The huge demand has led to significant deforestation in areas where oil palm trees can grow near the equator.
Food experts at Queen Margaret University (QMU) in Edinburgh say their new 100% plant-based ingredient is 70% better for the environment.
Catriona Liddle, one of the lead developers on the QMU team, said: "It’s the holy grail to replace it and still have exactly the same end result in product - to taste the same and have the texture the same - and we’ve done that.
“We’ve put it through some special sensory testing to see if a panel can tell the difference between our product and traditional palm shortening, and they can’t.”
But could that be about to the change, with the QMU team having an international patent application for PALM-ALT and discussions set to begin with prospective manufacturers.
“We’ve started off with bakery products - bread, cakes, biscuits - all the things that everybody loves to eat but are not terribly healthy for us,” Ms Liddle said.
The original article contains 697 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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The huge demand has led to significant deforestation in areas where oil palm trees can grow near the equator.
Food experts at Queen Margaret University (QMU) in Edinburgh say their new 100% plant-based ingredient is 70% better for the environment.
Catriona Liddle, one of the lead developers on the QMU team, said: "It’s the holy grail to replace it and still have exactly the same end result in product - to taste the same and have the texture the same - and we’ve done that.
“We’ve put it through some special sensory testing to see if a panel can tell the difference between our product and traditional palm shortening, and they can’t.”
But could that be about to the change, with the QMU team having an international patent application for PALM-ALT and discussions set to begin with prospective manufacturers.
“We’ve started off with bakery products - bread, cakes, biscuits - all the things that everybody loves to eat but are not terribly healthy for us,” Ms Liddle said.
The original article contains 697 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!