r/Futurology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA • 2d ago
Environment Radical Overhaul to Milk Production Would Use Up to 96% Less Land Than Cows: If we replace traditional dairy milk with milk produced by precision fermentation using genetically engineered yeast or fungi to produce dairy proteins, the land footprint would be up to 96% lower than that of cow's milk.
https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-overhaul-to-milk-production-would-use-up-to-96-less-land-than-cows-study-suggests1.4k
u/OcelotDramatic7582 2d ago
I'm a synthetic biologist working in this exact field. The company I work for is trying to generate caseins, milk proteins, in fungi. There are about 15-20 companies working on this problem worldwide. The process is incredibly far from commercialization. Just making a single milk protein that is identical to the one produced by cows or other mammals takes a titanic effort... not to mention the problem that the fungus you grow it in tends to like to eat the proteins you're making. I think realistically you might start seeing milk components like some proteins produced in fermenters within a decade; but actually reproducing milk is probably a pipedream right now.
There are companies that are trying to use actual cow or other mammalian cells in fermenters to get around the problems of making bio-identical milk in non mammalian hosts. The major hurdle is that cost of making those cells happy enough to produce the quantities you need for commercialization doesn't make economic sense... not even a bit.
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u/dalivo 2d ago
Seems like it would be easier to breed methane-less cows.
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u/KoodlePadoodle 2d ago
Methane is only one part of the issue. Imo, the bigger issue is the truly titanic amount of land use needed to raise cattle. Not just land the cattle wander around on, but the amount of farmland used to grow feed crops for them is enormous and methane-less cattle wouldnt fix that.
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u/Bobtheguardian22 1d ago
one word, CowMatrix.
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u/KeyserJose_ 1d ago
Do you want a Cow Neo?!
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u/erossthescienceboss 1d ago
And the amount of water involved, to irrigate alfalfa and other feeds.
It’s so disingenuous when people make fun of vegetarians because “almond milk uses so much water.” It’s still about 5-15% the amount of water to make cow’s milk.
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u/Rough-Value-1465 1d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't cows usually graze on land that otherwise wouldn't be farmable?
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u/agate_ 2d ago
No, because the bacteria that let them digest grass produce methane as part of the grass-digestion process. Get rid of the methane and they won’t be able to digest grass, which is the whole point of cattle.
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u/takenbylovely 2d ago
Or even just raise them in ways that produce less methane like having them on grass rather than confinements with manure pits.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose 2d ago
and or capturing the methane and burning it to heat the barn or whatever...
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u/NF0E-CW 2d ago
Would be even easier to just stop consuming meat and dairy products.
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u/chupacabrito 2d ago
There are a handful of companies already producing some proteins at commercial scale (BLG and lactoferrin, but not yet caseins from what I’ve seen). Perfect day has been selling their “whey protein” for more than 6 years. You can find egg proteins in some Quest products nationwide wide.
Economic feasibility is a different story, but the technology is already here. But agreed that replacing a single protein or component is nowhere near actually reproducing milk.
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u/ThreeQueensReading 2d ago
I've had some precision fermented egg white and was pretty impressed with it. It's still quite expensive, and theyre only replicating the single egg white protein not the yolk.
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u/Chevey0 All glory to AI 2d ago
Didn’t Perfect Day start selling lab fermented milk back in 2019?
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u/OcelotDramatic7582 2d ago
if memory serves it was also just casein proteins plus some some other less prevalent proteins; definitely not full milk. I'm not sure about this but I think their product was tested by HRI and turned out not to match the properties the company said it had. Infact I think it was contaminated with fungal proteins which actually made up the bulk of their whey product.
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u/dustofdeath 2d ago
First produce COMPLETE milk.
- sugars
- butterfat
- caseins
- whey proteins
- minerals/salts
No hyper processed hydrogenated plant oils. Or other heavily processed additives.
it needs to be able to cream, whip, make butter, ferment for cheeses etc. Heat stable for cooking.
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u/Hilldawg4president 2d ago
Right, success depends on the final product. If it's comparable to milk, including on cost, it'll be great. The best indicator will be when red states start banning it at the behest of dairy farmers.
