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Ramez Naam
@ramez
I had the chance to get to know Savor (the startup below) early in their journey. What they're making actually *is* butter - the same molecules. And of all the alt-animal food tech I've seen, this has the best path I've seen to get full cost parity w/ the animal product.
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Shadow of Ezra
@ShadowofEzra
A Bill Gates backed company is now producing butter with no animals, no plants, and no oils — it’s made from carbon. The company is working with restaurants, bakeries, and food suppliers to incorporate their carbon-made butter. Mainstream media reports it has the “blessing and
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Arguably agriculture is the biggest environmental harm humans cause, because of deforestation and other conversion of wild land to pasture or crop land. And most of that is due to cattle. So this could be much more sustainable than how we get dairy today.
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Their process is focused on fats, not proteins. And that's part of why it's so inexpensive. Within that limitation, yes.
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
You don't need cows. Can spare the deforestation and land use change associated with them.
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4040
@i4040z
Super cool but wondering how scalable such technology is? And how much energy does it take to produce a stick of butter this way as opposed to the traditional way? Also, isnt utilizing CO2 in such a way INCREDIBLY energy intensive and overall inefficient?
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
The energy cost isn't that great. And the world is dramatically more constrained on land than energy. Land use for cattle is the primary cause of deforestation, which is the #1 drive of species extinction.
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Punished_Vash
@TardicusR96481
How are they able to reduce the energy cost of converting molecular compounds into something edible, comparatively with cows which can do it naturally?
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Less about energy use here and much more about land use. Cattle drive the bulk of global deforestation.
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Their unique process is for creating fats. Not sure if they blend in any protein solids to make the final product.
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
Milk requires a different set of processes to make the proteins. People are working on it, though.
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Ramez Naam
@ramez
I'm out on a limb here, but from what I know of their process the resulting fats should be racemic - equal blend of left and right handed.
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nope noperson
@jdelta1adams
no, this is not butter. you could call it synthetic butter i suppose. not buying it either way. even if it's half the price of real butter
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⟠Palis⟠🐍
@palis
It’s not butter, butter is from milk produced via natural biological processes in animals and doesn’t require artificial flavoring Hope this helps 👍
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Jeff Greason
@JeffGreason
Hydrocarbons-to-margarine is one of the oldest synthetic food technologies, and I'm sure the technology has come a long way, though historically, it did not produce the same mix of even and odd fatty acids as natural sources. Curious how that works now.
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Supply Chain Dimwit
@JayTimothy24003
What's up with weird immigrants being obsessed with replacing normal food with centrally controlled slop? Imagine your food source having IP and licensing restrictions. No thanks! What a fucking nightmare.
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Crackyflipside
@crackyflipside
That could make for good artificial meat blends if they can get the right fat ratios. Build a decent ground meat substitute with flavor profile similar to premium animal-sourced cuts to better justify the initial costs of machined meat.
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Bob, Bob Cactaur
@liminalsnake
Alt-animal food tech is the kind of tech that I’m going to avoid. The people working on it are not that smart and don’t have humanity’s best interest in mind.
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Gayatri Sarkar✊🏽🌏 🚀
@GS_VCactivist
One thing I have learned how much ever good food it is, it’s highly processed and our body are not meant to consume processed food as such. My health coach has asked me to avoid any processed food same as McDonald’s.
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Observer of Things
@spinturf
butter is much more than fats. the nutrition packaged in the real thing cannot be effectively replicated via a mechanical process. a simulacrum of food is a fine way to starve people while keeping them fat.
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jhouse678
@jhouse678
Butter should refer to the natural dairy product, even though this factory product is molecularly similar. This also has added ingredients like coloring and emulsifiers, which natural butter does not have.
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Maynard Handley 🟦
@handleym99
More to the point, what is the problem being solved? OK, we need fewer cows. So fewer cows get born. Eventually we have a few cows left, in zoos. That’s ethical is it?
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The Bronx Conservative
@nycconservat
The part that gets me is that they have to add “natural color and flavors.” If it was actually butter it would look like and taste like butter without having to add anything.
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Frédéric Leroy
@fleroy1974
Nah, it isn't. It's a bunch of paired molecules pretending to be a food. The mindset of food-tech bros is too reductionist to even begin understanding the secret of cooking a good meal. People will always prefer butter. Even margarine didn't change that.
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gravey
@VerysaneGravey2
So just to clarify, and I got this from ChatGPT but I assume it's close enough, this thing which you claim actually IS butter, has the following in similar proportions and structure: 1. Butyric acid (C4:0) – butanoic acid 2. Caproic acid (C6:0) – hexanoic acid 3. Caprylic acid
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Cozybento
@Cozybento
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Lestan
@Lestan21
Does it include the micronutrients and probiotics that would be found in real butter? That's been one of the biggest concerns I've seen.
