Take a Bite of This!

I finally had a chance to try the infamous Impossible Burger meat analogue last week, while on a brief visit home to Hong Kong. I’ve been looking forward trying the Impossible Burger, especially its new and improved 2.0 formulation made of soy protein, for a few months now. To my surprise and delight, Triple O’s was offering the Impossible Burger in its Hong Kong restaurants. Incidentally, Triple O’s is a western Canadian fast food chain that I grew up with and love deeply. Then again, my partner says I express the same sentiments for McDonald’s and A&W Canada and countless other fast food brands.

Anyway, about the Impossible Burger. It’s not really a burger. I mean, it is a burger but it’s not made of real meat. Followers of this blog will have read my previous post about it. It’s a fake meat hamburger patty made of soy protein concentrate, coconut oil and other flavourings, including a genetically-engineered special sauce that makes the Impossible Burger taste more like red meat than any other fake beef before it. That special sauce is leghemoglobin, a molecule found in the roots of soy plants that is very similar to red blood cells. In Impossible’s case, though, the leghemoglobin is derived from industrially-grown yeast cultures that have been genetically-engineered to produce it.

The markets have been abuzz with Impossible Foods, the maker of the Impossible Burger all summer. The company started a small test run with Burger King in the US in April. And in a few short months, demand has skyrocketed. Burger King announced last week that it would roll out the Impossible Whopper, as it calls it, across all of its US locations. Actually, investors have gone crazy about meat analogue companies in general, as competitor Beyond Meats stock price had a spectacular nine-fold-plus run from its IPO in May to the end of July.

To be honest, I don’t really get the meat analogue thing. The Impossible Burger is a super highly-processed food, and is chock full of GMO ingredients. It’s actually probably bad for you, even though it contains no meat. Okay, it contains no meat, meaning it’s a bit better for the environment (no farting cows and such contributing to global warming). But I, like many Asians, don’t eat much meat anyways. The Chinese diet (at least home-cooking) tends to include a lot more vegetables than the average western diet. Sure, I love western fast food (show me a kid raised on Hollywood movies who doesn’t?), but even I can’t eat it every day.

I will admit, however, that the Impossible Burger surprised me. It was surprisingly meat-like. The patty has a nice charred-meat smell. When I broke off a piece, it felt like I was breaking off a piece of hamburger. If you look closely inside the broken-off bit, it’s not as granular as a high-end beef patty should look. Somehow, it has a slight plasticky look, like a burger with a lot of cheap filler. But if you’re not paying close attention, you’d give it a pass.

My first bite was the broken-off piece alone. I didn’t want the bun, veggies and sauce to confuse my palate. I wanted to taste the Impossible Burger. And you know what? I was taken aback. It does really taste somewhat like meat. Maybe 70%. It definitely tastes more like meat than those soy and wheat protein-based dishes of rubber served for hundreds of years in buddhist monasteries across Asia. The chew is still slightly rubbery. But it’s okay because once you add in the bun, veggies, and sauce, and take it all in a single mouthful, that 70% jumps up to 80%. If I were less particular about food, I would probably say, yeah, it’s the same as meat.

There was one thing odd about it though. The patty has a slight funky taste that I can’t place, kind of like tempeh or an earthy mushroom. It kind of lingers in the back of the mouth. I wonder if that’s the taste of Impossible’s much-ballyhooed engineered heme. Red blood cells contains iron, and is supposed to have a slight metallic taste in the mouth. Which is what Impossible says it is trying to replicate with its artificial heme. I didn’t really get that though. Just the earthy funk. Maybe more like what I imagine geosmin would taste like.

Oh, and did I mention, at HK$88 ($11.22), it’s about double the price of a regular Triple O’s burger? Next time I’ll just order the regular burger with cow.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Silicon Valley in 2019 has been all about disrupting the meat market with analogues from companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Investors have rightly been impressed by Beyond Meat’s spectacular IPO and Impossible Burger’s march into mainstream fast-food. Unlike prior tech waves which quickly spread across the Pacific, fake meat hasn’t made much of a splash in China, though.

Meat analogue is nothing new here in China; buddhist vegetarians have been working on their favourite recipes for hundreds of years already. Chinese consumers also tend not to eat as much ground meat and sausage as westerners, which the latest meat analogues are replacing. Real-tasting filets of meat analogue are still far away.