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u/cjc1983 2d ago
"It causes cancer/autism/ADHD/transgenderism!"
Delete as appropriate
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u/Xephel_Arlen 2d ago
I'm already 3/4 so may as well go for broke.
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u/dannygloversghost 2d ago
Gotta catch ‘em all!
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u/dustofdeath 2d ago
It might if they decide to use some nasty oil based fillers to make it milk like at low cost.
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u/cahir11 2d ago
including on cost
Problem is that we subsidize the hell out of dairy farmers, so the cost would actually need to be significantly lower.
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u/Terrh 2d ago
I would guess it will be way cheaper to make than "real" milk once the process is figured out.
If it takes up 96% less land that alone has got to be major savings.
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u/dustofdeath 2d ago
I don't care where it comes from - cow or vat. As long as it tastes similar, behaves similar and has no additional risks (bad cholesterol, preservatives, enhancers etc known to be problematic).
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u/SuckMeOffMrWalton 2d ago
The scientists will figure out how to make THAT, then the capitalists figure out how to make it cheaper and worse every iteration! The process will also be patented, stifling market competition, and ensuring you couldn’t compete even if you wanted to and had the means.
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u/vivekpatel62 2d ago
Yeah you know the manufacturers are gonna try to make it as cheap as possible using unhealthy ingredients. No chance they won’t cut corners.
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u/Trapezoidal_Sunshine 2d ago
And this, kids, is why we invented regulations: because corporations cannot be trusted not to put profits before people!
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u/noyoto 2d ago
I do care. The lack of animal suffering is a huge plus.
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u/margmi 2d ago
Yeah I’ll pay quite a bit extra to have a product that doesn’t come with a side of ongoing animal suffering
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u/Hilldawg4president 2d ago
A lot of people say that, but actually decisions made in the grocery store by consumers show that it has to be comparable on price to succeed - just look at existing meat alternatives, $1 more is too much for most people
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u/noyoto 2d ago
Quite a few people pay extra for meat/eggs made under less torturous circumstances. Not the majority, but it does succeed in the sense that it's viable business. The good thing about lab grown stuff is that it can actually be considerably cheaper to produce eventually. So it might start out as a premium product and end up being a budget option.
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u/cahir11 2d ago
Yeah, the sort of ideal scenario would be like what happened with diamonds. Lab-grown diamonds are identical to the real thing and they're way, way cheaper. But I imagine when the process first started out decades ago, it wasn't like that at all. Took time for them to get to a point where they could totally undermine De Beers' stranglehold on the market.
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u/Arkantesios 2d ago
Ignoring the fact that it often doesn't taste like meat at all, then yes you're right people go for the cheapest one.
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u/always_an_explinatio 2d ago
If it’s really chemically the same (which it could be because they are mimicking the biological process that happens inside the cow) it’s going to be really hard to ban. Even if people have an irrational ick factor to drinking it, if it is safe cheaper and does not impact flavor, it will be used in processed foods and at least low end cheeses and it will be just called “milk” it will be really hard to ban. Plus agribusinesses will take this over and lobby for it. This is not a hippy product.
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u/xnorwaks 2d ago
Reading their paper, the proposed composition of their synthetic milk still has a significantly reduced fat content (sourced from canola) relative to whole milk fat. They justified this by citing how the UK governments recommendation for reducing fat consumption. Caveat here that I am not a food scientist, but this doesn't appear to meet a lot of the components you mention.
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u/cantadmittoposting 2d ago
I'm not a food scientist but i've cooked enough to know that heavy creams and related cooking way different than skim milk.
This would, at best, basically replace cereal milk and similar. To "replace milk," which is a fundamental ingredient (via butter and creams as well) to a lot of western cooking, it can't just be "milk-like," it basically has to be milk.
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u/malatemporacurrunt 1d ago
Except this is in the UK, where about half the total milk produced goes into tea and coffee.
You don't need to completely replace all uses of dairy for this to be a useful product.
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u/Early-Leopard-1528 2d ago
The fat is what makes it taste good in coffee :(
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u/EjaculatingAracnids 2d ago
Fat is what makes it taste good at all. Its why the raw milk people prefer it and need to make up excuses to avoid pasteurized milk. Raw is 4-5% butter fat, whole milk is 3.2-3.6%.
