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Interviews: Ask the Hampton Creek Team About the Science and Future of Food
samzenpus writes Hampton Creek is a food technology company that makes food healthier by utilizing a specially made egg substitute in food products. The company was selected by Bill Gates to be featured on his website in a story called, The Future of Food, and has raised $30 million in funding. Hampton Creek's latest product is called, Just Cookies, which is an eggless chocolate chip cookie dough, but it is their eggless mayo that has been in the news lately. Unilever, which manufactures Hellmann's and Best Foods mayonnaise, is suing Hampton Creek claiming that the name Just Mayo is misleading to consumers. Named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Brilliant Companies and one of CNBC's Top 50 Disruptors, Hampton Creek has picked up some impressive talent including the former lead data scientist at Google Maps, Dan Zigmond. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Dan and the Hampton Creek team have agreed to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
So, what is your egg substitute made from, and how have you demonstrated it is safe for human consumption?
If the answer is "we can't tell you", or "we assume it is safe" then I can tell you many people won't go anywhere near it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Eggbeaters, is that you?
To really be the "future of food" there's one critical, fundamental hurdle to cross, regardless of economics, marketing, food quality, and business sense:
Net energy.
Making eggs the natural way is requires about 100x the calories in the egg in solar energy to feed the chickens, due to the metabolism of the chickens and plants involved in that process.
If your process can't beat nature, you're never going to save the world with your technology, because you're going to be less efficient than the real thing.
Can you beat nature? Hypothetically? In the future?
What's the status of the "egg beaters" type substitute? What's the nutritional profile - similar to egg? Is it cheaper to produce over normal eggs?
I've been vegan for a while and find scrambled tofu with some spices (especially black salt) to be a tasty substitute.
I think egg's are as healthy that anything can be.
Especially with regards to recent research.
Fake eggs may be cheaper though, and probably taste like shit.
Can anyone here compare the Hampton Creek "Just Mayo" in taste and texture versus Vegenaise?
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The slashdot summary starts with the following statement "Hampton Creek is a food technology company that makes food healthier by utilizing a specially made egg substitute in food products". This statement implies that real eggs are not healthy which is not true. Real eggs, especially those that come from happy flocks of free range hens, are a super health food. Fake egg products are not healthy.
How can you operate a business which is based upon a a false premise?
Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?
Are your other product names as equally misleading?
Eggs are one of the best sources of protein, are natural and can be produced easily in a back yard chicken house. I have also read that most of the rhetoric about eggs being unhealthy has been debunked. Unless you are producing specifically for people with allergies, what's the point of an eggs substitute.
Looking at info on this, it says they've actually never marketed it as "mayonnaise" but instead only as "mayo" ... so they might get by on a technicality on this one.
Also, there is no actual law defining "mayonnaise", just a definition used by the FDA. (Anyone who actually knows care to comment on how binding an FDA definition is to a product line, and if they can change it on the fly to new definitions?)
Hi, I assume you argue that "Mayo" is a different word than "Mayonnaise," so there is no problem marketing "Just Mayo" or "Chipotle Mayo" as a mayonnaise substitute (without the word "substitute" on the front of the label). How would you feel about going to the store and getting some "OJ" that had no juice from oranges? If I read a label that said "Just OJ", I would assume it had only orange juice.
How would you feel about putting an image of eggs and a cross through them or some other way to quickly identify this is eggless mayonnaise substitute, and not mayonnaise?
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
What evidence do you point to when making the case that a plan-based diet is less destructive to the environment compared to eating animals and animal products? The environmental impact of my food choices has been the major factor in switching to a plant-based diet, but I struggle to find concise, creditable data on the impact of my choices, specifically around the amount of energy, water, land, and green house emissions that are saved. Has Hampton Creek done anything to aggregate and present good research in this area? Can you make any specific claims or projections about the environmental impact of using your products?
The European Union has a very specific definition of mayonnaise that includes emulsified oils and eggs, and in the EU, food ingredients in named foods are enforced. Here there is a consumer awareness standard of reasonability in play, or I think that is the case. Would a consumer be fooled into thinking there were eggs here?
