In a major breakthrough for vegan cheese, artificial intelligence helped Climax Foods uncover a plant source of casein—the protein responsible for many functional qualities in dairy.
The article is science journalism at its worst. As a person with a background in biochemistry I can’t tell you what they mean from the article. A plant based source of casein is likely to be a homolog, not the same thing, and there’s no way they’re actually making something “molecularly identical” to cheese. What they mean, I think, is that a plant-based casein source should be able to make cheese-like foods behave more like cheese in terms of mouth feel and melting properties. Then because they’re writing sensationally they have to say bullshit like “nolecularly identical” for some reason.
I don’t know what the crossreactivity would be for plant based caseins. If you have a serious CMP allergy you might want to get help from an allergist before trying this stuff.
The article is science journalism at its worst. As a person with a background in biochemistry I can’t tell you what they mean from the article. A plant based source of casein is likely to be a homolog, not the same thing, and there’s no way they’re actually making something “molecularly identical” to cheese. What they mean, I think, is that a plant-based casein source should be able to make cheese-like foods behave more like cheese in terms of mouth feel and melting properties. Then because they’re writing sensationally they have to say bullshit like “nolecularly identical” for some reason.
I don’t know what the crossreactivity would be for plant based caseins. If you have a serious CMP allergy you might want to get help from an allergist before trying this stuff.