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Bill Gates-backed startup makes ‘butter’ out of water and carbon dioxide (www.zmescience.com)

submitted 4 months ago by disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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A California-based startup called Savor has figured out a unique way to make a butter alternative that doesn’t involve livestock, plants, or even displacing land. Their butter is produced from synthetic fat made using carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and the best part is —- it tastes just like regular butter.

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[-] atro_city@fedia.io 154 points 4 months ago

My thought was "I doubt you can make fat only with hydrogen and carbon", but fats/lipids are literally hydrocarbons. Adding other elements changes the taste, so it isn't necessary to have mammals anywhere in the production chain.

Very interesting and probably not the first time this is/has been done. It seems quite obvious.

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 64 points 4 months ago

It's quite obvious at a theoretical level but not easy in terms of figuring out the actual process. A lot of science like that.

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[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

Hopefully by producing a potentially profitable product, they’ll secure the funding to drive some carbon capture systems as well.

[-] Tryptaminev@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago

Adding other elements changes the taste,

This is not how chemistry works at all.

To start with, fatty acids also need Oxygen because of the COOH and OH group of the glycerin in fat. They are not hydrocarbons. You know what also is just made of Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen? Hundreds of thousands of molecules. All sugars and carbohydrates. If you allow for Nitrogen too, you could cover most molecules found in biological life.

None of this has any bearing on how difficult or complicated it is to synthesize these from more basic molecules like CO2 or H2.

[-] ValenThyme@reddthat.com 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

this is a good https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01241-2 article on different ways this can be done

i learned the nazis made butter from coal!

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[-] amio@kbin.run 112 points 4 months ago

the best part is —- it tastes just like regular butter.

Yeah, never heard that one before. Weird how every non-whatever replacement foodstuff tastes just like the original... literally 0% of the time.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 72 points 4 months ago

Butter is one of the few that I legitimately can’t tell the difference between the real thing and the vegan alternatives (some of them).

Cheese is the opposite. Not only have a never had a vegan cheese that tasted like real cheese, I’ve never had a vegan cheese that tasted good.

[-] match@pawb.social 28 points 4 months ago

I want that vegan blue cheese that won the competition and then got disqualified by dairy industry corruption

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[-] obinice@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

Have you tried good proper butter? Not that weird white stuff Americans make. Actual flavourful yellow Irish butter.

Margarine tastes okay and I use it all the time, but it's a pale imitation of the real thing.

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[-] JayObey711@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I don't know about international food, but the German vegan meat companies like Rügenwalder Mühle and Like meat have made huge leaps last year. Mortadella, Fleischwurst, Schnitzel and Chicken Nuggets all taste almost identical to the original. Ground "meat" is close, but you have to chose the right kind for each recipe. More complex stuff is still really bad tho. I say all of this as a passionate vegan meat hater.

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[-] viking@infosec.pub 56 points 4 months ago

It's a synthetic saturated fat, so basically a synthetic margarine. Butter is made from milk. So the headline should read "[...] makes 'margarine' out of water and CO2", but everybody hates margarine, so I get why they chose butter instead.

[-] laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Hey, I like margarine...

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[-] capital@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

“I’ve tasted Savor’s products, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter. It tastes really good—like the real thing, because chemically it is.” Bill Gates recently wrote in his blog post.

If it’s chemically the same as butter, should we call it butter or something else?

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[-] Stern@lemmy.world 45 points 4 months ago

Sounds like margarine with more chances to shit myself

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 89 points 4 months ago

Margarine is made of hydrogenated oil. This is chemically identical to the fatty acids in butter. It’s not an alternative for dietary purposes, it’s just a more planet friendly solution.

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[-] imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee 21 points 4 months ago

I see you didn't read the article

[-] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 15 points 4 months ago

Basic internet etiquette. Never read the article. Disagree with everyone. You are always right. Everyone else is always wrong etc.

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[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 32 points 4 months ago

Interesting way to get fat alternatives, people are already used to eating fake butter regularly, so it probably wouldn't take much to add this to our diet.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 49 points 4 months ago

It’s also closer to butter than butter alternatives. It’s not made to be more healthy, just more planet friendly.

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[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 27 points 4 months ago

The biggest question which is barely alluded to in the article is cost. If it can't compete with mass produced butter at cost and scale then it'll just be another "alternative" which is good but not as big.

They also mention that they compared emissions and land use but give no aspect of what synthetic processes are used (I'd assume they at least have provisional patents on the "how to" already).

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

Take all the subsidies out of the dairy industry and see how competitively priced butter actually is.

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[-] Asetru@feddit.org 23 points 4 months ago

During WW2, due to the food shortage, Germans did this using the carbon from coal... The process is old and known.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#Coal_butter

Let's see if the process can be made more efficient this time. Allegedly, the product was virtually indistinguishable from butter.

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[-] catbum@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago

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[-] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Computer! Butter! Room temp!

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 months ago

Fat and oil production from animal and plant-based sources are collectively responsible for about 3.5 billion tons of CO2

You cannot be serious that animal-based and plant-based are grouped in this figure. Plant-based is likely close to carbon-neutral, and only not net-negative, because of transport, cooling etc., which will also be necessary for this artificially created fat...

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago

Tilling, seeding, treating, and harvesting all require machinery and therefore increase carbon output in farming.

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[-] cmbabul@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

If this were to take off France and the US South by themselves could eat us out of climate change in a matter of months

[-] Etterra@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

If it tastes and spreads like a tub of Land o Lakes then I'll probably try it. I don't care where the hell it comes from as long as it tastes correct.