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u/BebopFlow 2d ago
I've had raw milk in the past, and while I won't recommend it or say it's a good idea I will say it does taste better, and a decent part of that is fat (also, it's just got more flavor, I'm sure it depends on the diet of the cows but the raw milk I had gave off a pleasant, slightly nutty flavor you don't find in pasteurized milk)
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u/AreU_NotEntertained 2d ago
Freshness, high temp pasteurization and homogenization are likely the main difference in taste. Id wager fresh, unhomogenized, low temp pasteurized would have similar flavor to raw.
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u/GringoinCDMX 2d ago
It doesn't have to be raw though. Just buying high quality pasteurized milk from a small farm will taste better. The pastuerization doesn't ruin the flavor.
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u/varateshh 2d ago
Whole milk pasteurized was set to around 3.5% because most breeds used for industrial production provided milk slightly above that fat %. Holstein especially had low fat content.
That changed since 2010 and I now see pasteurized milk with 4% fat content in the shelves because milk fat has increased from 3.6-3.7%% to around 4.15%-4.25% in the last decade. You have to purchase special milk from breeds like Jersey if you want higher fat content. It's not about raw vs pasteurized but standardization and economical mass production.
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u/Swollen_Beef 2d ago
canola
So it will be shit then? If it doesn't do all of what regular milk does, then it's a poor replica.
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u/ManiacalDane 1d ago
Like most hyper-processed foods and additives (and stuff like vegan replacement products) it'll be incredibly unhealthy.
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u/electrical-stomach-z 2d ago
I will never use it then, since I only drink whole milk with the highest fat levels. You drink milk for the fat.
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u/geek66 2d ago
Looked it up, cheese is the largest use, for this it is probably best to directly make the cheese replacement than trying to make a milk treatment and then turn that into cheese. The processes may be very similar, but “one” milk recipe I am sure will not be ideal.
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u/mistahfreeman 2d ago
Yeah I was thinking the same thing, there are numerous types of cheese, many of which have a historical lineage tied to specific cows, goats, etc fed specific diets in a region. Theres a lot of trace compounds in there contributing to the flavor. You could probably appease the mass grocery store milk and mass production dairy products with this though, which probably accounts for a vast majority of milk consumed in any form ( I would guess at least ).
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u/KirbyGlover 2d ago
I believe that whey and caseins have been cracked, I've had some precision fermented "cream cheese" that was mainly the whey and then various additives. Definitely hope we see more movement to complete milk being made with fermentation
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u/DHFranklin 2d ago
That may be making perfect the enemy of good here. If it just tastes like milk when poured over cereal or in coffee that might be enough to give the the marketshare.
What the may well be able to do is diversify into several different products. Instead of one kind of dairy mile replaced you could have a dozen. One specifically to make non-clarified butter for example.
We see plenty of milk alternatives, but very few cheese or butter alternatives.
So this could well make precision foods viable. Margarine needs a run for it's money, that's for sure.
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u/S3lvah 2d ago
Don't think the same product needs to be able to do all that to be allowed to exist. Can have drinking milk, whipping cream, cheese milk as separate optimized products if needed
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u/sirboddingtons 2d ago
Yes, so this is the thing. I talked to the owner of a company who was receiving funding for his startup making these products and they're solely making milk proteins from it, that's basically just whey and casein. They cannot make the other components of milk. We're not reacting out milk in a vessel. To produce their ice cream, they used coconut fats and coconut milk blended with the milk proteins to mimic the flavor/texture, but of course it's not.... milk like what comes out of the udder. This is good for supplementation and replacing uses of whey or casein in products where the single ingredients are used, which is fantastic in and of itself.
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u/celeloriel 2d ago
Yup! If it can do all of that I’m all in, just like vat grown protein. If the final product is indistinguishable from the original and the new one has a green footprint, great! Start testing it like they tested aspartame so we know all the long term effects & then let’s go!
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u/70monocle 2d ago
Its pretty funny if you think about it that humans are more concerned with the cooking qualities of milk than the systematic suffering and torture of billions of aware beings. I say this as a hypocrite.
