Helsinki-Sana
Finnish researchers have created eco-friendly vegetable egg whites using fungi that could provide an alternative to raising chickens on a large scale.
The researchers at the University of Helsinki in collaboration with the Finnish Technical Research Center explained that albumin produced using the fungus Trichoderma risai could become a sustainable alternative to chicken egg white protein powder at a time when the environmental impacts of industrial-scale production have not been explored.
To make vegetable egg whites, the researchers began by identifying the genetic code for the oval albumin, which represents about 54 percent of the total egg white proteins, known as the egg white, and inserted the gene that carries the striations of oval albumin using modern biotechnology tools in the fungus, which in turn then produces and secretes the same protein that it produces The chickens then separated the ovalbumin protein from the cells, concentrated it and dried it to make the final product.
The researchers also compared the effects of vegetable egg white production with an equivalent unit of real dried chicken egg white protein produced in Finland, Germany and Poland and found that its production reduced most of the effects associated with agriculture, such as global warming and land use.