But I think Silicon Valley’s next wave of food industry disruption will spillover to China, and in a big way, over the next 24 months. What wave is this? The next big thing will be about disrupting the infant formula market, with start-ups bringing to market new human breastmilk analogues offering much more complete nutrition to developing babies than what’s ever been available on the market. The World Heath Organisation says infants under six months of age should be breastfed to ensure an optimal health outcome. Human breast milk is a rich, diverse and complex nutritional source, with studies showing that breastfed children develop healthier than children fed on current formula. Unlike fake meat, new human milk analogues will definitely have high appeal in China.

The market for infant formula is substantial globally, and even more so in China. In 2017, it was worth around $56 billion. By 2025, worldwide sales of infant formula could reach $98 billion, according to a report published earlier this year by Global Market Insights. China accounts for close to half of the world’s infant formula market by value, around $25 billion according to Euromonitor, even though China accounts for just 17% of the world’s population. So bottle feeding infants seems far more popular in China than in other parts of the world.

Maybe that’s not surprising, given how overworked Chinese urban women are. Who has time to breastfeed when they’re expected “to hold up half the sky” (as Chairman Mao once declared)? China Daily said earlier this year that, on average, less than 30% of mothers breastfeed children under 6 months in China. That figure is presumably even lower in urban areas with a majority of working mothers. It compares poorly with an average of 57.5% in the US, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also lags globally, as the World Health Organisation says around 36% of infants under 6 months are breastfed.

Of course, even when mothers do breastfeed, it doesn’t ensure optimal nutrition for their children. The quality of each women’s milk depends on genetics, diet, health and lifestyle. But even so, studies show breastmilk from healthy mothers is best for babies. It protects against allergies, lowers risk of asthma, there’s less chance of upset stomach and diarrhoea (leading to better growth and development), boosts the immune system. Studies also suggest that breastfed infants score higher on IQ tests later in life, possibly because the long-chain fatty acids in human milk are thought to be brain boosters (these are a kind of omega-3 fatty acid, like that found in fish oil).

So besides omega-3, what’s in human milk that’s not found in formula? Two of the three most abundant components of human milk are lactose (a type of sugar that is digestible by humans) and fat (which is also digested and used by humans). However, the third largest ingredient is prebiotic sugars, called oligosaccharides, which are not digestible by humans. Instead, oligosaccharides feed the probiotic bacteria found in our digestive systems, and which are thought to be essential not only to the operation of our digestive system but also to our immune systems, cholesterol management, and general health. There are nearly 200 different types of oligosaccharides found in human milk, feeding different types of probiotic bacteria. In infants, the most common of probiotic bacteria are bifidobacterium species. It’s interesting that breastfed infants develop bifidobacterium colonies earlier than infants fed exclusively by formula.

It’s also interesting that of the oligosaccharides in most women’s milk, a single type, 2’-Fucosyllactose (2’-FL) accounts for roughly 30% of the total. But scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands outline in a very interesting paper their belief that the diversity of human milk oligosaccharides help them play a key role in providing benefits to infants. They believe each type of oligosaccharide has a different influence on an infant’s microbiome and immune system development, owing to their different biological functions and mechanisms. Unfortunately, of the roughly 200 different types of oligosaccharides in human milk, the structures of less than 10% have been modelled. Meaning that we don’t know how they work, we just know that they work.

Another problem is that these sugars are not only diverse but also structurally complex, and so extracting or synthesising them for use in infant formula is a challenge. Speaking with researchers, I don’t get a sense of consensus on the most efficient methods to obtain these sugars; extracting them from human milk for commercial use being ethically wrong and anyways insufficient to create the volumes needed. The best ways in the pipeline seem to be either chemically or enzymatically synthesising them using methods based on yeast fermentation, or by engineering microbes (such as algae) to produce them.

At the moment, only a handful of simple oligosaccharides have been produced on a commercial scale, while many others have been synthesised in smaller amounts. The first infant formula unicorn will be the one that finds a way to ramp up extraction and synthesis techniques and comes closest to replicating the full diversity and complexity of human milk.

