In the Future, Your Food Will Be Sweetened With Protein
How a network of startups and scientists are moving to use cutting-edge tech to fight the obesity epidemic
When we wonder what our lives will be like in the future — if we’ll be playing tennis against robots, say, or wearing self-driving jetpacks to commute — chances are few of us are imagining that we’re going to be any skinnier. Almost 40 percent of Americans are now obese, with more than 35 percent of people in seven states being chronically overweight. To put this in context: In 1985, no state had an adult obesity rate higher than 15 percent. Globally, the World Health Organization says obesity has almost tripled since 1975.
Yet one pioneering Israeli startup believes that this tide could easily be reversed. In a modest lab located in a Tel Aviv suburb, scientists at food tech outfit Amai Proteins are creating protein molecules out of a rare tropical plant that can taste thousands of times sweeter than sugar. The company claims that by fermenting these proteins in microorganisms, such as yeast, it can produce a brand-new sugar substitute without the side effects of existing alternative sweeteners, some of which have been shown to be carcinogenic or cause weight gain.
