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Bill Gates-backed startup makes ‘butter’ out of water and carbon dioxide

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.

Duamerthrax ,

How does the cost per co2 captured compare to planting more trees? Or is this just another VC scam?

BehindTheBarrier , (edited )

If CO2 is a byproduct of another process, then I’d make a guess it is fairly cheap. The flaw here is that CO2 and H2 are both products of steam reforming using methane… Which is to say, the cheaper version might just come from using natural gas. Hydrogen has to be sourced from some energy consuming process, and that too is often from the methane steam reformation. So it’s certainly possible, but yet again is ready to become yet another “green” product made from fossil fuel. Doesn’t have to be, but I can be.

Edit: to correct a discrepancy, the article mentioned hydrogen, but if the hydrgon comes from water used in the process then some of the issues of providing H2 is less big. But either way I expect this to be energy costly. Nevertheless, a lab made product is still something that doesn’t need large areas of land to produce.

vxx ,

If you plant more trees, there wouldn’t be enough space for the cows to get milk and make butter.

I guess the calculation always works, even when people apply methods they use to discredit EVs

charade_you_are ,

finally someone did the thing everybody wanted

sunzu ,

And everybody asked for

nandeEbisu ,

I wonder if they can use CO2 that comes from industrial carbon capture, or if it needs to be something purer that takes a lot of energy to produce.

Also, I’m not sure if we can get industrial volumes of hydrogen from sources other than fossil fuels now. Its been a while, but last I checked it was coming from things like byproducts from reformers.

FauxPseudo ,
@FauxPseudo@lemmy.world avatar

It would need to be food grade CO2. So breweries would be a good source.

olafurp ,

Don’t want to be a hater but doesn’t this basically create fat without nutrients? It feels like this is reinventing margarine albeit in a cool way.

disguy_ovahea OP ,

They’re the same fatty acids found in butter. Margarine is hydrogenated oil.

olafurp ,

They’re from the same class yes, but is it also going to contain vitamins A, D, E and K2 or contain fatty acids like Conjugated Linoleic Acid or Butyric acid?

I’m trying to point out that factory produced fats will most likely lose out on the health benefits of butter as a source of fatty acids.

sunzu ,

They will "enrich it" like the do with bread and other highly processed product with non bio digestable supplements for propaganda purposes.

olafurp ,

The article mentions that they added vit A so it gets the yellow color and I’m pretty sure they’re not going to add CLA or other vitamins to be competitive with butter.

Meanwhile there’s a cheap food supplement that you can give cows that reduces methane burping by 90%.

Swedneck ,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

well fat is inherently a nutrient so, no.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Is it as bad for your health as hydrogenated oils?

CoffeeJunkie ,

Even if it is – I’m interested in seeing how it performs. Feed some rats 3-5x the recommended amount, see what happens. Have some long term studies.

If it is the same as what we use, right now, for a lessened cost or environmental impact, that is still worth exploring.

Ephera ,

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 OP ,

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

Tryptaminev ,

Plus the simple effects of land conversion. Plus the emissions from the feces.

CasualPenguin ,

Your comment existing has a carbon footprint, doesn’t mean it should be paired with the dairy industry’s

Ephera ,

Yeah. But since farm animals are often fed from farmed plants these days, animal-based tends to be worse by quite a solid factor. This article puts butter at 4x worse than margarine, for example: forkranger.com/…/is-margarine-a-sustainable-alter…

How plant-based compares to this new process still needs to be seen for sure. If it’s just a machine you can plug in at the store and everyone can get their butter like out of an ice cream machine, without transport and cooling chain, then it’s likely a lot better.
But at this point, I don’t expect the process to be much more efficient than what plants are doing, which means you’d still need a ton of energy and particularly also land area for it.

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

Well you see, animal sources are responsible for 3.7 billion tons and plant sources are responsible for -0.2 billion tons.

LowtierComputer ,

I thought that was funny.

I_Fart_Glitter ,

Computer! Butter! Room temp!

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2283b935-f3ec-48d9-abf9-73bbe5cff074.jpeg

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

https://infosec.pub/pictrs/image/54ad6181-2409-4754-82b9-0d9144166d02.jpeg

amio ,

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.

JayObey711 , (edited )

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.

Muscar ,

Vegan butter has tasted very good, both with their own tastes but also others tasting just like “normal” butter for years now.

fushuan ,

I ate margarine since forever, way before veganism was a thing. It’s just a product that was cheaper than butter and it tasted good.

hperrin ,

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.

RebekahWSD ,
@RebekahWSD@lemmy.world avatar

I want to try non dairy cheeses but they’re all so so bad it makes me sad. And super expensive for being bad!

