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Interviews: The Hampton Creek Team Answers Your Questions
A few days ago you had a chance to ask the people at Hampton Creek about about their products and the science of food. Below you'll find the answers to your questions from a number of Hampton Creek employees.
Scrambled egg?
by Anonymous Coward
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.
Hampton Creek: We’re working on it! Just Scramble (the world’s first scrambled egg made from a plant) will hopefully be available to consumers by next summer.
Plant based evidence for environmental benefits
by Anonymous Coward
What evidence do you point to when making the case that a plant-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?
Hampton Creek: We've done the math on this one! For every 30oz jar of Just Mayo you use, in comparison with Hellmann's, you save 278 qts of water, 4.3 sq ft of land, and 157 g of carbon emissions. For Just Cookies, we've even created a cookie calculator to measure the environmental impact! Check out justcookies for more info.
3D printing, food allergies, and shelf life...
by Anonymous Coward
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.
Gosia Malgorzata, PhD: Even though it sounds like science fiction, there are prototypes to make food replicators. This one is limited to sugar containing food but in few years who knows.
high carb vrs low carb
by layabout
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.
Hampton Creek: We’re not focusing on the strict nutritional details at this time. Our mission is really to make it easier for regular folks to eat better. And better has to start somewhere, so even if it is a little healthier, (eg no cholesterol in your mayo) that is a start.
Here's a question
by ArcadeMan
Are your products available outside of the U.S.A.? Do you have any Canadian distributors/resellers?
Hampton Creek: Right now we’re national in various US chains, in Hong Kong’s GREAT stores, and will be in Metro locations in Canada by the end of the year, as well as in Tesco locations next February.
Disrupting the global egg industry
by Anonymous Coward
Why is "[your] research is particularly focused on disrupting the global egg industry"? Thanks for doing the interview.
Hampton Creek: Our research is primarily focused on finding ways of utilizing plants to improve food. It just so happens that one aspect of food we have focused on is the industrial chicken egg. And that is for a number of reasons: they’re not very sustainable, they’re not especially safe, they’re a huge allergen (33M Americans alone), they’re not humane, and they’re rising in cost.
Research and the daily grind
by Anonymous Coward
Could everyone describe how your day-to-day work and goals are? Answers from the R&D people would be especially appreciated.
Carla Li-Carillo, Research Scientist: Our goals are to identify and understand the world of plants. Given that there are about 5 million plants, we have a long way to go.
I work on our high throughput screening, which is highly miniaturized and effective. On a typical day I will either prepare the plants or I will screen our samples through our many assays for molecular characterization or functional properties. As things calm down at the end of the day, I will either analyze the day’s data, or read scientific papers to better understand our results or to continue developing more assays.
Frustrated with lack of scientific understanding?
by Anonymous Coward
As scientists, are you ever frustrated with lack of scientific understanding of the public?I'm a molecular biologist and am always frustrated with the negative perception of science as artificial/sterile/zombie-apocalypse-inducing/playing god in the public's eyes. Do you have any reservations about marketing towards this anti-GMO, "All natural flavor, nothing artificial" demographic in a way that caters to their anti-science perception?
Gosia Malgorzata, PhD: Well, on this one Our policy is to use what the world of plants has to offer, discover and use its natural potential to create nutritional food. We do not engineer the protein, synthesize and etc. so if you ask me I’m not frustrated :-)
Eggs = Good
by unixcorn
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.
Hampton Creek: As previously stated, it’s not about eggs for us, it’s about using plants to make food better. Yes, we are using them for eggs in a few products right now, but we’re looking at other things in food, too, like sugar, and even food dyes. And why eggs? They’re not very sustainable, they’re not especially safe, they’re a huge allergen (33M Americans alone), they’re not humane, and they’re rising in cost.
Why would I buy your product?
by future sheep
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: I’m sorry, what are the nutritional benefits of mayonnaises made with eggs? Also, most eggs don’t come from very good places. Yes, some come from nice, free range farms. But the reality is that most come from dirty, filthy, factory farmed facilities, that are bad for the environment, bad for our health (not just nutritionally speaking, but spread disease and allergens), and inhumane, too. And at most places, it isn’t more expensive.
by Anonymous Coward
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.
Hampton Creek: We’re working on it! Just Scramble (the world’s first scrambled egg made from a plant) will hopefully be available to consumers by next summer.
Plant based evidence for environmental benefits
by Anonymous Coward
What evidence do you point to when making the case that a plant-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?
Hampton Creek: We've done the math on this one! For every 30oz jar of Just Mayo you use, in comparison with Hellmann's, you save 278 qts of water, 4.3 sq ft of land, and 157 g of carbon emissions. For Just Cookies, we've even created a cookie calculator to measure the environmental impact! Check out justcookies for more info.
3D printing, food allergies, and shelf life...
by Anonymous Coward
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.
Gosia Malgorzata, PhD: Even though it sounds like science fiction, there are prototypes to make food replicators. This one is limited to sugar containing food but in few years who knows.
high carb vrs low carb
by layabout
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.
Hampton Creek: We’re not focusing on the strict nutritional details at this time. Our mission is really to make it easier for regular folks to eat better. And better has to start somewhere, so even if it is a little healthier, (eg no cholesterol in your mayo) that is a start.
Here's a question
by ArcadeMan
Are your products available outside of the U.S.A.? Do you have any Canadian distributors/resellers?
Hampton Creek: Right now we’re national in various US chains, in Hong Kong’s GREAT stores, and will be in Metro locations in Canada by the end of the year, as well as in Tesco locations next February.
Disrupting the global egg industry
by Anonymous Coward
Why is "[your] research is particularly focused on disrupting the global egg industry"? Thanks for doing the interview.
