Nutritional dark matter' in Bored Cow's synbio milk - 92 unknown compounds

Caryn Lipson

April 15, 2024

Faux milk gaining ground

The synbio (synthetic biology) industry is developing synthetic animal proteins including lab-grown meat and synbio milk. In its coverage of synbio milk, Frontline News referred to a review by Su-Jit Lin of the HuffPost about Bored Cow, a company selling its synbio milk as "The first milk alternative to do it all."

“All,” in this sense, means animal-free, vegan-friendly, nutritionally equivalent to milk, and useful in foods, cooking, and baking in the same ways as real milk, as Frontline News reported:

Lin reported Ben Berman, co-founder, and CEO of Bored Cow, made, stating that Bored Cow was created to “replicate the taste, texture, nutrition and functionality of conventional dairy milk” and has a nutrition panel nearly identical, if not better than the generic milk he had in his fridge.

Several other companies, as Frontline News highlighted, were also producing faux milk and cheese products, making the same claims as Bored Cow, that their products are good for animals, people, and the environment.

Reason to doubt

Frontline News has previously reported on claims by manufacturers of lab-grown meat which didn't hold up. Similarly, claims by proponents of EV cars turned out to be dubious. It was, therefore, natural to wonder about the veracity of claims made by synbio milk manufacturers.

Considering the magnitude of the synbio dairy industry, it is important to ask if the claims made by Bored Cow and other synbio dairy manufacturers are accurate.

That is the topic of this article.

What could possibly go wrong?

Despite Lin's enthusiastic report, there are many problems associated with synbio milk.

Specious claims

Faux milk is promoted as being the same as real milk since the “precision fermentation” process used is based on a yeast genetically modified to produce whey protein, as explained by the Alliance for Natural Health:

Bored Cow is made with whey protein produced through a process called “precision fermentation,” a form of synbio. This involves taking a gene for whey protein and inserting it into a GE yeast. The yeast is put into fermentation tanks with other nutrients to help it grow. At the end the GE yeast is supposed to be filtered out, leaving only the milk protein. Bored Cow takes this protein and adds vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients to mimic the taste, consistency, and nutritional content of real cow’s milk.

As Lin reported, Ben Berman, co-founder, and CEO of Bored Cow, boasted that his company's synthetic milk is as good as cow's milk. Berman said that Bored Cow has a nutrition panel nearly identical, if not better, than the generic milk he had in his fridge.

However, as ANH explained, it is not likely that synbio milk is equivalent to real milk, because of the complexity of real milk. Cow's milk is more than just the vitamins listed on the nutrition panel.

[It is not] very likely that Bored Cow is nutritionally equivalent to real milk. Just as meat is more than just protein, milk is far more than a simple combination of whey and various vitamins and minerals. Milkfat contains 400 different fatty acids. Milk has two types of proteins, whey and casein—and there are several different types of these two proteins contained in milk, and a whole bundle of other compounds like lactoferrin and bioactive peptides that help prime the immune system.

Nutritional dark matter - 92 unknown compounds

When the Iowa-based Health Research Institute (HRI) tested Bored Cow's faux milk using full-spectrum molecular analysis technology, they discovered 92 compounds that are yet to be identified, and the presence of which are not noted on the nutritional panel. As Ken Rosenboro, editor for the Organic and Non-GMO Report wrote, HRI's chief science officer John Fagan was concerned that they could not identify those compounds.

Calling them completely novel to our food,” he says. “They are things that we haven’t consumed as human beings.”

Fagan scanned scientific literature and databases to determine whether the molecules had nutritional or other beneficial properties and found nothing.

“I couldn’t even find the scientific name for the vast majority of the molecules present in the Bored Cow product. They are nutritional dark matter,” Fagan says.

Fagan speculated that the unknown molecules could either be nutrients or waste products created during the fermentation process, stating that if they are waste products you wouldn't “necessarily want them in your food.”

