Israel’s Innovators in the Alternative Protein Industry, Part 2 of 2

Today, we will continue to explore the current innovations in alternative plant protein by showcasing several Israeli entrepreneurs making huge advancements in this field, as well as discuss the unsustainability of lab-grown animal-people meat.

Our third plant-based Israeli entrepreneur to be featured is Dr. Ascher Shmulewitz, the founder of InnovoPro, which holds the patent and technology to extract protein from chickpeas, the superfood legume of the vegan community. InnovoPro is a Shining World Protection Award recipient and in January 2019, our Beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) humbly offered the company US$10,000 as a token of loving support.

The fourth plant-based Israeli entrepreneur is the “wonder women” team from Hebrew University, Dr. Jasmin Ravid, Dr. Daria Feldman, and Hadar Shohat, who co-founded Kinoko- Tech by combining their backgrounds in nutritional sciences, microbiology, and food technology. They have developed a zero-waste method for growing complete vegan protein with nutritional value comparable to its animal-people counterpart.

Our next entrepreneur is Ofek Ron (Vegan), co-founder & CEO of Plantish, an Israeli food tech startup company, who organized a team to engineer plant-based salmon fillets to ease their exploitation and suffering in the world’s oceans.

Another form of alternative meat currently being developed in Israel and other parts of the world is lab-grown meat, also called “clean meat,” because its production process is enclosed, under control, and free of contamination from pathogens. As such, lab-grown meat is being heavily promoted, with some even going so far as to call it “the future of meat,” but is this realistic? Dr. Richard Oppenlander vegan), sustainability consultant, environmental researcher, and author, commented on the subject in a recent lecture. “For instance, they still use fetal bovine serum for the medium – that’s blood from a dead calf. There’s one potential health concern that stands out to me too – it’s the cancer potential. Cancer-promoting properties of cells that proliferate exponentially in the laboratory. The only people who think this is better meat are those who are blinded by producing it or eating it.”

While innovative alternative protein products are created to simulate the taste and texture of animal-people meats, Dr. Richard Oppenlander suggests that only plant-based proteins are the better choice when it comes to offering an alternative.