Cool 'vegetarian' ice cream costs millions of dollars to do in the lab

Scientists have created a 'vegetarian' cream in the lab that has nothing from cow's milk.

According to Vox, this cream is made from whey protein (whey protein). This protein is produced from genetically engineered yeast instead of cow's milk . In fact, in the process of making this cream, scientists do not need products from cows.

Biological engineers know how to make ice cream in the lab.(Photo: Getty Images).

That is the result of five years of research by a Bay Area startup called Perfect Day . Founder of Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi are two vegetarian biologists. They want to create an indistinguishable product from cow's milk products and help fight global warming by reducing the need to use livestock that emit a lot of methane.

There are many non-dairy creams on the market, such as oatmeal, almond or chicken peas. However, these cream flavors are not the same as traditional creams.

Perfect Day: Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi.(Photo: Perfect Day Foods).

According to some people who have tried it, Perfect Day's vegetarian ice cream tastes really like normal ice cream because scientists have made ice cream with whey (liquid on the surface when the curd) and casein. These are proteins that make milk have a characteristic texture and flavor. Scientists have created a type of gene enzyme that produces these proteins.

This is similar to the production of meat in the laboratory, which takes some real animal stem cells to reproduce in the laboratory. The product is meat with real animal cells but not slaughtered animals.

Vegetarian cream tastes no different than real ice cream.(Photo: Perfect Day).

Perfect Day takes one step further: No need for anything from real animals, even if it's a cell. This is what will surely attract vegetarians.

Perfect Day founders said whey production in their way uses 98% less water and uses 65% less energy than traditional protein production.

They also point out that this delicious and nutritious protein production method can be applied anywhere, including extreme climatic areas that make it impossible to breed dairy.

Vegetarian cream has three tastes.(Photo: Perfect Day).

Perfect Day said that for that purpose, they will build partnerships with government and nonprofit organizations that consider Perfect Day's approach to provide cheap, environmentally sustainable proteins for those nutrient deficiency community.

Perfect Day currently only offers this new cream limit. The company sells samples for 1,000 customers who first order through the web last week. They can choose vanilla flavored candy, raspberry hard candy and vanilla, milk chocolate flavor. The company quickly sold out, even though the price of ice cream was super expensive: 60 USD (nearly 1.4 million VND) . Maybe a few more consumers will buy this vegetarian ice cream outside the store.

Make ice cream in the laboratory.(Photo: Perfect Day).

Currently, the company is focusing on becoming a non-animal source protein supplier for major food manufacturers in the hope of helping promote this ingredient in the mainstream market.

The market for milk substitutes in the US (including non-dairy ice cream) is growing fast.

As a partner with major manufacturers, Perfect Day is implementing the strategy that startups producing meat substitutes have successfully applied.