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

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

revisable677 ,

washingtonpost.com/…/vegan-cheese-good-food-award…

ResoluteCatnap ,

The problem is a lot of store bought vegan cheeses are ok at best. I think violife is probably the best i have been able i buy but it’s still not great.

But, making vegan cheese yourself otoh you can make some really good shit.

ClockworkOtter ,

Cathedral city has a delicious mature cheddar, but otherwise yes I tend to also avoid most vegan cheeses simply because they taste crap. Even if they taste okay, they lack the faintest bit of nutrition; dairy cheese at least has some protein and calcium, but vegan cheeses are usually just fat and salt with nothing of value.

CasualPenguin ,

Un-Brie-lievable is one of the only great vegan cheeses I’ve had (expensive as hell though)

Dozzi92 ,
@Dozzi92@lemmy.world avatar

We get this butter substitute (green lid, can’t remember the name, I’d make a terrible shill) and it is phenomenal and 100% replaced spread butter. Cooking, I still use the regular most of the time though.

GladiusB ,
@GladiusB@lemmy.world avatar

Same. I have dated a few vegans and it’s always the cheese that holds me back.

makuus ,

Ever since I’ve had to go dairy-free due to sudden lactose intolerance, I’ve had to learn the sad world of vegan cheese. And, the thing that I’ve learned is that almost all the makers have this obsession with coconut oil, the smallest amount of which I can taste—giving the cheese an “off” taste—and which gives me heartburn.

Kuma ,
@Kuma@lemmy.world avatar

You should be able to eat cheese that has been matured for 6 months or more for example cheddar, just make sure it actually is matured for that long, cheddar can be sold as 3 to 24 month. I am assuming it is 3 if nothing is specified, younger cheddar is sweeter so I wouldn’t be surprised if most cheddar in your store is that young like those hamburger slices. Everyone except me in the family has lactose intolerance and are very sensitive but can all eat 6+ months matured cheese. Which is great because that was the only kind of cheese we all liked anyways.

lactose sensitivity can be different from person to person so maybe you can eat a younger cheese. Cheese that had a low lactose from the start could be enough for you or just a few weeks maturing. 6 months is just something that has always worked for us without the need to know how much lactose there are.

makuus ,

Appreciate your taking the time to respond. Unfortunately, while I know all this, it doesn’t quite line up with my experience. I’ve seen the difference between an aged cheese like 3-year cheddar and American. But, there’s still a reaction to the cheddar, even if slight. (And, yes, I’ve had the allergy tests…)

So, I’ve found it safest to go with vegan cheese, particularly when the cheese I really want is American (or, at least Gruyère). Unfortunately, I never could get into breakfast sandwiches or burgers with cheddar—the stuff just breaks too easily.

Kuma ,
@Kuma@lemmy.world avatar

That is too bad :( I am also not a fan of the taste of vegan substitute. I love cheese so I really hoped the info could help you. American cheese does not follow the same strict regulations as European (very traditional) so that could be even more tricky. I really hope you will find a substitute that can at least taste good.

hperrin ,

They make pills that you can take that have the enzyme to digest lactose for you. If you eat one before dairy, you shouldn’t have any ill effects.

makuus ,

Appreciate your taking the time to respond. Unfortunately, I’ve got plenty of those, and they’re sadly not a silver bullet… 😞

obinice ,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Asidonhopo ,

French butter like Prèsident is so good, better than Irish butter in my opinion.

AnUnusualRelic ,
@AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world avatar

And that’s considered one of the fairly inferior choices.

Asidonhopo ,

Oh no doubt, I saw it in Walmart though so it was easy to try

fushuan ,

Yeah, being from the northern part of Spain I have tasted plenty French butters, I still prefer margarine. Taste is subjective so it’s better not to have prejudices about food since those prejudices might be from someone with different taste buds.

hperrin ,

Yeah, I have. If you put that and a good vegan butter substitute on toast back to back, I might be able to tell the difference, but if you put them in a dish, I definitely wouldn’t. Yeah, margarine isn’t very good. There are much better substitutes than margarine.

dream_weasel ,

Idk, every vegan butter I’ve ever had (4 different ones now) taste like the crappy diner butter that comes in a little paper boat with the thin paper film over the top. It’s fine I guess, but “butter” is overstating what is really just a barely spreadable, low taste spread.

LordCrom ,

Quote Randy Marsh from South Park, while tasting the impossible burger… “Wow this sucks. People actually eat this?”

_stranger_ ,

They’re not bad, on par or better than most frozen grocery store hamburger patties, and way better than the vast majority of fast food burger meat. No, they’re not better than a hand ground 80% lean sirloin patty, but they could easily replace what McDonald’s uses without their customers batting an eye.

