Ómós Digest #36: Cow Free Dairy?
Is synthetic biology the answer to a more delicious and equitable future?
I’m a dairy nut. Of all kinds. I simply adore milk. I marvel at its structural capabilities and sprawling portfolio of cultures and byproducts: butter, cream, yoghurt and above all else, cheese. Although there is nothing that the Irish hate more than someone doing too-well, we revel when our industries excel and take great pride when one built on a family farm tradition like cheese stands up in global comparison! In fact, a recognised expert in cheese (aren’t we all) recently told me that the reason we developed such an acute ability to make cheese here in Ireland - much like whiskey (with an ‘e’) - is a story of cunning deception and crafty tax evasion, but that story is for another day. Today we tackle the looming and somewhat perplexing idea that the dairy we love might soon come from a lab and not the udder of a grass-fed bovine. What’s even more perplexing than anything is that this might be a good thing!
I laugh to myself that a trip to Sheridan’s Cheesemongers on South Anne St or visiting a dairy farm in the countryside can be classified as work. While it’s not considered what many call a “real job” (mind you with real salaries), I take no guilt when on a Thursday morning, my most climactic work decision involves choosing between Templegall or Cáis na Tíre. Subsequently, when I first heard about synthetic biology (SynBio) and that the future of milk may no longer lie in “the hands” of the cow (or the milking of any other livestock for that matter), I intuitively, if not rather selfishly, wondered what this meant for the future of cheese?
“how can we feed the world of the future in a more delicious, regenerative, equitable and ecological way?”