油滋滋——而且对地球有益 | 盖茨笔记

芝士汉堡是我最喜欢的食物。但考虑到对环境的影响，我却又希望它们不是我的最爱。我曾尝试过最好的肉类和乳制品替代品，虽然其中有些吃起来不错，但目前市面上没有任何一种能完全骗过汉堡爱好者。即使味道很接近，但还是少了点什么：那种难以复制的油滋滋、嘶嘶作响的声音可以将我理想中的三明治凝聚在一起，使其变得如此美味。

动物脂肪是这其中的秘密成分。正是它赋予了许多食物丰腴、多汁、易融、独特的“口感”和整体风味。它也是黄油与人造黄油、乳制品冰淇淋与植物基冷冻甜品、美味汉堡与大豆或豌豆蛋白汉堡的区别所在。不幸的是，它也是气候的灾难。全球每年排放510亿吨温室气体——而动植物脂肪和油的生产占了其中的7%。为了应对气候变化，我们需要将这个数字减至零。

我们的计划不能只寄希望于人们放弃他们渴望的食物。毕竟，人类渴求动物脂肪是有原因的——因为它们是营养最丰富、热量最高的宏量营养素——就像我们渴求糖分以获得即时能量一样。我们需要的是生成与动物产品中相同的脂肪分子的新方法，但不能产生温室气体排放、不导致动物受苦，也不使用危险的化学物质。并且每个人都能买得起的。

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这听起来可能像是痴人说梦，但一家名为Savor的公司（我对其进行了投资）正在做这件事。他们从“所有脂肪都是由不同的碳原子链和氢原子链组成的”这一事实出发，然后，他们开始着手制造相同的碳链和氢链——不涉及动物或植物。他们最终开发出一种工艺，即从空气中提取二氧化碳，再从水中提取氢气，然后将它们加热并氧化，从而引发脂肪酸的分离，进而形成脂肪。最终我们得到了真实的脂肪分子，就像我们从牛奶、奶酪、牛肉和植物油中获取的那样。这个过程不会释放任何温室气体，不使用任何耕地，用水量也不到传统农业的千分之一。最重要的是，它的味道非常好——因为从化学成分上来说，它就是真正的脂肪。

我品尝过Savor的产品，简直不敢相信我吃的不是真正的黄油（汉堡也差不多）。现在最大的挑战是降低价格，让大众都能买得起像Savor这样的产品——要么与动物脂肪的成本相同，要么更低。Savor有很大的成功机会，因为他们生产脂肪的关键步骤已经在其它行业得到应用。

关注动物脂肪之所以是当务之急，是因为它们对气候有着巨大的影响，而且在许多人喜爱的食品中扮演着重要角色。但即使我们能在一夜之间消除所有动物脂肪生产过程中产生的排放，我们仍然面临着挑战：即使是某些植物油脂也可能对气候变化带来问题。罪魁祸首就是棕榈油。

如今，棕榈油是世界上消费最广泛的植物性脂肪。一半的包装商品中都含有它——从花生酱、饼干、方便面、咖啡奶精、速冻食品到化妆品、沐浴露、牙膏、洗衣粉，再到除臭剂、蜡烛、猫粮、婴儿配方奶粉等等。它甚至被用作柴油发动机的生物燃料。

棕榈油的问题并不一定在于我们如何使用它，而在于我们如何获取它。这是因为油棕，一种原产于中非和西非的棕榈树品种，并不能到处生长。实际上恰恰相反——油棕只有在赤道附近五到十度的范围内才能生长得很好。这导致了世界各地赤道地区的热带雨林遭到刀耕火种式的砍伐，然后被改造成油棕种植园。

这一过程对生物多样性极为不利，使整个生态系统面临风险。对于气候变化来说，这也是双重打击：焚烧森林所涉及的燃烧过程会向大气排放成吨的温室气体，随着森林所在的湿地被破坏，这些湿地储存的碳也会被释放。2018年，仅在马来西亚和印度尼西亚的破坏就足以占全球排放量的1.4%——超过了整个加利福尼亚州的排放量，几乎与全球航空业的排放量相当。

遗憾的是，棕榈油很难被替代。它便宜、无味且供应充足。大多数植物油在室温下是液态的，而棕榈油是半固态的，质地顺滑，易于涂抹。由于它是一种天然防腐剂，因此具有极长的保质期（实际上它还可以提高冰淇淋的熔点）。它也是唯一一种饱和脂肪和不饱和脂肪几乎等量平衡的植物油，因此用途非常广泛。如果说动物脂肪是某些膳食中的超级明星，那么棕榈油就是能使几乎所有食物和非食用品变得更好的团队伙伴。

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正因如此，像C16生物科学（C16 Biosciences）这样的公司正在努力开发棕榈油的替代品。自2017年以来，C16（我对其进行了投资）一直在利用一种不产生任何排放的发酵工艺，开发一种来自野生酵母菌的产品。虽然它与传统棕榈油的化学成分不同，但C16的油含有相同的脂肪酸，这意味着它可以用于相同的用途。而且它和棕榈油一样“天然”——只是生长在真菌而不是树木上。与Savor一样，C16的生产过程完全不涉及农业；它的“农场”是位于曼哈顿中心城区的一个实验室。

