Vegan numbers are on the rise. To try to encourage everyone and their dog to join the movement, a startup in California are growing fungus-based dog food in bioreactors. Wild Earth touts its vegan food as 鈥榗lean protein鈥� that has all the nutrients a dog needs, hoping to appeal to people concerned about the significant carbon footprint of pet food, as well as the use of low-quality animal byproducts.
The company makes the unusual food by pumping sugar into a bioreactor, a large cylindrical apparatus for growing fungi. This allows their fast-growing fungus called Aspergillus oryzae to thrive, with its cells dividing every 2 to 4 hours. Technicians then strain the solution and bake the result into dog pellets.
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Aspergillus oryzae is the same fungus used to make fermented foods like sake, miso soup, and soy sauce. Both dogs and human owners appear to have enjoyed eating Wild Earth鈥檚 product, which has a savory 鈥渦mami鈥� flavor, says CEO Ryan Bethencourt.听 鈥淚t kind of looks like tuna,鈥� he says.
Wild Earth will begin selling 6 ounce bags (around 170 grams) of its fungi-based protein for $12 to $15 from its online store this spring, which is around fifteen times more expensive than a typical mid-range dog food. However, Bethencourt believes it will be possible to make it much cheaper in the future.
If America鈥檚 180 million domestic pets were a sovereign nation, they would rank听听in global meat consumption, producing as much as 64 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.听 Switching to lab-grown food could have a dramatic effect, with estimates ranging between a and overall decrease.
However, veganism for dogs is not a proven regime. Dogs are omnivorous and so can live on a plant-based diet, but there is no evidence that doing so is optimal, says 听at Tufts University鈥檚 Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. 鈥淣o one鈥檚 ever published a study saying: 鈥榳e fed dogs a vegan diet for 10 years and this is how they turned out.鈥�
Even if a dog food looks good on paper, it鈥檚 hard to know how it will work when eaten. Depending on the food鈥檚 configuration nutrients听may or may not be听easily digested and absorbed into the body. Heinze only advises feeding a vegan diet to a dog if it has additional health problems, such as allergies or liver disease.
Bethencourt says the company has used selective breeding and advice from an on-staff vet to create a nutritional profile in keeping with standards set by the Association of American Feed Control Officials, a group that听regulates animal feed.
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