Supermarket shelves are filled with plant-based alternatives to cow milk, including soy, nuts, and coconut milk. These products are popular with consumers who cannot drink cows' milk for health reasons, as well as with those concerned about animal welfare and environmental sustainability. While the dairy-free options work well with cereal or in coffee, they fail miserably when it comes to making milk-based products like cheese or yogurt. However, these shortcomings may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a new company in California, which has figured out how to create animal-free milk in a laboratory! Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya founded the company in 2014 after becoming increasingly annoyed with the lack of cows' milk-free alternatives, particularly for cheese. For Gandhi, who stopped consuming animal products five years earlier due to environmental and animal welfare concerns, the motivation to create a better alternative stemmed from his love of cheesy pizza. Pandya was spurred into taking action after being forced to eat some “really bad” dairy-free cream cheese on his sandwich. The two MIT biomedical engineering scientists decided to join forces to create a more realistic alternative to dairy-based products. In their university lab, the pair spent nine months first isolating cow DNA and then inserting it into yeast. This genetic modification enabled the yeast to produce the necessary milk proteins. The final step of the process involved mixing the proteins with some plant nutrients and fats. The dairy-free milk not only tastes like the real thing but is also healthier, has a longer shelf life and, most important of all, is Earth-friendly. According to the company's website, when compared to conventional milk production, their process uses 65% less energy, creates 84% less greenhouse gas emissions and requires 91% less land and 98% less water! Best of all, since it contains real milk proteins, the product behaves like the cow-producing version, which means vegetarian consumers will no longer have to deal with soggy cheese on their sandwiches and pizzas. The company plans to bring their creation to the market later this year and their first product will most likely be cheese since there are already numerous good cows' milk alternatives available to consumers.