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
There's a question I've always wanted to ask one of these food-science guys:
How far are we from being able to mass-produce foodstuffs, growing yeast or simple bacteria in a tank, converting it into a long-shelf-life shelf-stable package, and being able to print it out 3-D printer style to make lunch? Especially for those of us who cannot eat gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, etc.. It seems like the holy grail of food technology. Food replicators, but running with milliliter (or larger) droplet sizes rather than nanoliter droplet sizes to rapidly print & cook food. Kind of like a microwave, with large (replaceable) ink-cartridge-like containers on the side where you just tell it what you want, wait, and boom dinner is created, cooked, & ready to serve.
... should burn in Hell.
http://annals.org/article.aspx... This article is one study in a long line of studies that show that a low (40g/day) carb diet is healthier than a high carb one. how does the future of food keep diets under 40 carbs per day and still supply enough calories? assume 1200 cals for a woman and 2000 for a man. 30 cals/carb and 50 cals/carb respectively
I took notice when I saw the stories about Hellman's suing Hampton Creek. Oh, the irony, when Hellman's had to change their own marketing once they realized that they, themselves, have been using the term "mayo" to describe non-egg-containing spread!
Just Mayo is available in the refrigerated section at Whole Foods, and they have trouble keeping it in stock. It is really that delicious! Last time I took it through the check-out there was a scramble as the employees went to claim a jar once they knew it was back in.
Most shelf-stable "mayo-like" spreads you find on the shelf do not contain any egg. The thing is, it's difficult to make a shelf-stable product that contains eggs! You need to load it up with preservatives. "Real mayonnaise" on the aisle? It's kinda-mayonaise.
Yes, the pendulum has swung-back on eggs. For those (like me) who do NOT have an egg allergy or some other reason to avoid eggs, we should take another look at eggs - I have. I stopped removing half the yolks from omelets, for example. We learn a bit about food, we over-react, we learn a bit more.
Here's the ingredients for Just Mayo. Pretty short list:
- Non-GMO expeller-pressed Canola Oil
- Filtered Water
- Lemon Juice (note that "lemon juice" means "lemon juice" not some reconstituted concentrate, extract, or citric acid...)
- White vinegar
- 2% or less of the following:
- Organic sugar
- Salt
- Pea protein
- Spices
- Modified food starch
- Beta-Carotene
The only thing suspect here is the Pea protein, because I imagine it is a highly-processed ingredient. Hopefully not made in China.
They don't say, but I'd guess the modified food starch is Tapioca Maltodextrin. I have a big bucket of the stuff in my pantry. It's magic stuff.
When I want actual mayonnaise, I make my own actual mayonnaise. It's quick and easy to make up in a food processor, but of course then there's the cleanup. Egg yolk (you can pasteurize if you like easily in a sous-vide' cooker - I don't), salt, lemon juice, olive oil. You can keep it a few days, but best fresh. I wouldn't touch any of that stuff in a jar. Even in the refrigerated section, real mayonnaise is impractical to sell in a supermarket. I would not call anything that Hellman's sells "real mayonnaise", though they are allowed by law to call some of it such.
Unfortunately, most people don't know what real mayonnaise tastes like any more, and if you serve it to others they will say "what is this"? So, screw em' I reserve this for myself.
If I want to make a quick tunafish sandwich - I use Just Mayo. It tastes way better than that shelf-stable stuff from Hellman's
We are ultimately talking about a CONDIMENT here. It should not really matter how "harmful" it is. You shouldn't be eating it in any quantities where this kind of issue would come up.
Although the "harmfulness" of eggs is disputed and seems to vary like Paris fashion seasons.
Of course Vegans are going to shout down anything animal related despite the fact that we are not bovines.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You can eat 2 eggs for breakfast every day of your life and your blood test numbers can still be not just acceptable but enough to get you a discount on your life insurance.
A little self-awareness goes a long way.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The also have a big picture of an EGG on the package.
It's called "Just Mayo". It's not called "Vegan Mayo". They are going out of their way to appear like an artisinal brand of actual mayonnaise rather than some purveyor of shoddy "substitutes".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
| In contrast, I don't have the same issue with "soy milk" or "almond milk" not being some mammal's milk
I don't know why.
Soy "milk" and Almond "milk" aren't milk. At all. They aren't even milk substitutes.