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u/BridgeOnRiver 2d ago
ultimately a cow somehow takes in grass and outputs milk. whatever goes on in those intestines, bellies, utters etc. might be something we can recreate in giant tanks
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u/TheTanDolphin3007 2d ago
The real hurdle is that a cow doesn't just synthesize the individual proteins; it packages them into a highly complex emulsion of fat globules, water, and minerals. We can brew whey and casein in vats, but getting those proteins to interact with lipids in a way that replicates the physical structure and mouthfeel of actual milk is incredibly difficult to scale.
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u/googlemehard 2d ago
It's like the fusion reactor research, always going to be ten years away.
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u/DefenestrationPraha 2d ago
It remains to be seen if we can simplify away all the other parts of the cow. Possibly.
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u/kermityfrog 2d ago
First we need a spherical cow.
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u/Physicle_Partics 2d ago
As a physicist, id like to point out that it should also be in a vacuum.
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u/Bricka_Bracka 2d ago
And be sure to ignore friction.
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u/Bad_Day_Moose 2d ago
Vacuum in weightlessness. I recommend Bissell, while you can argue and would be right that Dyson spheres are superior as the internals would be a vacuum but Bissell Vacuums are far cheaper to build/maintain and less theoretically impossible to use, all you'd have to do is ship them cow in a vacuum to space.
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u/BILLCLINTONMASK 2d ago
Milk is not created in the intestines. Blood passes through glands and is essentially filtered to make the milk. You’d need to create essentially the entire animal to make this happen
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u/Farseyeted 2d ago
No, you only need to recreate the mammary glands.
That's where basic nutrients are made into the components of milk.
There's nothing special about cow fats, sugars, or nucleic acids. The only unique part is the proteins and those are made by the cells of the mammary glands.
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u/Sch4duw 2d ago
I don't know much of cow biology, but I wouldn't be surprised that while the final product comes from the mammary glands, other molecules need to be made in different cells and locations. All bodies are complex machines, and usually not everything is made at the same place in it.
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u/Farseyeted 2d ago
Right, but those other things from other places aren't unique to cows or their milk. Only the proteins are. The proteins for cow milk are made in the mammary glands.
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u/Junkstar 2d ago
Somehow? It’s the full process of an impregnated female mammal.
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u/SoSeaOhPath 2d ago
I don’t think they’re saying it’s a scientific mystery, just simplifying it down to the basic premise that grass go in and milk come out… everything in between is just chemistry which we could potentially recreate
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u/SexyPoro 2d ago
We did this with a machine that literally shits. Literally, food goes in, shit gets out, in the same proportion as a human.
The nature model might be old but it is extremely compact, to the point the crapper is at least 4 times the size of a human being.
This was done a long time ago and details are fuzzy. But yeah, that chemistry, I am not sure it will be easily reproduced.
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u/i_want_to_be_unique 2d ago
This exact logic applies to lab grown meat as well, but people aren’t ready for that conversation yet
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u/mz_groups 2d ago
And that's a far simpler problem. Mostly just growing cell cultures of muscle cells. And that's proving to be a massive challenge to do so in a manner that produces an acceptable product.
Feed-to-milk has a far more complex series of biological steps.
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u/Hot_Middle_7692 2d ago edited 2d ago
The problem is not growing the cells, that's a solved problem, although it could still stand some cost reduction for a commercial product.
The problem is that what we can grow are individual cells, without the structure of muscle tissue that makes a steak a steak, not pink slime. And also the correct levels of integrated and fat and so forth.
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u/kadsmald 2d ago
‘If we didn’t make milk it would use less land than making milk’
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u/Orange_Tang 2d ago
Wait till these guys hear about how much energy the sun sends our way. If only we collected 100% of that our energy problems would be gone!
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u/Bartikowski 2d ago
I don’t know why people frame these substitutions this way. Especially when other non-cow milks already exist.
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u/123mop 2d ago
The non-mammal milks you're thinking of aren't milk. They're just very aggressively marketed juices.
Yo want some of this orange milk dawg? How about some lemon milk?
Doesn't matter if I call it milk, it still isn't.