该公司的消费品牌去年推出了其首款产品。公司计划推出更多自有产品，并与现有品牌合作——首先是在美容和个人护理领域，然后是在食品领域——以替代他们目前使用的棕榈油。因为发酵是一个相对便宜、可扩展且快速的过程，特别是与刀耕火种的森林砍伐相比，我打赌C16一定会成功。

我也希望他们能成功。一开始，改用实验室制造油脂的想法可能看起来有些奇怪，但它们大幅减少碳足迹的潜力是巨大的。通过利用成熟的技术和工艺，我们离实现气候目标又近了一步。

Cheeseburgers are my favorite food. But I wish they weren’t, given the impact they have on the environment. I’ve tried many of the best meat and dairy replacements out there, and while I’ve had some great ones, nothing currently on the market would fool a burger lover completely. Even when the taste is close, there’s still something missing: the greasy, oily sizzle that brings the ideal sandwich together and makes it so delicious—and difficult to replicate.

The secret ingredient is animal fat. It’s what gives so many foods their richness, juiciness, meltability, unique “mouthfeel,” and overall flavor. It’s what distinguishes butter from margarine, dairy ice cream from a plant-based frozen dessert, and a great burger from one made of soy protein or peas. Unfortunately, it’s also a disaster for the climate. Each year, the world emits 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases—and the production of fats and oils from animals and plants makes up seven percent of that. To combat climate change, we need to get the number to zero.

Our plan can’t be to simply hope that people give up foods they crave. After all, humans are wired to want animal fats for a reason—because they’re the most nutrient-rich and calorie-dense macronutrient—in the same way we’re wired to crave sugar for an instant energy kick. What we need are new ways of generating the same fat molecules found in animal products, but without greenhouse gas emissions, animal suffering, or dangerous chemicals. And they have to be affordable for everyone.

It might sound like a pipe dream, but a company called Savor (which I’m invested in) is in the process of doing it. They started with the fact that all fats are made of varying chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Then they set out to make those same carbon and hydrogen chains—without involving animals or plants. They ultimately developed a process that involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating them up, and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids and then the formulation of fat. The result is real fat molecules like the ones we get from milk, cheese, beef, and vegetable oils. The process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good—like the real thing, because chemically it is.

I’ve tasted Savor’s products, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter. (The burger came close, too.) The big challenge is to drive down the price so that products like Savor’s become affordable to the masses—either the same cost as animal fats or less. Savor has a good chance of success here, because the key steps of their fat-production process already work in other industries.

The focus on animal fats is a priority because they have an outsized impact on climate—and play an outsized role in many beloved foods. But even if we could eliminate emissions from the production of all animal fats overnight, we’d still have a challenge: Even some plant-based fats and oils can be a problem for climate change. The worst culprit is palm oil.

Today, it’s the most widely consumed plant-based fat in the world. It’s found in half of all packaged goods—everything from peanut butter, cookies, instant ramen, coffee creamer, and frozen dinners to makeup, body wash, toothpaste, laundry detergent, and deodorant to candles, cat food, baby formula, and so much more. It’s even used as a biofuel for diesel engines.

The issue with palm oil isn’t necessarily how we use it but how we get it. That’s because the oil palm tree, a variety of palm that’s native to Central and West Africa, doesn’t grow everywhere. The opposite, actually—the tree will only grow well within five to ten degrees of the equator. That has led to slash-and-burn deforestation of rainforests in equatorial regions around the world, which are then converted to oil palm plantations.

This process has been bad for biodiversity, putting entire ecosystems at risk. It’s also a one-two punch for climate change: The combustion involved in burning forests emits tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and as the wetlands they sit on are destroyed, the carbon they’ve been storing gets released too. In 2018, the devastation in Malaysia and Indonesia alone was bad enough to account for 1.4 percent of global emissions—more than the entire state of California and nearly as much as the aviation industry worldwide.

Unfortunately, palm oil is hard to replace. It’s cheap, odorless, and abundant. While most plant oils are liquid at room temperature, palm oil is semi-solid, creamy, and easily spreadable. Since it acts as a natural preservative, it has an extremely long shelf-life. (It actually raises the melting point of ice cream.) It’s also the only plant oil with a near-equal balance of saturated and unsaturated fats, which is why it’s so versatile. If animal fat is the superstar of some meals, then palm oil is the team player that can work to make almost all foods—and non-edible goods—even better.

For these reasons, companies like C16 Biosciences are working hard on alternatives to palm oil. Since 2017, C16 (which I’m invested in) has been developing a product from a wild yeast microbe using a fermentation process that doesn’t produce any emissions. While it differs from conventional palm oil chemically, C16’s oil contains the same fatty acids, which means it can be used in the same applications. And it’s as “natural” as palm oil—it's just grown on fungi instead of trees. Like Savor’s, C16’s process is entirely agriculture-free; its “farm” is a lab in midtown Manhattan.

The company’s consumer brand launched its first product last year. It plans to roll out more of its own products and work with existing brands—first in the beauty and personal care sectors and then in food—to replace the palm oil they’re currently using. Because fermentation is a relatively affordable, scalable, and quick process, especially compared to slash-and-burn deforestation, I’m betting that C16 will succeed.

I hope they do. The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense. By harnessing proven technologies and processes, we get one step closer to achieving our climate goals.