Meatless Monday might have just gotten a whole lot more interesting.
A research team at Germany’s University of Tübingen recently created a new protein product using some easy-to-source ingredients — a few you can even get from thin air.
Using carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and a little electricity, added to microbes and some baker’s yeast, the team — led by Dr. Lars Angenent — created a protein source ideal for human nourishment.
By processing these ingredients in a laboratory bioreactor system, the result is a sustainable, nutrient-rich protein substitute full of vitamin B9.
“This is a fermentation process similar to how you make beer, but instead of giving the microbes sugar, we gave them gas and acetate,” Angenent told Interesting Engineering.
The bacterium deployed in this research could lead food scientists to create a vegan meat substitute, or even offer a long-term, climate-friendly solution to ending the hunger crisis.
Here’s how it works: The researchers used a two-stage bioreactor system to create their yeast. In the first stage of the reaction, a bacterium called Thermoanaerobacter kivui converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into acetate — a compound found in vinegar.
In the second stage, baker’s yeast consumes the acetate and oxygen, generating both protein and vitamin B9. To create the hydrogen and oxygen needed for the process, the researchers split water using electricity from wind energy.
That level of sustainability is key to the entire process.
“This method could take food production away from farming and offer a sustainable way to make protein,” Angenent told The Independent.
Seeing as the process uses renewable energy — as well as carbon dioxide — it does not need farmland, and does not emit the kind of emissions that come from animal agriculture.
Plus, the yeast offers comparable nutritional benefits.
According to their research, published in Trends in Biotechnology, they found that yeast fed with acetate produces about the same amount of vitamin B9 as yeast that relies on sugar.
About six grams of this protein and nutrient-dense yeast would sufficiently supply a human with their daily dose of vitamin B9, per a press release from the university.
As far as protein goes, Angenent and his team discovered that the protein content in their yeast product not only met that of sources like beef, pork, fish, or lentils — but surpassed it.
A serving of 85 grams provides 61% of a person’s daily protein needs, as compared to that of beef, which supplies 34%, or fish and lentils, which provide 38%.
The yeast does need to undergo treatment to ensure safety for consumption, which reduces its total protein content to 41% of the daily protein requirement — still competitive with other protein sources.
“The growing world population is threatened by malnutrition, especially in countries that suffer from drought and whose soils are low in nutrients. In places like this, substitute products, such as ours, could improve the food situation,” Angenent said.
“The fact that we can produce proteins and vitamins at the same time in our bioreactor system at a high rate for sustainable vegetarian and vegan products with no significant use of land is a major step towards this goal.”
After preparation and drying, the yeast produced by the researchers resembles conventional yeast additives (like the nutritional yeast you might already add to your popcorn or macaroni).
That said, you aren’t going to see this high-protein yeast on grocery store shelves for quite some time; the research team must continue to refine production, ensure food safety (right now, there is a threat of gout if the yeast is eaten untreated), analyze technical and economic models, and assess consumer demand.
“Our product isn’t yet a finished foodstuff, but the food industry can use it to develop foods,” Angenent said.
Ideally, though, he said, “The end product is vegetarian/vegan, non-GMO, and sustainable, which could appeal to consumers.”
Beyond the consumer possibilities, the real intrigue is in the potential to use this high-protein yeast in combating food shortages and nutrient deficiencies, especially across low-income countries.
“We are approaching 10 billion people in the world, and with climate change and limited land resources, producing enough food will become harder and harder,” Angenent said.
“One alternative is growing proteins in bioreactors through biotechnology rather than growing crops to feed animals. It makes agriculture much more efficient.”
Header image ©Lisa Marie Schmitz/University of Tübingen