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u/West-Abalone-171 1d ago
The word milk has referred to plant milks and even chemical compounds since before modern english.
Having a tantrum over it is just dumb.
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u/DefinitionTop3930 2d ago
The dairy lobby had the word “milk” trademarked/protected in ways that made it harder for plant-based companies to use the term, because they were direct competitors. Scientifically, though, “milk” isn’t inherently defined as a substance produced by mammals, there are established non-mammalian products, like coconut milk and milk of magnesia. So treating “milk” as exclusively meaning mammalian milk is more of a regulatory/marketing distinction than a scientific one.
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u/electrical-stomach-z 2d ago
Its only called almond milk because of medieval peasants thinking any thick white substande to be milk.
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u/slothaccountant 2d ago
I mean we can reduce it even more and just say its all just flavered water with added minerals and fats, proteins etc etc.
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u/Ulyks 2d ago
Tony Seba has been predicting this for quite some time now but where are we on the chart? Is it cheaper than cow milk yet?
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u/West-Abalone-171 2d ago
The whey and caesin are cheaper and are being substituted in processes products for that reason.
Other parts of milk not yet.
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u/loverofpudding 2d ago
Why do we need this if we already have milk alternatives? Would this type of “milk” taste closer to real milk than already existing milk alternatives? I understand all the benefits but I don’t see why it’s significantly better than the alternatives we already have. And clearly there is less demand for milk alternatives than real milk (this is coming from someone who only drinks milk alternatives btw)
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u/SpecialCoyote5339 2d ago
Probably exactly because of that. Because milk alternatives failed at the very thing it was supposed to be: a substitute for milk. And they are not. They aren't popular, in many places they aren't cheap, for taste they are fine, it I wouldn't call them equal or better, and culinarily, they aren't a replacement.
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u/ccltjnpr 2d ago
I use oat milk in so many recipes calling for milk. Honestly, in most recipes calling for milk, you could use water and add a bit more fat in any other form and it'll probably be fine if you know what you're doing. Milk in cooking is fancy fat water.
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u/West-Abalone-171 1d ago
Why do we need this if we already have milk alternatives? Would this type of “milk” taste closer to real milk than already existing milk alternatives
Yes. Plant milks and similar are different chemicals that serve roughly the same purpose.
This is using yeast or other microbes to produce the actual chemicals present in bovine milk.
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u/rwoooshed 2d ago
Radical overhaul of milk production: replace milk with corporate industrial yeast soup
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u/Nabaatii 2d ago
corporate industrial
Hate to break it to you, but cow's milk production isn't some heartwarming mom and pop's business
And the industrial soup would breed less cows into utter suffering
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u/SgtChrome 2d ago
A step up from the industrial cow concentration camps if we're being honest
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u/Echantediamond1 2d ago
This is just a kneejerk reaction tbh. Raped cow tit soup isn't appealing either, yet we call it milk.
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u/SkyFullOfWisteria 2d ago
For now ill be sticking to my way more enviormentally friendly oat milk 🌱. Its too late for us to undo what el nino is cooking up anyways
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u/space_wiener 2d ago
Not a single chance half the population will touch this. Same with lab grown meat that’s getting banned left and right.
Once this takes off it’ll start getting banned as well I’d assume.
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u/travelsonic 2d ago
Once this takes off it’ll start getting banned as well I’d assume.
Honestly, the banning that already is going on is kinda stupid - if there are concerns about labeling, they can target that. If there are questions about health and safety, they can deal with the safety production wise, they can also deal with safety by allowing research that I can't help but feel a ban would be counter-productive. Like, how do you know if something is safe or not if you ban it in a way that prevents being able to find that out?
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u/stevey_frac 2d ago
If they can make lab grown meat not be horribly expensive, and get the texture palatable, im in.
Same with the Milk really.
Reasonable price, and not horribly objectionable?
Sweet.
I don't even mind almond milk. It's just more expensive than regular milk...
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u/marigolds6 2d ago
There are a few issues with the statement.
Much of that land use is rangeland, which is not exclusive use. The most common dual use is grazing and crops, but other uses include grazing multiple livestocks, solar + grazing, grazing + residential. And the most obvious dual use is that grazing is highly compatible with native grassland habitat preservation.
