CHARBONNEAU – Move over lab burgers, bring on the vegetable protein

PROTEIN FROM CULTURED MEAT is a remarkable achievement but it won’t feed the world.

In 2018, a single burger patty cost a whopping $2,500. While the price will come down, it’s not going to be an affordable source of protein outside rich industrial nations.

Lab meat has a daunting image problem. In order to grow lab meat, Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) has to be obtained from the fetuses’ blood of a living cow. In early experiments, hundreds of fetuses were needed to produce just one burger patty.

The planet needs an alternative protein source. Global demand for protein is expected to double by 2050 to 455 million metric tonnes. Demand will be driven by population growth and by insufficient dietary protein. For example, 68 per cent of people in India do not consume enough protein.

Traditional meat production contributes to global warming. Meat and dairy production accounts for 83 per cent of all agricultural land use, uses 30 per cent of the planet’s land surface and is responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.

Growing animals for food is an inefficient use of crops. It takes about five to seven kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef. Growing grain consumes energy and water to raise, process and transport.

Enter Canada’s pulses — we are the world’s largest exporter. Pulses are the edible seeds of legume plants: lentils, chickpeas, peas and dry beans. They’re packed with protein, fibre, and starch.

Pulses are grown on eight million acres of farmland in Saskatchewan and Manitoba; an area larger than Belgium. Canada produces one-third of the world’s pulses, adding $6.3 billion in the Canadian economy annually.

Canada’s pulses are drought-resistant – an obvious advantage as the globe heats up.

The problem that Canada faces is not one of supply or demand – we produce it and the world needs it. It’s the age-old mentality that Canada exports resources to other countries where they are processed. We do it with lumber. Instead of building furniture and value-added wood products, we export raw logs. B.C.’s copper concentrate is sent to Asia for refining.

We need to build more value-added pulse plants. If we did Canada would be able to provide 10 per cent of the world’s plant-based protein by 2035, making it a $25-billion industry, according to researchers.

Value-added pulse production can be done, as AGT Foods has shown. Their processing site outside Regina produces dried flakes that look just like breakfast cereal, except that they are grain-free. They are yellow pea dough, 60-per-cent protein.

It’s cheaper to export high-protein pulses because the flakes are lighter in weight compared to the unrefined product, which means higher profits for Canadian farmers.

The starchy byproducts of refined pulses can be used as ingredients in food; even for biocomposites and textiles.

“There’s a global race to protein,” says the CEO of AGT Foods, “And it’s not about the U.S. burger war. It’s about how to produce affordable, nutritious plant-based alternatives that ultimately will feed the growing population (Globe and Mail, July 27, 2023).”

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.