How do you like your eggs? Scrambled? Fried? Sunnyside up? Personally, I prefer my eggs plant-based and that’s why I was so happy when I heard that Infinite Foods was partnering with Eat Just to launch Africa’s first-ever plant-based egg.
Infinite Foods is Sub-Saharan Africa’s go-to platform for plant-based food brands. The company provides consumers with new, exciting, and innovative plant-based food brands. The aim is to help them create a healthy and sustainable food system.
Eat Just is a private company based in California that provides plant-based alternatives. As such, it only made sense that the two brands would connect to provide a plant-based alternative to eggs.
Plant-Based Egg-Cellence In Africa
How often do you have eggs for breakfast? And frankly, why wouldn’t you? They’re versatile, rich in nutrients, and are a great source of protein. However, like many animal-based foods, their production can be taxing on the planet.
JUSTEgg Toast
What’s more, chicken eggs are high in cholesterol, eating just 2 eggs a day already exceeds the daily recommended cholesterol intake. High cholesterol could lead to chronic heart disease, which is responsible for 37% of all non-communicable disease deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH).
With this in mind, Eat Just set out to find out if they could make delicious eggs from plants, while also making eggs that are better for the planet and your health.
“We searched thousands of plant samples, representing hundreds of species, and ultimately found one that magically scrambles like an egg. The unlikely source was a 4400-year-old legume called the mung bean”, says Andrew Noyes, Head of Global Communications at Eat Just.
What are mung beans?
The mung bean is a legume that’s been a staple in Asian cuisine for a number of years. The small green beans are highly nutritious, rich in protein, fiber, zinc, and magnesium, and they’ve also been linked to a number of benefits that include;
Mung beans are better for the planet
Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels
In addition to its nutritional value, mung bean has also been found to be better for the planet than eggs, which is one of the reasons why Eat Just used it as the key ingredient for their JUST Egg Folded product,
“Using protein from the mung bean, we created a product that scrambles like an egg, fluffs like an egg, and tastes even better than a chicken egg,” says Noyes,
“Its ingredients require substantially less water and land and emit fewer CO2 emissions than conventional egg production, plus they’re cholesterol-free, have less saturated fat and about the same amount of protein as a conventional egg.”
The future of sustainable eating
While the current plan is to focus on mung beans as the main ingredient for their plant-based egg products, that doesn’t mean that Eat Just isn’t focused on other areas of sustainable eating.
“One emerging technology known as cellular agriculture can help people around the world eat meat, poultry, and seafood in a safer and more sustainable way. The process involves making real meat from animal cells in a sterile, controlled environment instead of through traditional means,” says Noyes.
JUSTEgg Folded in Summer Rolls
He adds that the industry is still in its infancy and Eat Just is the only company that has received regulatory approval for cultivated meat anywhere in the world (in Singapore), “but things are moving quickly, and we’re excited about its potential to help feed a growing world safely and sustainably.”
Takeaway
“The biggest individual impact you can make for the planet is the food you choose to eat, and the JUST Egg Folded product allows consumers to do just that.
With the rapid growth of the population in Africa, expected to be at 2.2B by 2050, incorporating delicious, nutritious, and sustainable food options into our diets at every meal is more critical than ever,” says Michelle Adelman, Founder and CEO of Infinite Foods.
WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH MICHELLE ADLEMAN
Want to know more?
Following a plant-based diet is one of the best things that we can do for our health. That said, three new studies have come out to show that a plant-based diet is exactly what men need if they want to improve their sexual health.
References
Yeap, S. K., Beh, B. K., Ho, W. Y., Mohd Yusof, H., et al. (2015). In Vivo Antioxidant and Hypolipidemic Effects of Fermented Mung Bean on Hypercholesterolemic Mice. Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 2015, 508029. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/508029
Xu, L., Yu, W., Jiang, J., & Li, N. (2014). Zhonghua yi xue za zhi, 94(48), 3813–3816.