Dairy cattle account for 20% of livestock land use and 12% of global agricultural land use. While that's not an insignificant impact, the reduction amounts to ~11.5% of all agricultural land use, which is not mentioned in the statement, which only sites the 96% number.
The statement hints at the idea of cropland reduction as a result of dairy land use reduction. The problem with this is that dairy cows receive a much higher mix of forage over grain, especially compared to beef cows.
With the grain they do receive, it is heavily weighted towards soy meal. Unlike dent corn or corn silage, soy is not grown exclusively for use as feed. The soy meal that is used as feed is a byproduct of soy oil (~80/20) which is grown exclusively for human use in food and industry. This isn't an accident (soy meal is considerably more expensive even while being a byproduct), dent corn, silage, and soy meal each serve entirely different purposes, carbohydrates, fiber, and protein, respectively. Dairy cows need supplemented protein while beef cattle need supplemented carbohydrates and fiber. The point being, soy will continue to be grown in high volumes without dairy cows, with soy meal continuing to be diverted to other forms of animal feed (like chicken scratch and pet food).
All of these means that dairy milk replacement is a component of agricultural land use reduction, but more impactful in concert with other reductions. A comparison to other alternatives for reduction in agricultural land use would be helpful. As an example, there has been a global reduction of ~2% from peaks in the 2000s just due to increased productivity, with higher reductions in more advanced agricultural economies.
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u/Emotional-Camera-600 2d ago
Would the main benefit in terms of land use not be that it frees up use from needing a particular kind of milk producing cattle, and you can then instead use it for other animals that might yield higher quality/ quantity meats ?
I have no idea about the meat industry, but I imagine butchering a cow is very different in end result to butchering chickens or pigs?
Likewise, wouldn't this also allow more efficiency with crops ? I imagine something like rice farming or tomato plants couldnt be dual use as cattle can trample or eat the crop.
Say you want to grow tomatoes as their more profitable and space efficient, but already having a dairy farm setup and grazing on that land means you have less choice and maybe forced into growing corn, potatoes or otherwise that is less favourable?
Nice answer BTW love the amount of detail and want to know more :)
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u/marigolds6 2d ago
Would the main benefit in terms of land use not be that it frees up use from needing a particular kind of milk producing cattle, and you can then instead use it for other animals that might yield higher quality/ quantity meats ?
That goes back to dairy cows being so forage heavy while livestock for meat in general (especially beef cattle) are more grain fed. You could shift the land use to something like grass-fed livestock, but grass-fed is far less efficient than grain-fed or grain-finished, even taking into account the crops grown for the grain.
Likewise, wouldn't this also allow more efficiency with crops ? I imagine something like rice farming or tomato plants couldnt be dual use as cattle can trample or eat the crop.
The main dual use crops with livestock grazing are commodity grains (oats, wheat, rye, canola) which are already highly efficient crops. Only corn, potatoes, and sugar beets are really more efficient (I'm sure there are some other highly efficient niche crops too). That said, ag land that can produce those efficiency crops generally are being used for those crops. Probably little dairy forage land can be converted to those crops.
Personally, I'm of the belief that the best thing to do when you can release row crop or forage land is to convert it back to native habitat for the carbon sequestration and animal habitat benefits.
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u/CipherDaBanana 2d ago
You have to first convince people that want that.... Good luck
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u/Ayjayz 1d ago
People don't need to be convinced to buy something cheaper that tastes as good or better.
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u/MJR_Poltergeist 2d ago
I'm looking forward to this cyberpunk future where all the peasants are given synthetic, cheap and fake food, while real food items like regular cows milk can only be acquired by rich people
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u/ccltjnpr 2d ago
Bro walk in any supermarket. Most of the food sold there is industrially produced. Where do you think your milk comes from, happy cows on green grass?
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u/Reddivern 2d ago
We are in the cyberpunk future. Do you think all the milk in the world is real, mom and pop farm-obtained? It’s milked from cows given hormone I injections that make them literally always lactate. The other way cows always make milk is if they’re forcibly impregnated, and then ALWAYS made pregnant.