Anticorp ,

I’m disappointed that Impossible Burger is the one available at most restaurants, because the Beyond Burger tastes way better imo.

fushuan ,

There are some decent replacements, I was amazed by the vegan foie from hello plan foods. Almost all the taste without the horrible feeling of guilt.

www.helloplantfoods.com/_foie-gras-plant-based/

For foie specifically, it’s worth to try to find alternatives due to the creation process of the original being so bad that it’s basically banned outside of Spain and France.

kaffiene ,

Yeah I’m a meat eater and I wouldn’t touch foie gras. Fucking horrible

Mango ,

I’m not hungry.

cyborganism ,

So they invented another kind of margarine.

Xtallll ,
@Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

No, they invited another kind of cow.

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Did the cow accept their invitation?

https://media.tenor.com/eD97JdPXgnUAAAAC/teambestb.gif

phdepressed ,

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).

thisbenzingring ,

With Gates, you know it’s going to be priced to be competitive and disruptive to the market.

ganksy ,
@ganksy@lemmy.world avatar

Could be subsidized as a “real” carbon offset. That could make it competitive with other butters. Assuming it’s actually legit.

explore_broaden , (edited )

It wouldn’t offset much, given the upper price for direct air capture here www.iea.org/…/is-carbon-capture-too-expensive at a little under $350/ton, and assuming a pound of ‘butter’ comes entirely from CO2 (some will by hydrogen based on the article, but assuming that’s negligible) that means at most the credit should be 16¢ per pound, which is 3.4% of the average cost of a pound of butter ($4.69, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000FS1101). My cost of butter is below average and it’s still only a 4.5% subsidy.

Edit to add: if you count the CO2 production from obtaining the milk used for real butter against the cost as well (let’s assume the resources for this process and the process of making milk into butter are similar), it seems like producing a pound of butter is emits around 4 kg of CO2, which nets you another $1.4 on each package of butter (if you use the lower number for carbon capture this is a total of $0.6 including the pound of capture from above). This is actually pretty significant, so if there was a tax for greenhouse gas emissions to cover the cost of recapture it would help a product like this be more viable.

Deebster ,
@Deebster@programming.dev avatar

“The big challenge is to drive down the price so that products like Savor’s become affordable to the masses—either the same cost as animal fats or less. Savor has a good chance of success here, because the key steps of their fat-production process already work in other industries,” Gates said.

Sounds like it’s not currently price competitive but it might be in the future. I expect economies of scale would be helpful too.

Ephera ,

Yeah, that’s always the thing with these technological solutions, you practically cannot compete with plants. They involve barely any work, nor machinery, for the output they deliver.

ClockworkOtter ,

As if dairy fat isn’t subsidised already.

phdepressed ,

And? Whether it’s fair or not that is their competition.

SkunkWorkz ,

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

veganpizza69 ,
@veganpizza69@lemmy.world avatar

Looks like saturated fat. Don’t eat it. Queue ketobro pseudoscience.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8345dcea-aa1c-4cc7-83ce-cc2138d0cbff.webp

Multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios of total and cardiometabolic mortality for 1-tablespoon/day increment in cooking oil/fat consumption. Forest plots show the multivariable HRs of total (a) and cardiometabolic (b) mortality associated with 1-tablespoon/day increment in butter, margarine, corn oil, canola oil, and olive oil consumption. HRs were adjusted for age, sex, BMI, race, education, marital status, household income, smoking, alcohol, vigorous physical activity, usual activity at work, perceived health condition, history of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer at baseline, Healthy Eating Index-2015, total energy intake, and consumption of remaining oils where appropriate (butter, margarine, lard, corn oil, canola oil, olive oil, and other vegetable oils). Horizontal lines represent 95% CIs

Cooking oil/fat consumption and deaths from cardiometabolic diseases and other causes: prospective analysis of 521,120 individuals bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/…/1

MonkderDritte ,

There’s so much factors at play here, take the numbers with a grain of salt. Remember the thing with eggs and cholesterol?

yeahiknow3 , (edited )

The “thing” with cholesterol is that the science wasn’t actually wrong! Eating foods laced with cholesterol is indeed unhealthy, as the data showed, which is why everyone incorrectly assumed cholesterol was to blame, until it turned out that the real culprit was saturated fat, which is concentrated in animal products, which also lots of contain cholesterol.

But hey, all those pesky scientific details would require knowing biochemistry and that is just way too inconvenient for the troglodytes who treat food as a religion and are currently downvoting this comment.

veganpizza69 ,
@veganpizza69@lemmy.world avatar

I do remember, yes. Eggs are still bad, high cholesterol levels are still bad, eggs still raise cholesterol levels. TMAO is still bad. Eggs still raise TMAO.

