美国一家初创企业成功地以水和空气为原料制造出了黄油替代品，而且该企业的赞助人比尔·盖茨品尝后表示，这种人造黄油味道很不错。
Credit: Savor
Savor, a California-based startup backed by legendary businessman Bill Gates, has come up with a method of producing butter-like fat out of just carbon dioxide and hydrogen.传奇企业家比尔·盖茨赞助的美国加州初创企业Savor开发了一种仅用二氧化碳和氢气就能造出黄油状脂肪的技术。
Starting from the idea that all fats are composed of chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms, Savor patented a thermochemical process to build fat molecules and then produce dairy-free alternatives to products like milk, butter, cheese, and ice cream that not only have the same texture as the real thing but also taste the same. This process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does, so this synthesized fat has a much lower carbon footprint than real animal fat. So far, taste tests have shown that Savor’s alternative to butter has an almost indistinguishable flavor from the real thing, but the company still has a lot of challenges to overcome before bringing it to market.Savor公司的这一专利技术基于所有脂肪都是由碳原子链和氢原子链组成的原理，通过热化学过程构建出脂肪分子，从而生产出牛奶、黄油、奶酪、冰淇淋等产品的无乳替代品，这种新产品不仅质地和真正的乳制品相似，而且味道也相差无几。整个过程不释放任何温室气体，无需农田耕作，所消耗的水也不到传统农业生产过程的千分之一，因此这种人工合成脂肪的碳足迹远低于真正的动物脂肪。迄今为止的品尝测试均显示，Savor公司的黄油替代品口感和真黄油几乎难以分辨，不过该公司还需要克服许多挑战才能将其推向市场。
"We are currently pre-commercial and working through regulatory approval to be able to sell our butter,” Kathleen Alexander, CEO of Savor, said. “We are not expecting to be able to move forward with any kind of sales until at least 2025.”Savor公司的首席执行官凯思琳·亚历山大表示：“我们目前还处于商业化前的阶段，需要经过监管机构审批才能销售我们的黄油。我们预计至少要等到2025年才可能上市。”
In a recent blog post, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates explained that Savor has a real shot of coming up with a successful butter alternative, because their version “tastes really good – like the real thing, because chemically it is.” 微软创始人兼慈善家比尔·盖茨在最近的一篇博客文章中解释道，Savor公司生产的这种黄油替代品很可能会取得成功，因为该产品“味道真的很不错，就和真黄油一样，因为化学成分也一样。”
Gates wrote: “They ultimately developed a process that involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating them up, and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids and then the formulation of fat.”盖茨写道：“他们最终开发出一套生产流程：从空气中提取二氧化碳，从水中提取氢气，将其加热，使其氧化，以触发脂肪酸的分离，然后就形成了脂肪。”
The tech billionaire also highlighted the importance of animal food alternatives like Savor’s version of butter in reducing our carbon footprint. The livestock industry contributes 14.5 percent of global greenhouse emissions, and with human population on the rise, emissions are also expected to go up, unless we do something about it.这位科技亿万富翁还强调了Savor黄油这样的动物性食品替代品对于减少人类碳足迹的重要性。畜牧业的温室气体排放量占据了全球总排放量的14.5%，随着全球人口增加，温室气体排放量也会增加，除非我们采取对策。
"The big challenge is to drive down the price so that products like Savor’s become affordable to the masses – either the same cost as animal fats or less,” Gates wrote.盖茨写道：“压低价格是一大挑战，Savor公司的产品定价必须能够为大众所接受，要么与动物脂肪产品价格持平，要么更低。”
CO2 and hydrogen-synthesized butter is apparently just the beginning. Savor has plans to make milk, cheese, and ice cream, among others, in the not-so-distant future.显然，用二氧化碳和氢气合成黄油只是开始。Savor公司计划在不久的将来制造出人工合成的牛奶、奶酪和冰淇淋等产品。
英文来源：Oddity Central