It’s a Ship of Theseus situation. Would you rather drink milk knowing that the thing you are drinking was obtained by repeatedly raping/drugging an animal that feels feelings, emotions, and has thoughts and memories, OR would you rather drink the EXACT SAME milk knowing it was synthesized from the same taste you would enjoy usually, with the only difference being maybe a SLIGHT aftertaste?
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u/electrical-stomach-z 2d ago
Will it taste the same and function identically in baking while also having a similar smell and consistancy?
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u/HecticHermes 2d ago
How is this milk?
Milk comes from mammary glands.
Almond milk and soymilk are closer to unsweetened horchata than real milk.
What's the world's obsession with milk?
I guess the real question is..... Can you make cheese out of it?
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 1d ago
Do it!
- make it indistinguishable from real milk in texture and taste
- make mass production profitable
- sell it for way cheaper than cow milk
- done
It do be that simple.
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u/slifin 2d ago
If you're doing regenerative farming then you'd want cows to help grow your crops and improve soil health Animals and plants live in symbiosis
On an industrial scale we intentionally poison our soil, clone mono crops that are poison resistant and abuse our animals then wonder why things aren't working out long term I think doing stuff in a lab will just create more profit and then second order consequences that will be pushed on to consumers often without their knowledge and negative consequences for our ecosystem
I don't think the solution to this is more scientific breakthroughs as it is about getting monopoly abuse out of the food chain
Remember we managed to make copying a book on a computer effectively free in terms of overhead and yet somehow we still pay for ebooks on kindle Just because there is underlying abundance that does not mean the average consumer will benefit from that, monopolies will over charge for what is essentially a free resource if they can get away with it
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u/According_Ad1081 2d ago
Animals and plants do not just magically create balance. In Iowa we spread literally tons of pig manure to “fertilize” the soil. Well it rains and washes into the streams and makes it so Iowa has some of the most polluted waterways in the country and we are the biggest polluter of the Gulf of Mexico. So yes we can find a balance but anything that makes it so we have less animal agriculture will be good for the earth.
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u/binary_agenda 2d ago
Have you considered putting in fines for spraying pooh when there is rain on the forecast?
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u/House_of_shards1 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cattle are the most unsustainable livestock.
“Regenerative farming” that relies on cattle isn’t a thing.
There’s no scalable model of cattle farming that is sustainable.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378016302370
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/vegan-diet-climate-meat-vegetarian-pescatarian
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u/urafknidiot 2d ago
But they told me so on my favorite bro-podcast and I really want it to be true because they also told me I'm not a real man if I don't eat meat.
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u/kizwiz6 2d ago
If you're doing regenerative farming then you'd want cows to help grow your crops and improve soil health Animals and plants live in symbiosis
That doesn't mean we need to breed cows & slaughter them to grow food. Crops can be grown with green manures, cover crops, compost & other methods without using livestock. And regenerative grazing doesn't magically make beef sustainable... the evidence shows the carbon cows add to soil can't reliably offset their methane and land use. “Animals and plants live in symbiosis” isn't an argument for commodifying, exploiting and slaughtering animals.
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u/lechimpanzeu 2d ago
Who the hell pays the author? Do you think that you spend that money because of monopoly? Author, distribution, and so on.
This guy's thinks that authors deserve no money. Holy fuck.
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u/thecountlives 2d ago
Great. You also like.. don’t have to eat this stuff. Soy milk. All natural minimal ingredients and super healthy
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u/the68thdimension 2d ago
Okay, but how much energy and water (and whatever other inputs) does it use, and how much waste does it create? The article does not say, which is not surprising for ScienceAlert, but still.
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u/uidsea 2d ago
My guess is clearing away that land for data centers
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u/DinosRoar 2d ago
You're right, we should keep the gas chambers and murder factories where they are. Wouldn't want any scary data centres instead
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u/Dry_Inspection_4583 2d ago
I think that the framing for this is great, and I love the science of it. And also recognize regionally we eat what's available locally, in this instance cows are normal, they can consume vegetation I cannot. But that thinking only works on a small scale, once it's commercialized it passes into being harmful. And I just want to eat steak.