Hampton Creek: Our research is primarily focused on finding ways of utilizing plants to improve food. It just so happens that one aspect of food we have focused on is the industrial chicken egg. And that is for a number of reasons: they’re not very sustainable, they’re not especially safe, they’re a huge allergen (33M Americans alone), they’re not humane, and they’re rising in cost.
Research and the daily grind
by Anonymous Coward
Could everyone describe how your day-to-day work and goals are? Answers from the R&D people would be especially appreciated.
Carla Li-Carillo, Research Scientist: Our goals are to identify and understand the world of plants. Given that there are about 5 million plants, we have a long way to go.
I work on our high throughput screening, which is highly miniaturized and effective. On a typical day I will either prepare the plants or I will screen our samples through our many assays for molecular characterization or functional properties. As things calm down at the end of the day, I will either analyze the day’s data, or read scientific papers to better understand our results or to continue developing more assays.
Frustrated with lack of scientific understanding?
by Anonymous Coward
As scientists, are you ever frustrated with lack of scientific understanding of the public?I'm a molecular biologist and am always frustrated with the negative perception of science as artificial/sterile/zombie-apocalypse-inducing/playing god in the public's eyes. Do you have any reservations about marketing towards this anti-GMO, "All natural flavor, nothing artificial" demographic in a way that caters to their anti-science perception?
Gosia Malgorzata, PhD: Well, on this one Our policy is to use what the world of plants has to offer, discover and use its natural potential to create nutritional food. We do not engineer the protein, synthesize and etc. so if you ask me I’m not frustrated :-)
Eggs = Good
by unixcorn
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.
Hampton Creek: As previously stated, it’s not about eggs for us, it’s about using plants to make food better. Yes, we are using them for eggs in a few products right now, but we’re looking at other things in food, too, like sugar, and even food dyes. And why eggs? They’re not very sustainable, they’re not especially safe, they’re a huge allergen (33M Americans alone), they’re not humane, and they’re rising in cost.
Why would I buy your product?
by future sheep
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: I’m sorry, what are the nutritional benefits of mayonnaises made with eggs? Also, most eggs don’t come from very good places. Yes, some come from nice, free range farms. But the reality is that most come from dirty, filthy, factory farmed facilities, that are bad for the environment, bad for our health (not just nutritionally speaking, but spread disease and allergens), and inhumane, too. And at most places, it isn’t more expensive.
so even if it is a little healthier, (eg no cholesterol in your mayo) that is a start.
So, is mayo without cholesterol actually healthier? Since we now know that eating cholesterol has little effect on your cholesterol levels, this seems a specious claim.
And why eggs? Theyâ(TM)re not very sustainable,
Eggs are not inherently sustainable or unsustainable. They could be raising these chickens on some kind of bugs, maybe you could find some that will eat algae. Instead they're raising them on unsustainable feed crops. That is a problem. Many of our means of food production should change substantially if we hope for them to be sustainable. That's not an indictment against eggs, though.
theyâ(TM)re not especially safe
Well, unless you cook them. Pasteurizing counts.
Iâ(TM)m sorry, what are the nutritional benefits of mayonnaises made with eggs?
The same as the nutritional benefits of eggs themselves. They're made of a readily digestible protein.
I care about food a lot (you can tell if you've seen pictures of me) and the eggs in mayo are the absolute last of my worries. It's the oil, which is usually some GMO crap (which means it's been absolutely hosed down with chemicals) and then the oil is processed with hexane, not all of which is successfully removed from the final product. That's a way bigger concern than the eggs could ever be for anyone who is not allergic to them, and who has not invented a moral quandary over whether they should eat eggs like every other omnivore on the planet, including birds. You can bet your ass that if we laid eggs, chickens would eat them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hellman's has lower carbohydrates.
0g per serving vs. 1g per serving. Margin of error stuff, and dwarfed by the bread you're probably spreading it on.
constant vitriol...extreme hatred...tirades...insulting manner
You appear to view the world through a private perspective.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Moving almost entirely to plant-based food is the only way to substantially improve the environmental impact of our food production, and it's urgent for us to do.
Hampton Creek's mission is an important part of that. It's just unfortunate that they seem to some extent to have bought into the anti-science, environmentally counterproductive attitudes of the Whole Foods crowds.
Unfortunately, one side effect of a plant-based diet will be an increase in the rate of diabetes. Older studies associated fat with diabetes Because that's what they were looking for the time. This was driven by the heart health studies such as the Framingham study which we are now finding was also flawed with regards to cholesterol and cardiac health. The current generation of studies are now looking at carbohydrate consumption and there's a much stronger association showing carbohydrate intake driving cardiac and diabetes risk. For a fun research read, look up glycated LDL
The primary signal seems to be spiky blood sugar levels which produce insulin resistance and, the start of diabetic neuropathy (if the BG level rises above 140 mg/dL). Doesn't matter if the carbohydrate is net, fast or slow, it's the absolute amount that matters. You can test this on yourself with a blood glucose meter. Many diabetics have reported that they get the same BG rise from a can of soda or the same number of carbohydrates in the form of whole-grain foods.
If you want to reduce your risk of diabetes follow this rule of thumb evolving from current experience. Limit yourself to no more than 40 g of carbohydrates in the meal or 120 g per day. No more big bowls of pasta, whole bagels, muffins. This also leaves out large quantities of lentils, beans, rice or any other starch used to make up the calorie difference between green vegetables and what you need for your daily caloric requirements.
Try it, run the science project. Figure out how many calories you should have, limit yourself to 40 g of the meal and figure out what you can eat to meet both the calorie requirement and carbohydrate limit. If you want to make it more of a project, by a blood glucose meter and measure your BG every 20 minutes for three hours after a meal.