On Sunday mornings on our farmette, we almost always have potatoes, assorted cheeses and fresh fruit, along with homemade bread, honey, and a jar of apricot or strawberry jam that I’ve put up during jam season. But organic eggs from my free-range heritage chickens takes center stage, scrambled or poached (my favorite, a la Jacques Pépin and Julia Child), or cooked in an omelet with fresh herbs.

 

 

Assortment of organic eggs from free-ranging,heritage laying hens

Assortment of organic eggs from free-ranging,heritage laying hens

 

 

People who can’t eat poached, scrambled, or omelet eggs because of cholesterol concerns or egg allergies often make do without eggs or indulge their omelet craving with egg substitutes. But what about egg-free cookie dough or mayonnaise?

 

 

Enter Eco-food innovator, Hampton Creek Foods. The company’s biochemical scientists at work at the three-year-old, San Francisco-based company have come up with an egg substitute that is plant-based. It has already found a perfect plant-based recipe for egg-free mayonnaise and cookie dough.

 

 

With its egg substitute, Beyond Eggs, and other products, the company seeks to crack open an industry that produces 1.1 trillion eggs annually.

 

 

According to Katie Fehrenbacher, writing last year for Gigaom, Hampton Creek Foods CEO Josh Tetrik says “the food industry is broken.” See, http://gigaom.com/2013/09/11/hampton-creek-now-selling-plant-based-eggs-at-whole-foods-in-california/

 

 

Hampton Creek touts its plant-based, egg-free formulas as cheaper, healthier, and more humane. With its emphasis on food technology, Hampton Creek has attracted interest and funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists and the world’s super-wealthy billionaire Bill Gates and Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man.

 

 

Earlier this year, Forbes writer Ryan Mac discussed Hampton Creek’s food technology venture that has attracted the interest of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Wang and Li Ka-shing. See, http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/02/17/egg-replacing-startup-hampton-creek-foods-raises-23-million-from-asias-richest-man-and-yahoo-cofounder-jerry-yang/

 

 

In California, foodies can find Hampton Creek’s Beyond Eggs at Whole Foods stores. Those who love the real thing can buy eggs labeled as organic, produced by pastured free-range flocks.

 

 

Rhody with the rest of the flock of nine chickens

A Rhode Island Red forages with a Buff Orpington, two White Leghorns, a Black Sex Link, and two Silver-laced Wyandottes

 

 

According to tests conducted by Mother Earth News,the eggs from free-range pastured chickens have more beta carotine, vitamin A, vitamin E, and Omega-3 fatty acids with less cholesterol and less saturated fat than most store-bought eggs from chickens that weren’t pastured. See, http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/free-range-eggs-zmaz07onzgoe.aspx#axzz3CB01GPlj

 

 

Sunday mornings on the farmette wouldn’t be the same without fresh eggs from the hen house, but if Bill Gates likes Hampton Creek Foods’ products, I might just give them a try. Still, I’m having a hard time imagining how the taste of an egg substitute from a yellow-pea and canola concoction could rival an organic egg.

 

 

 

 

 

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