cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

A reminder that "natural flavor" doesn't mean healthier or even something you might want over the artificially created flavors. It just means it comes from a natural source and is not lab created.

Castoreum, sometimes used for vanilla and raspberry flavoring, comes from beaver anal secretions. That would be labelled under a "natural flavor" and you'd never be told more than that.

I'll take the artificial stuff any day just on principle there.

It would have cost you nothing to not write this.

We focus too much on efficiency and cost sometimes. Sometimes efficiency is only a "nice to have" while being outweighed by practicality, convenience, safety, and any of the other factors we choose to make a priority.

It is expensive and inefficient for an airplane to have two engines instead of just one. We do it anyway because it's required for safety and redundancy. We made that the priority, and that was an active choice. We need to start making more active choices about what the priority is when it comes to our energy futures. All priorities have tradeoffs. Cost and efficiency have their own tradeoffs. Question it when people tell you that things can't be done because of "cost" or "efficiency". When they do that they're presupposing what the priority is, but often it's billionaires trying to cut corners to make themselves richer at our expense, our safety, our futures. We can do inefficient things. Sometimes it's even the right choice.

I'd actually be willing to give it a try if it's vaguely price-competitive, but their website is all glam shots of butter and people doing things with butter and not only doesn't sell it but doesn't tell you where you can get it.

Savor

Savor makes delightfully rich foods without animals, farmland, fertilizers, hormones, or antibiotics. These are real fats, not a substitute. That means all the calories to carry all the flavor. All they lack is the compromise – on performance, environmental impact, or price.

(www.savor.it)

Also, they did not do a good job of choosing that name. It looks like there's a very-similarly-named French Canadian manufacturer of butter, Savör, which apparently isn't too religious about using their umlaut:

At Savor, we believe the best butter starts with the best environment. That’s why we source our grass-fed dairy butter from New Zealand, a country renowned for its pristine landscapes, sustainable farming, and exceptional dairy quality.

I foresee a collision between those two.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

While I think this is pretty amazing science stuff, the writing is terrible. Here is the progression of the story as written:

They made butter from carbon...

Well, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen...

OK, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and methane...

Well, no, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, and glycerol...

Wait, hang on, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, glycerol, natural flavor, and lecithin...

Now, the source of glycerol is in question, because they say this butter is both animal and plant-free. Glycerol can be made synthetically, but it's WAY more expensive to do it. Also, I'm not seeing any way to create lecithin without plants. They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

Pretty sure I know the factory that this butter comes from. The Miraka plant; north of Taupō. Geothermally powered, restricts it to a relatively small region in NZ.

You had me in the first half

I think you're missing that there are better ways to produce fuels for cars than to chemically synthesize petroleum. It's all about cost and efficiency if you're just looking for portable energy. Or we could burn more coal so we can generate the energy needed for synthetic gasoline....

Also, poop has natural flavour. Natural flavour also doesn't mean it tastes good.

They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

A reminder that "natural flavor" doesn't mean healthier or even something you might want over the artificially created flavors. It just means it comes from a natural source and is not lab created.

Castoreum, sometimes used for vanilla and raspberry flavoring, comes from beaver anal secretions. That would be labelled under a "natural flavor" and you'd never be told more than that.

I'll take the artificial stuff any day just on principle there.

I don’t eat carbon-based foods. Exotic silicon lifeforms, fresh from Titan’s methane seas.

While I think this is pretty amazing science stuff, the writing is terrible. Here is the progression of the story as written:

They made butter from carbon...

Well, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen...

OK, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and methane...

Well, no, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, and glycerol...

Wait, hang on, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, glycerol, natural flavor, and lecithin...

Now, the source of glycerol is in question, because they say this butter is both animal and plant-free. Glycerol can be made synthetically, but it's WAY more expensive to do it. Also, I'm not seeing any way to create lecithin without plants. They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

Spoken like someone who’s never ate shit.

This is interesting...

Lab grown meat have problem where they cannot create fat. So if this works, maybe this is the solution.

"So you're using this gas right now to cook your food and we're proposing that we would like to first make your food with— with that gas," said Kathleen Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Savor.

That doesn't sound appetizing... Lol.

Maybe the manufacturer is in New Zealand and the French-Canadian people are the guys who package and sell it or something. Dunno, just did a quick skim of their site.

I would like to propose you eat my gas

You're not going to catch me out with this one again!

I doubt it, I think the Miraka plant is produces mostly primary products not the secondary stuff.