Eating animals can certainly be a touchy subject, often times people associate this with a morality issue. Aside from the moral complexity of the issue, the overall truth is that we simply eat too much animal product. More than the physical damage eating too much animal product causes, the overwhelming demand for it impacts our environment in a seriously negative way. To keep up with the demand, we have adopted horrific factory farming techniques that are extremely cruel to animals and pollute the environment.
Check out this article to understand how our current factory farming practices impacts nature (http://science.time.com/2013/12/16/the-triple-whopper-environmental-impact-of-global-meat-production/). Plus the amounts of antibiotics and hormones that get injected into animals lower the quality of the product and impact your health negatively. Consistent usage of antibiotics makes for stronger impenetrable strains of bacteria – leading to devastating illnesses. In fact, it has been known for quite some time that the negative outcomes from consuming red meat easily outweigh the positives.
Many people that want to convert to a vegetarian diet often go back to meat because nothing they use to substitute their animal products with is ever convincing enough. Luckily, many concerned people still continue to look for ways to find a definitive replacement. While meat and dairy replacement is easier to handle for veggie enthusiasts – tofu, tempeh, and seitan for meat and coconut, soy, and almond (milk alternatives) for milk serve these needs wonderfully. But what about an omelet?
While there are egg substitutes for baking purposes, the craving for some scrambled eggs in the morning is yet to be met. Hampton Creek may have the answer. “Hampton Creek is using technology, science and culinary expertise to replicate egg products sans chickens at a fraction of the cost.” They have found 11 plants that can be manipulated to have similar taste and look as eggs.
So far, they have one product on the market – Just Mayo – and it has been getting nothing but positive feedback. As for the omelet, even though it hasn’t hit the market, it has been raved about by Bill Gates. Eggs are a huge commodity for those who profit from it and something like this in the market can certainly change this. With over 92% of world’s plants still waiting to be tested for such purposes, there is enough hope that perhaps one day animal cruelty will not be a concern and neither would be the huge list of illnesses that come from consuming its products.
On a side note, it would be great if Hampton Creek can add making melty mozzarella cheese to their agenda!
Would you be willing to use an alternative plant based natural substitute for eggs if it can pass the taste and texture test?
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