Industry pseudoscience is exceedingly dangerous. What the egg industry studies (and their friends in cheese) do usually is to swap their object of desire with something else that raises cholesterol; or they use people who already have high cholesterol. Most people aren’t aware that there’s a cholesterol plateau which, if already achieved, hides dose effects.

take the numbers with a grain of salt.

oh, and salt is still bad.

Soggy ,

Salt is quite possibly the single most important nutrient we take in. Well, sodium is anyway. Is too much salt bad? Sure. That’s what “too much” means. Too much sun is also bad but a little is required for vitamin D production.

Being so reductive with your claims makes the rest of your argument less compelling.

veganpizza69 ,
@veganpizza69@lemmy.world avatar

Like I said, queue ketobro pseudoscience.

Soggy ,

Sodium-potassium pumps are pseudoscience, got it.

veganpizza69 ,
@veganpizza69@lemmy.world avatar

Humans didn’t exist before salt mining, got it.

Soggy ,

Fine, I’ll bite.

Salt mining is a human invention, though not at all a recent one. Seeking out natural salt deposits to directly consume is essential herbivore behavior because vegetation alone is an insufficient source of key minerals. Adding animal products, especially seafood, to a diet should be sufficient for minimum healthy intake of not just sodium but all trace minerals and vitamins but concentrated supplements are obviously also available and careful meal planning can get it done with just plant products. That is of course a truth for the modern, developed world and not at all indicative of our biological heritage.

The downsides of slight-to-moderate overindulgence of salt, mostly high blood pressure through water retention, can be offset by a more active lifestyle. (Sweat more, hydrate more, flush the excess out.)

And it’s cue. A queue is a waiting line.

veganpizza69 ,
@veganpizza69@lemmy.world avatar

I meant queue, not cue. It’s a pun. It means that ketobros usually have a list of bad arguments, like a playlist. I usually fill my bingo card in 1-2 comments.

though not at all a recent one

go on, how old is it?

The downsides of slight-to-moderate overindulgence of salt, mostly high blood pressure through water retention, can be offset by a more active lifestyle. (Sweat more, hydrate more, flush the excess out.)

The downsides are many more. The hypertension is just the tip of the iceberg. And “sweating it out while working” is a weak excuse, especially irrelevant today.

You’re trying to make it into some huge necessity at a dose you don’t even comprehend, you just assume that it has to be high. We already know that the very processed stuff is bad and it’s usually full of salt. That’s because salt is both a preservative and it makes food hyperpalatable, thus making it more marketable, more tasty, more desirable. That alone should tell you that salt isn’t naturally common. The brain turns up those excitement responses for stuff that is rare: salt, sugar, fat, all in high density. Our tongues are so sensitive to salt intake that we literally adjust our taste.

In terms of natural herbivores, I’ll have to remind you that salt licks don’t grow as formations in grasslands or forests.

Ketobros love to defend salt because salt is very important to them. It’s a preservative, and preserving meat is an old practice. Add salted cheese or butter for extra. And few carnivore/lion diet types eat unsalted raw meat, like… lions.

And then we have these people: www.scielo.br/j/abc/a/8yHr8tMsx5hB6s3sbQZRzKC/?la… (note: these people are being cleansed from the Amazon now by ranchers, feed growers and miners)

Stop trying to make it harder than it looks.

muhyb ,

I know an entire village who eat eggs scrambled in butter everyday and they still live ~80 years.

cmbabul ,

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

atro_city ,

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 ,

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.

Zorg ,
@Zorg@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

According to the savor team, it was quite easy for them:

“We start with a source of carbon, like carbon dioxide, and use a little bit of heat and hydrogen to form chains which are then blended with oxygen from air to make the fats & oils"

I want to guess they are glossing over a complicated enzyme they created, or other form of reagent.

phdepressed ,

Yeah, they’re definitely glossing over a lot of things. They don’t even mention the source of co2 or even a real timeline.

emergencyfood ,

That’s like saying you can build a nuclear bomb by smashing pieces of uranium together. Technically true, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

ValenThyme ,

www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01241-2 article on how to do this

i learned the nazis made butter from coal!

Ephera ,

Something I wondered with this, is that butter/margarine/similar need an emulsifier. They consist of basically 80% fat + 20% water, which would not normally mix, but then you add an emulsifier and they do.

There’s lots of different emulsifiers. In butter, it’s apparently mostly casein. My margarine lists lecithin and glyceride.

And well, looks like glyceride consists out of lots of H, C and O, so I’m guessing that’s probably what they’re using in this process…

disguy_ovahea OP ,

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

Tryptaminev ,

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.

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