They are marketing terms for some white gunk made from soy or almond that has nothing to do with milk. Not by source, not by nutritional content, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Some people enjoy this white gunk, some people think it's beneficial in some way, and some people who can't drink milk because of allergies or other adverse reactions see it as a godsend.
But it is not milk, which is a natural, minimally-processed product that comes from mammals. Soy or Almond "milk" is a product manufactured from natural ingrediants.
Mayonnaise, on the other hand, is a manufactured product. One might argue about it's composition.
I agree.
But you can't put egg yolks in a jar and put it on a shelf for months without refrigeration.
Not without preservatives and/or by using some processed "egg product" instead of whole, fresh, egg yolks. You'll never catch Hellman's saying they use whole, fresh, egg yolks, because it's impossible to make their products with them.
Your product offers no benefit in calorie intake compared to regular mayo and none of the nutritional benefits of mayo made with eggs. Eggs are one of the most nutritionally sound food items I can buy. As a component in other foods, they're low calorie, high protein, and chock full of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids addition. Just Mayo is also more expensive than real mayo. So tell me, why should I buy your product?
"Hampton Creek is a food technology company that makes food healthier by utilizing a specially made egg substitute in food products."
Why would an egg be unhealthy? Leaving anecdotical and not-so-anecdotical data aside, that little shell arguably contains every nutrient needed to turn a single cell into a full blown and healthy chick.
"Hampton Creek's latest product is called, Just Cookies, which is an eggless chocolate chip cookie dough"
Sounds like something sugary... That would be healthy?
Are your products available outside of the U.S.A.? Do you have any Canadian distributors/resellers?
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Eggs contain whatever antibiotics and hormones they feed the chickens plus the superbugs that survive the antibiotics.
The egg industry has funded a few studies which purport to show that eggs are healthy. I'd be very skeptical of these results.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Eggs are one of the most perfect foods. Eggs are something anyone can produce in their own home with a chicken, or better yet, in their yard. Feed it scraps and you get free eggs. We keep about 300 chickens out on pasture. We don't have to buy any feed for them because they eat insects and other pests. The result is we get tens of thousands of nearly free eggs which are rich in protein, healthy fats and other nutrients. Corporations can't improve on eggs - they're just jealous because they can't make enough money on eggs. Accept no substitutes.
But you can't put egg yolks in a jar and put it on a shelf for months without refrigeration.
What? Who told you that?
Not without preservatives and/or by using some processed "egg product" instead of whole, fresh, egg yolks.
The citric acid in the lemon juice is sufficient once you've pasteurized the eggs. What it won't do is keep for years, which is why Hellman's mayo contains Disodium EDTA.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Besides human health, why might we want to consider eliminating superfluous eggs from mayo and other foods? How much land is consumed by livestock in the US and globally? To satisfy the 'back yard' and 'free range' crowd, how much MORE space would be needed in order to supply the world's demand for eggs in these flavours? What sort of demand on resources do eggs and animal products consume, especially in comparison to plant foods? What is their estimated contribution to climate change? Can you compare the resource consumption of a jar of Just Mayo and Hellmann's Mayonnaise? (How much energy consumed, space usage, emissions, etc..) Same with your egg replacement, and equivalent amount of eggs?
Full disclosure - i'm already well aware of these things, and would implore readers interested in these matters to check out a blog post i wrote covering how much land livestock already consume...you will very likely be surprised: http://blog.thevictoriavegan.com/2014/10/humane-meat-its-not-humane-for-nature.html
Do you still believe the 1945 science that says eating cholesterol will cause you to have high cholesterol? Have you reviewed any papers since that time? Science has improved, please consider doing the same. Eat a delicious egg while you think about it.
Cookies with sugar in them? Yeah, that's healthy! Why not make an 'all natural' cola drink while you're at it and load it with 'all natural' sugar? Learn about xylitol for a healthier alternative. But, even better, stop promoting an already dangerous addiction to sweets.
It appears from your ingredient list that there is no flour in your cookies; "chocolate chip | sugar | oatmeal raisin | peanut butter" - can that be true? Flour can be as deadly as sugar and there is no healthy way to consume either for most people.
...omphaloskepsis often...