Postscript: China’s infant formula market is ripe for change. Trust in domestic infant formula brands has still not recovered from the Sanlu melamine scandal a decade ago. Nielsen says less than half of infant formula sold in China is domestically-produced. Parents not only prefer foreign brands; they prefer to buy formula directly from Hong Kong, Macau or even farther afield, even as Beijing tightens regulations against this. A universe of grey market importers exist to service the demand. The situation is, in fact, embarrassing. A few months ago, three Chinese warships visiting Australia were reported by local media to have loaded up with crates of infant formula before leaving Sydney Harbour. As a result, Beijing said in June that it wants local formula producers to recapture the domestic market, setting a target of 60% (although it didn’t set a timeline to achieve this).

Smells Like Communist Spirit*

I spent last week at a national education retreat (国情教育) in the central city of Linzhou, Henan province. Popularly called “red tourism”, these retreats take Communist Party of China (CPC) members to locations around the country with historical significance to the development of the CPC. The idea is to bring the Party’s history alive for the rank-and-file, to rekindle their revolutionary and proletarian spirit (even if Chinese people tend, nowadays, to aspire to Mercedes-Benz cars and Hermes bags rather than class struggle).

Since the CPC began promoting red tourism in 2005, it has become big business. China Daily said in March that over 800 million red tourism trips were made in 2018. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the average amount spent on a single domestic trip is around CNY930 (about $135). So the red tourism market may be worth nearly CNY750 billion per year (about $110 billion). But before you get too excited by the potential investment opportunities, keep in mind that it’s a market essentially closed to the private sector. As far as I can tell, these study tours are almost entirely subsidised by public funds and mostly spent at state-owned enterprises or government-owned destinations. Locals in those generally poor inland locations where red tourism takes place do benefit from some trickle-down, but it’s a small drip to be sure.

Group photos at the canal. Pic by Joseph Lo

The usual agenda of these retreats include sightseeing visits to important revolutionary locales, followed by classroom sessions and group study. Linzhou wasn’t my first taste of red tourism. Last year I attended a retreat at Yan’an in Shaanxi province, the endpoint of the Long March and important for being where the CPC based itself for most of the Second World War (or the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japan). The theme of that earlier retreat was highlighting the CPC’s resistance credentials. It also included a visit to nearby Liangjiahe, a small farming village where CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping spent the Cultural Revolution.

So what’s at Linzhou? Situated at the crossroads of Hebei, Henan and Shanxi provinces, it’s a rugged mountainous region where the Zhang River cuts through the Taihang mountains. The closest city is Anyang, about two-hours away by car, the first capital city of China, during the Shang Dynasty (between 1,600 BC to 1,000 BC), and where archeologists discovered examples of the earliest known forms of the Chinese writing system in oracle bones. But for the CPC, the area’s importance stems from much more recent history.

Linzhou is the location of the Red Flag Canal (红旗渠, or hongqiqu), a massive waterworks project from the 1960’s that is held up by the CPC as a shining example of what the communist spirit can achieve even in the face of scarcity and immense challenge. Connect the dots to the present day economic challenges being brought about by Trump’s trade war, and you’ll have a sense of the message the CPC is pushing to its rank-and-file. Self-reliance! As Rob Schneider says, You can do it!

The masses celebrating the canal’s completion. Photo by Joseph Lo

The central plains of China have always had a problem with drought and accompanying starvation. Guangdong province is populated by ethnic Han-Chinese from the central plains largely because, over the centuries, hunger pushed us south in search of more fertile farmland. So when the CPC took control of China in 1949, for the cadres in charge of Henan, and in particular, Linzhou, water relief works were a priority, even if they lacked the requisite technical know-how, money, and materiel.

It took nearly a decade of back-breaking work to complete the Red Flag Canal in 1969. The project consists of a 71-km long main canal feeding an extensive 1,500-km irrigation network. There are 134 tunnels cut through 24-km of mountain, and 150 aqueducts running across 6.5-km of ravines and crevices. It’s not especially pretty if you compare it with any old Roman waterworks in Europe, but it’s impressive nonetheless considering the lack of technical knowledge of the young cadres in charge of the project. And knowing that the work was almost entirely done by volunteer-farmers using no more than hand tools and whatever they brought with them from their farms. They didn’t even have dynamite, resorting to home-made blackpowder to blast away the cliff faces.

