I wouldn't go so far myself. Genetic 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.200 modification is really just an extremely precise version of something 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.640 humans have been doing using more primitive methods for thousands 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.839 of years. The foods we eat today don't resemble their 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.839 ancestors because we humans have taken a direct role in 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.360 shaping their evolution through domestication, cross breeding, and other techniques. 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.000 Genetic engineering is an extension of this same trend, only 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:56.279 it gets down to the genetic level. The bigger objections 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.720 stem from the materials Impossible Foods uses to produce their burgers. 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:05.040 The soy leg hemoglobin comes from soy roots. Typically, humans 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.200 don't eat soy roots. This means the soy root is 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.400 effectively a new food item or ingredient, which has led 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.760 the FDA to criticize Impossible Foods. According to the FDA, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.279 the company hasn't dedicated enough time and effort to test 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.040 the ingredient to make certain it is safe for consumption. 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.840 This had little to do with the genetic modification and 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:26.880 more to do with the fact that there just wasn't 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.320 enough scientific data about soy leg hemoglobin in general. Impossible 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.640 Food submitted their product to the FDA for a g 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.560 R A S notice back in two thousand and fourteen. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:41.080 G R A S stands for generally recognized as safe. 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.679 It's a way of getting a new food products stamped 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.200 with FDA approval without going through extensive testing, based on 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.240 the notion that this new food item contains ingredients that 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.000 have already been proven to be safe to eat. The 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.360 FDA didn't see eye to eye with Impossible Foods, which 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.800 eventually withdrew its submission in November in order to conduct 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.320 some new studies. Controversy aside, Impossible Foods is producing a 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.240 million pounds of their fake meat every month. The company 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:13.239 only sells their burgers through existing restaurant establishments. You can't 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.200 buy them in grocery stores or online. If you live 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.880 near one of the restaurants serving up Impossible Burgers, you 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.479 can try one for yourself, and if you do, you 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.560 have to tell me what it was like. To learn 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.160 more about food, tech and every other type of tech 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.200 for that matter, subscribe to the Tech Stuff podcast. I 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.120 do a deep dive on a tech subject with every episode. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.839 That's all to me for now, See you next time.