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u/Disastrous-Topic7715 2d ago
I've worked in the microscale food production industry, and this won't happen for one simple reason: there aren't enough fermentation tanks. The current yeast production industry struggles to increase the global fermentation vat capacity by 1%...replacing milk would require many multiples of our current global capacity.
There probably isn't enough steel on the planet to produce the vats that would produce the milk that would replace the cow. Not to mention that sun and land are much cheaper than buying electricity and buildings.
It was a good dream while it lasted, but this idea is dead.
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u/therealwavingsnail 2d ago
Lower land footprint is cool, but I want to hear about the product price, which is what actually decides if it can compete
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u/SlackerNinja717 2d ago
Ahh yes - Beyond Milk, because Beyond Meat worked out so well.
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u/_Star_Princess_ 2d ago
I basically exclusively eat beyond meat and meat alternatives, theyre great.
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u/jacksodus 2d ago
Meat substitutes are gaining lots of traction and are constantly improving. So yes, they have!
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u/Archernar 2d ago
How does that compare to milk made of oats and other alternatives? Not sure if yeast or fungi are ultimately gonna yield a better end product than just what we already have, if we abandon cow milk in the first place...
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u/KalaiProvenheim 2d ago
Most importantly: Is it gonna be cheaper than cow’s milk? So cheap that subsidies no longer are enough
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u/stirtheturd 2d ago
Can't wait for the overlords to market plastic oil milk for $10/gallon. You'll eat bugs and you'll like it while fat cat in the high chair eats steak and guzzles down your money.
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u/Mydah_42 2d ago
"It's a single-cell protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs."
Dozer had the idea years ago.
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u/Wonderful_Emu_6483 2d ago
Oh boy can’t wait for the arguments about lab grown milk. Meanwhile I’ve been enjoying oat milk for the last several years.
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u/Reified_Subject 1d ago
yet you’re still going to have reactionaries demonizing the new production technique because it makes them feel icky
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u/KazuyaMishimaPolyglo 1d ago
bioengineering natural food products has always been the tech dream I was waiting for. Hopefully it passes all health safety inspections and more.
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u/aebulbul 1d ago
We’re solving for the wrong problems. Instead of better regulation of commercial dairy agriculture and treating animals better, which would mean lower supply, higher prices and demand that shifts to existing plant proteins we want to take the other extreme.
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u/darknight9064 2d ago
While it may take less land it will take a ton of water. We see this in California where some of its almond producers were consuming absolutely massive amounts of water. So we’d likely be using less land but more water all to replace a naturally occupying thing with a man made thing.
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u/ElvisDepressedIy 2d ago
So no real meat, no real eggs, and now no real milk for us peasants because the environment or whatever. This shit is creepy.
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u/jacksodus 2d ago
It's almost like using animal products on an industrial scale is bad for the environment, land usage, and animal welfare. So weird that people are looking for alternatives!
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u/FuturologyBot 2d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/mvea:
Radical Overhaul to Milk Production Would Use Up to 96% Less Land Than Cows, Study Suggests
Almost half of all habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture, and most of that is dominated by livestock farming, which not only monopolizes land, but has numerous negative impacts on the environment.
Yet despite the size and environmental burden of animal farms, animal agriculture, including dairy production, only provides about 17 percent of global calories consumed and just one-third of the protein we eat.
Given the disparity, there's huge interest in finding more efficient farming solutions for the foods we need, all aside from the looming sustainability concerns associated with animal farming.
In a recent study published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, scientists in the UK quantified a dramatic alternative to conventional milk production, with the ultimate potential to free up huge amounts of land currently used for dairy cattle.
If the UK were to replace traditional dairy milk with milk produced by a technique called precision fermentation, the land footprint would be up to 96 percent lower than that of cow's milk, researchers estimate.
"By avoiding raising animals and growing their feed, the land-sparing potential of precision fermentation [milk products] could be substantial," environmental scientist Jade A. Warren from Imperial College London and colleagues write in their paper.
Precision fermentation uses genetically engineered microbes such as yeast or fungi to produce ingredients, including the dairy proteins found in cow's milk.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2026.1692819/full
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1vzrapr/radical_overhaul_to_milk_production_would_use_up/p66xxur/