China’s central plains gave rise to Han-Chinese civilisation but also to drought and hunger. Photo by Joseph Lo

While the CPC now upholds Red Flag Canal as the embodiment of collectivism, mass mobilisation, honest labour and national pride (and evidence that the Great Leap Forward wasn’t all bad), the truth is that there wasn’t much support for it in Beijing at the time. The central government agreed to contribute just 15% of the canal’s construction costs, half-expecting that the local authorities would be unable to come up with the remaining CNY58 million-plus (about $200 million in present-day dollars) as that was more than the total CNY52.7 million GDP of Henan province in 1960. What the central government didn’t know, however, and which led to conflicts and serious problems later on, was that the Henan provincial leadership had massively underreported their grain yields for the previous number of years, giving them a secret surplus that would help cover their share of the canal’s costs.

And remember also that, at the beginning of the Great Leap Forward, Chairman Mao was more interested in leading China to overtake Great Britain as a steel-producing nation. In 1958, he had disastrously ordered the creation of millions of backyard furnaces and the melting of all household iron objects, unaware that wasn’t the recipe to make steel. The result was a critical shortage of household tools and farming implements across the country. Even doorknobs and nails were melted down in the heedless enthusiasm.

The Red Flag Canal is cut through the middle of the Taihang Mountains (note blue line along the cliff face). Photo by Joseph Lo.

The steel-making drive and other poorly-thought out policies of the Great Leap Forward caused the worst famine ever in Chinese history, which the CPC now calls the Great Chinese Famine. Frank Dikotter, the Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong, in his book, “Mao’s Great Famine”, figures that more than 40 million people across the country lost their lives. According to the national census bureau, for Henan province, in 1958 at the start of the Great Leap Forward, there were 493,000 people. By 1960, the population had dropped 20% to just 390,000. A nonagenarian cadre who worked on the canal in his youth told me the Red Flag Canal workers lived on no more than 6 ounces of bread per day during this period; “work” was not actually possible. It’s also possible that the diversion of grain to pay for the Red Flag Canal badly exacerbated the famine in Henan, one of the hardest hit provinces.

It’s also interesting that, as I was on the bus going to the Red Flag Canal museum, I was listening to a podcast about the Apollo 11 moon mission, which also took place in July 1969. I know it’s pointless to make a comparison; rural China during the 1960’s was probably little more advanced than rural China in 1560. But it’s still an interesting contrast, and a starting point to think about how quickly rural China has changed, for better and worse, over the last few decades.

Made with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Display at Red Flag Canal Museum. Photo by Joseph Lo.

Our retreat was based at the Hongqiqu Leadership Academy (红旗渠干部学院), a sprawling modern 28-acre facility with 55,000-sq meters of classroom and dormitory space for 600 students at a time. A second phase is currently being built that will add space for another 1,000 students. More students are housed at nearby hotels and bused in for classes and events. The three-story academy canteen was chock-a-block at meal-times, which had to be staggered to accommodate everyone.

You’re probably thinking this retreat was a silly way to spend a good chunk of my summer break. You could have been at the beach with Daisy, Benji and Georgia! Plus I’m not even a CPC member. The retreat was organised by the United Front Work Dept of Zhuhai in Guangdong province, a southern city next door to Macau from which my maternal grandmother’s family hails. They were kind enough to invite me along as I am active in their overseas-Chinese groups. I always try to go when asked because these events give me a unique insight into the CPC’s current salient issues and policies.

For instance, I can report that Mr Xi’s anti-corruption drive for cadres and CPC members has become incredibly strict. Normally the first evening is marked by an introductory banquet with mandatory baijiu (distilled spirits) toasts. Not this time. No banqueting, just three meals a day at the academy canteen. No wine and no carousing, either. In fact, they didn’t even want us in town (outside of the academy) after dark. A couple of us did sneak out for a few beers at a local pub, only to be caught and given a severe dressing down (including for our party secretary and group leader to have to write a self-criticism, something I thought had gone out of style with the Cultural Revolution).

*A note about the title before anyone gets offended by it. It’s in tribute to one of my favourite songs from Nirvana, possibly the greatest band in human history. Besides the Apollo 11 podcast, I had Kurt speaking to me in my earbuds as we drove through the plains of Central China.