Drinking milk is essential to our diet, but not everyone is tolerant of some of its components, especially lactose . For this reason, we currently have different types of milk, or drinks that imitate it and that in some way provide the same benefits (or almost) as drinking a glass of cow’s milk. However, science seems determined to launch a milk that everyone can drink equally. We are now talking about the milk of the future , which apparently will be grown in a laboratory and also will not contain lactose.
This is what the milk of the future could look like: lab-grown and lactose-free
The Californian company Perfect Day is the company that seems to have found a way to produce milk in the laboratory without the help of the cow. Without a doubt, excellent news, which could completely prevent the exploitation of the animal , at least as far as industrial plants are concerned.
Something surprising but not entirely new. In fact, nowadays it is even possible to produce meat made in a laboratory , so that this “artificial” milk seems to be one of the foods that we could be consuming in the not too distant future.
However, experts say that milk is very difficult to replicate in a laboratory, as it contains a complicated cocktail of proteins and fats that are difficult to create artificially. The challenge is certainly great, but Perfect Day seems to be sure: their products are not an alternative to milk, they are milk (they recently stated this). Their company started in 2014. After perfecting the process, and ensuring that their product was 100% safe, they submitted their milk to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval, and after lengthy testing, the institution found it to be a safe product.
How do they make this milk in the laboratory? Genes are taken from the cow and, through large fermentation vats filled with milk protein-producing fungi, they can generate huge amounts of product incredibly quickly .
The final product does not contain lactose or cholesterol and although this milk will surely be the subject of debate, it seems to be the right choice, both in terms of ethics and in terms of the environmental issue . Intensive agriculture, in fact, is unsustainable with respect to these two points. Now the ball is in the consumer’s court: would you ever buy and consume milk created in the laboratory?
