Making Meat From Plants at Impossible Foods (Dr. Sue Klapholz)

Get Real Health with Dr. Chana Davis

Learn about making meat from plants from Dr. Sue Klapholz, VP of Nutrition & Health at Impossible Foods. Impossible makes plant-based foods designed to replace animal meat, including the shockingly realistic Impossible Burger. Dr. Klapholz has had a diverse career as a doctor, scientist, teacher, editor and writer. In this conversation she shares the inside scoop on:

- How Impossible Foods creates "meat" from plants
- Similarities and differences between proteins from plants and animals
- How protein quality is measured
- Why and how food manufacturers use microbes to produce ingredients
- Why the word "processed" need not be a dirty word
- The impacts of animal agriculture on the planet

Disclosure: I have a personal connection - but no financial connection - to Impossible Foods. I did my PhD in genetics at Stanford in the lab of Impossible's founder, Dr. Pat Brown. The company was launched in 2011, five years after I graduated. I'm grateful to know both Pat Brown and Sue Klapholz personally.

Links: Bio for Dr. Sue Klapholz Impossible Foods blog on Medium Studies: Safety Evaluation of Soy Leghemoglobin Protein Preparation Derived From Pichia pastoris, Intended for Use as a Flavor Catalyst in Plant-Based Meat https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29642729/ Assessment of the potential allergenicity and toxicity of Pichia proteins in a novel leghemoglobin preparation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33171209/ A metabolomics comparison of plant-based meat and grass-fed meat indicates large nutritional differences despite comparable Nutrition Facts panels https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34226581/ Perspective: The Public Health Case for Modernizing the Definition of Protein Quality https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31066877/ Dietary protein quality evaluation in human nutrition https://www.fao.org/ag/humannutrition/35978-02317b979a686a57aa4593304ffc17f06.pdf