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.
These formulations are dairy-identical on a molecular level but without allergens or other unfavorable attributes.
I don’t think the article mentioned it and I’m not really familiar with the science, so I’m somewhat confused about this comment in the article. Does this mean that people who are allergic to casein itself can eat their new formula, or is this just a weird way of saying people who are allergic to lactose and similar things can eat products with this casein?
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.
Thanks for the response! I figured it was mostly trying to sensationalize it like you said but I just wanted to double check! I know someone with a pretty bad casein allergy so I’ll make sure to have them get help from an allergist beforehand if they want to try this.
Yeah if it’s pretty bad you’ll want the specialist. If it’s not life threatening (some cmp allergies are more on the lines of terrible stomach problems) another option can be to rub it on the gums and see if they react, but I wouldn’t risk that for anaphylaxis.
I don’t think the article mentioned it and I’m not really familiar with the science, so I’m somewhat confused about this comment in the article. Does this mean that people who are allergic to casein itself can eat their new formula, or is this just a weird way of saying people who are allergic to lactose and similar things can eat products with this casein?
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.
Thanks for the response! I figured it was mostly trying to sensationalize it like you said but I just wanted to double check! I know someone with a pretty bad casein allergy so I’ll make sure to have them get help from an allergist beforehand if they want to try this.
Yeah if it’s pretty bad you’ll want the specialist. If it’s not life threatening (some cmp allergies are more on the lines of terrible stomach problems) another option can be to rub it on the gums and see if they react, but I wouldn’t risk that for anaphylaxis.