Radical plan to make vegan ‘meat’ taste like the real thing

A “magic molecule” that gives vegan products the taste and smell “meat-eaters crave” is set to be given the green light for sale in Australia - and it’s already causing a stir.

The NSW Food Authority has warned consumers Australia’s first genetically-modified fake meat will not have to be labelled as such when sold in fast-food outlets.

Californian biotech firm Impossible Foods has lodged an application with Food Standards Australia New Zealand to sell its vegan burgers, meatballs, sausages, and fillings in Australia, which contain an ironbound (heme) protein.

The so called leghemoglobin protein was first identified in the roots of legumes, such as soy beans, where it plays a pivotal role in supplying nitrogen-fixing bacteria with oxygen.

Iron source?: Impossible Foods says adding a genetically-modified iron protein to its vegan burgers makes them taste like the real thing. Picture: AFP

Impossible Foods has simply commercialised the process of inserting soy bean leghemoglobin and other genes into yeast cells’ DNA, which is then grown in fermentation vats to produce commercial quantities of the iron-containing protein.

Only about 0.8 per cent of Impossible Foods’ fake meats will contain the leghemoglobin, but it is vital to making its product range taste like meat.

The company’s marketing material says GM heme protein (soy leghemoglobin) is “the magic molecule” that “offer the juicy, meaty taste that meat-eaters crave”.

But in responding to Impossible Foods application to FSANZ the NSW Food Authority warned that while the GM fake meat would have to be labelled on supermarket shelves, the same rules would not apply to fast food outlets.

“Products containing (GM) soy leghemoglobin sold for catering purposes (e.g. to a fast food chain) for use as an ingredient in a food for sale provided to a consumer for immediate consumption (e.g. a burger) will not require GM labelling on the package of the food provided to the consumer,” the NSW Food Authority stated in its submission.

Fast food outlets will only be required to reveal the GM origins of their products if consumers ask.

Impossible Foods is also seeking FSANZ approval to label their GM heme protein as a valuable source of dietary iron, with equivalence to meat.

But meat industry bodies on both sides of the Tasman oppose the claim.

Chris Rule pocket toon The Weekly Times

The Meat Industry Association of New Zealand has rejected the claim, stating “customers should not purchase fake or analogue meat under the misleading impression that they are buying a product that is nutritionally the same as meat”.

Even FSANZ found “evidence is conflicting on the effect of plant proteins” on iron availability.

Meat and Livestock Australia managing director Jason Strong said the meat industry did not want to head down the path of “denigrating” of vegan foods, but “we do have problems with it being directly compared to meat as it’s not”.

“They can imitate, but it’s not going to be the same,” Mr Strong said.

Victorian Farmers Federation livestock group president Leonard Vallance said it was just “bullshit” to claim the GM protein was in any way comparable to meat.

“Meat is meat, because it comes from an animal, Mr Vallance said. “(And) I can’t see how the vegans, who want to eat everything natural, are now going to support GM.”