GMO without the designation

Rosenboro noted that Bored Cow and Perfect Day, the company that manufactures the whey protein Bored Cow uses, avoid using the term genetically engineered to describe the yeast used in the production of the whey protein, preferring “microflora” instead.

Bored Cow and Perfect Day use the term “microflora” to avoid using “genetically engineered” or “GMO.”

Not cow protein

As if the 92 unidentifiable compounds were not enough of a problem, HRI also found that the fake milk's protein, assumed to be cow protein, was mostly from the GMO yeast and not the milk protein.

Perfect Day and Bored Cow both claim the milk protein is identical to the protein in cow’s milk but HRI’s tests found that the protein in Bored Cow’s milk was mostly from the GMO yeast and not the milk protein.

The amino acids in the product were also different from those in real milk.

“The amino acid composition of the protein that’s present in the Bored Cow milk is strikingly different from the amino acid composition of real milk,” Fagan says. “We have data that shows this is the case.”

Have some GMO DNA with your Bored Cow

Fagan said that the GMO-derived microflora or yeast, which was supposed to have been removed during fermentation, was still found in the final product, Rosenboro also reported:

“The (genetically engineered) DNA in these products is broken up or fragmented but is certainly still there,” Fagan says.

Further he says tests are being developed to detect the GMO DNA in synthetic biology products like Bored Cow.

GMO DNA in synbio products would have to be labeled as such under the bioengineered food disclosure law.

“The reality is that all that’s required is to do a little bit of molecular biology and a GMO test can be developed for synbio products,” says Fagan who pioneered creating laboratory tests for GMO corn and soybeans when they were first commercialized in the late 1990s.

The presence of GMO DNA in Bored Cow and other synbio products would mean that they would have to be labeled under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure law. Right now, such products don’t require labeling.

No safety assessments

Rosenboro explained that the FDA does not require safety assessments for synbio milk. That milk, however, with its 92 unknown compounds, would have to undergo testing in Europe and Canada as a novel food.

ANH elaborated on the lack of safety assessment, explaining that Perfect Day, the manufacturer of the synbio whey protein used by Bored Cow, like some food manufacturers, claimed on its own that its product was GRAS (generally recognized as safe), utilizing the FDA's expedited process of GRAS self-affirmation which does not require FDA review.

The FDA must be on top of this, right? Wrong. Bored Cow has not undergone safety testing at the FDA. Perfect Day, the manufacturer of the synbio whey protein, determined it was “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) and voluntarily notified the FDA of this determination; in response the FDA said it had no questions. Given how rife the GRAS process is with conflicts of interest, this is akin to taking the company’s word for it that its novel synbio whey protein is safe.

Climate-friendly? Not so fast

Rosenboro referred to an article in Forbes by Errol Schweizer, partner of food and agriculture at Impakt, IQ, who questioned the claim that synbio is sustainable and climate-friendly. He wanted to know how the waste material would be disposed of; the amount of energy and resources used as compared to animal-based products; and the use of high-fructose corn syrup to feed the yeast as corn production is energy intensive and polluting.

Biology doesn't work like a computer program

Synbio products are being likened to a computer program so all that needs to be done is to program the DNA like a computer, a flawed assumption according to Fagan. The analogy doesn't hold water, he says, since even yeast is infinitely more complicated than computer programs.

An article in FoodNavigator USA even describes GMO yeasts being “programmed” to produce proteins. The problem is that the internal functioning of even the simplest organisms like a yeast is vastly more complex than computer programs.

“It is a hollow analogy because it implies that you have the same kind of precise control in synthetic biology that you have programming a computer. It’s much more complex,” Fagan says. “Here we have an example of 92 unpredicted compounds being produced, and only a trace of the whey protein that you really want. It’s nothing like precision.”

In the tweet below, Millions Against Monsanto links to a lecture by John Fagan about precision fermentation.

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