What Do You Get When You Cross a Soybean with a Pig?

…the next frankenfood, coming to a store near you! Action Alert!

THE TOPLINE

• A new genetically engineered (GE) food is on the way; this time, it’s a soybean that produces pork proteins.
• Proponents are trotting out the same old arguments, saying that this product will help us combat climate change—even though many fake foods like this are not as environmentally friendly as they’re made out to be.
• This is another reason we have to fight the idea that fake foods can be biologically equivalent to their natural counterparts.

Moolec Science recently received a USDA approval to grow its GE soybean, Piggy Sooy. The GE bean contains up to 26.6 percent pork protein, and the company is now working with the FDA to gain approval for their product as a food as they move towards making the GE soybean commercially available.

In the press release announcing the approval, the company’s CEO states, “We are unlocking the power of plants by leveraging science to overcome climate change and global food security concerns.”

As we’ve reported before, this is a familiar refrain among the proselytizers of fake food, likely in an attempt to get us to forget that what we’re eating are frankenfoods that have not been adequately tested for safety. But the argument that lab-grown foods are better for the environment is dubious at best. Usually, these claims are based on a determination of which foods deliver the most protein for the least C02, but products like the Impossible Burger are based on ingredients that are fossil-fuel intensive monocultures and heavily processed, all of which negatively impact human health and the environment.