I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
I should note that technology is increasingly helping provide more options. With precision fermentation, there is a lot of ways to biologically identical proteins, enzymes, etc. For instance, you can now buy non-animal whey protein, egg white protein, non-animal heme iron, and more in the stores. It’s super cool stuff and ironically the dairy industry was a big pioneer of it in the 90s for one of the enzymes they use widely in cheese. There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline with it
Ah fuck. I didn’t know iron was derived from animals. Fuck, it’s basically blood!
Heme iron, specifically in animals, is in fact from blood. Heme being short for hemoglobin which is the protein in red blood cells that transfers oxygen around the body (both for humans and most non-human animals). Being able to make that from precision fermentation is pretty cool
I was joking about being a vampire and that being blood on Discord, I didn’t know I was twlling the truth 😭
There is also plenty of non-heme iron, to be fair, which is not from blood. Plants have tons of it from the ground and such