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The Based Strength Coach
@based_coach1
They’ll get acquired by a giant globocorp who will look for ways to cut corners and decrease the cost of production and it will no longer be what they initially set out to do. The globocorp will use the initial mission as a well to sell their frankenfood. You know this, I know
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Joel Runyon
@joelrunyon
Are any of these companies actually profitable in the free market?
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Joel Runyon
@joelrunyon
Did Impossible Foods lose BILLIONS suing me? Let’s investigate The answer is pretty embarrassing for them…
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Name is pending
@theoneNIP
well, it might be the closest copy to butter there is, but it still is a copy, and it would be the definition of being hyper-processed. Maybe we first should check if the advent of processed and hyper processed foods isn't the reason for our societal health problems before we
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Alex Thrace
@ThraceAlex
It's just synthetic fat likely laden with chemicals 35 letters long as well as having zero essential fatty acids, vitamins, amino acids or anything with any nutritional value. Butter is a healthy superfood. This is flavored Axel grease.
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Mihnea de Vries
@MihneaDeVries
it's smart, actually brilliant, but let’s not forget consumer habits. people are stubborn, they might not swap their butter for science, even if it’s cheaper.
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Cheyne 🛼🔫
@CheyneIsBack
Oh yeah, well that has nothing on the butter 🧈 I was able to synthesize just check my pinned post.
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Nick
@Nick_Fenton_53
The minute they start “tuning” flavor or texture you lost me. Corn Oil still has corn molecules, but reacts very differently in the digestive tract.
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Rancho
@ShabbaRanch
What’s the need for this when populations are shrinking, Land becomes more available, emissions lower bc less population, I don’t see the need
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Ætheric
@3TH3RIC
If we succeed with mass deportations we don’t need to worry about needing more or being more efficient in making ‘butter’
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King Kratos
@YungK411
If it’s not churned cream it’s not butter. You basically just explained lab made butter. I thought we were trying to move away from the processed foods 🤦🏼‍♂️
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Asher
@Ashercrypt
If it's not butter, then it's just a potential substitute to butter If you have to say something is "this", then its most likely not "that thing" Animals have enzymes that could be mimicked but are entirely different from the plant-derived microbes All these will just lead to
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Adrian 🚀
@YoAdrian305
So we’d all become carbon capture devices at that point. Vegans would be eating butter to save the world lol.
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Damian Barbosa
@DRB_1971
Modern nutrition science can not identify 10% of the molecules / compounds in butter, yet here they are "reproducing" it. Can you turn the SCAMS down a tad?
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Patriot Atom
@AtomDogK9
How does the nutrient profile compare to real butter? Is this “food” recognized, processed, digested and absorbed identically to actual butter? I have a hard time believing that our bodies can utilize a fake food in the same manner as actual “real” food.
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Cozybento
@Cozybento
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Casual Man
@heyCasualMan
Process is everything, you can say it’s molecularly identical but it didn’t come from a cow and I would say then it’s not butter. The process makes the product
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Alex Thrace
@ThraceAlex
It is not butter. Butter is literally thousands of natural compounds. He is only making synthetic fat without the nutritional factors of real butter.
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Kade Arcana
@ArcanaKade
Long-term, this is the way but My greatest fear is that this goes the way of mRNA. Sped up for inorganic reasons so it’s long-term organic adoption is ruined from reputation self-destruction. It takes longer than a generation to make this kind of shift.
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Snålisen
@snalisen
In what countries are production of butter a cause of deforestation, and what are the cost of butter on average in those countries? What are the comparison cost in your example?
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Jay Dilks
@DilksJay
People are going to come after you because it’s not “real”. I’d counter that with: Now more Cows can be slaughtered for Real Beef. Not an ideal counterpoint but it might settle down the crazy folks out there.
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Sue
@SuePLS
I'm betting no one is really sure how the human body will deal with this Franken food over the long term. They may say they are certain it is harmless, but then they are either under educated, deluded, or lying.
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Casey Morgan
@casemorgn
I prefer the Italian way: olive oil, salt & pepper over butter, but Americans consume a lot of margarine and seed oils are very bad
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Trundle the Great
@NotRob6
If it's the same molecules, just make butter. It seems this is sorta similar to gas station weed products, very similar but not legally THC. But they're more dangerous then regular old THC.
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Big P
@_big__p
The problem is the government will ban butter down the line. The uk is banning gasoline cars by 2030
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Khamosh Mujahid (ڈیجیٹل دہشتگرد)
@KhamoshMuj
It's worth noting that this product is "Self-affirmed Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS) designation from the FDA and as such does not have a 3rd Party Validation. The FAT content is CONSTANT but it lacks the Vitamin benefit usually found in Butter - So In a way it's more
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Hoozbad
@Hoozbad
It’s not real butter. “Savor Butter, developed by Savor, is a synthetic butter alternative made through a thermochemical process that converts carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen into a fat resembling butter.” It has no nutritional value.
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Deed of Ged
@Deed_of_Ged
Fast forward 10 years: 'how could we have known that complex systems were orders of magnitude more difficult to interfere with and these terrible side effects would result??' see also: ozempic in like 15 months ...
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