Mission possible? How plant proteins are changing the food system

The revolution may not be televised but it will be Snapchatted, Instagrammed, Tweeted, Liked, and Shared. The Millennial obsession with food has given rise to an increased awareness of the sources of nutrition, and the importance of using our purchasing power to support sustainability. Globally, we realize that the current food system is finite, and that to ensure a healthy future we must fundamentally change our food sources as well as our relationship to what we eat. In order to affect the type of change that would alter the food system to make it more sustainable, we must think seriously about moving away from eating conventional meat toward relying on plant based sources of protein.

It is a considerable challenge, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of its necessity. For better or worse, we are led by our stomachs, and they sometimes betray our convictions. Call it the curse of our human condition: as Oscar Wilde once said, “when I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me”. Ultimately, food has to provide us with those symbolic comforts, and to many people a juicy hamburger or a thick steak is the only thing that can cure what ails them. Fortunately, some of the brightest minds in food and science understand that convincing people to embrace plant proteins means persuading their taste buds as well as their brains. More than ever before, startups and innovators are developing a range of plant based products that are not only better sources of protein, but also taste delicious. We spoke with plant protein startups from around the world to get their thoughts on the future of food, the potential for new sources of protein, and their own work in the field.

Fingers on the Pulse: InnovoPro’s Chickpea Protein

Israeli startup InnovoPro came together when its founder, Dr. Ascher Shmulewitz, developed a protocol to extract protein from chickpeas, an ancient legume that have been consumed for thousands of years all over the world. CEO Taly Nechushtan explained that InnovoPro took Dr. Shmulewitz’s passion for food as a preventive cure for diseases and brought it into production, developing “a patent-pending technology for extracting protein concentrate from chickpeas which is non-GMO, non allergenic, vegan, sustainable, healthy, and delicious.” Read the full article here.