The Evolution of Rubisco - From Nature's Engine to Leaft's Sustainable Protein

As a critical enzyme for a critical process, rubisco is everywhere. It exists in every green leaf on the planet, making it the world’s most abundant protein.

It can have immense nutritional value, but not for humans. While herbivores like rhinos have evolved to be able to digest rubisco efficiently, human digestive systems cannot.

While it’s a cornerstone of the diet of many animals, you could eat all the leaves you wanted, but the majority of the rubisco in those leaves would go undigested.

But that simple fact is beginning to change…

The earliest forms of rubisco can be traced back more than 3 billion years. This underscores its importance for photosynthesis and the fact that, without it, there wouldn’t be life on earth as we know it.

Rubisco’s evolutionary timeline:

• 3-4 billion years ago: Rubisco began as a simple carbon-fixing bacteria
• 2.5 billion years ago: The bacteria developed the ability to perform oxygenic photosynthesis, spitting water molecules to release oxygen, increasing the amount of oxygen in the air and allowing more complex life forms to develop
• 2 billion years ago: Rubisco as we know it began to emerge, and it was essential in growing and feeding early organisms
• 1 billion years ago: Groups of algae grew and diversified, thanks to the presence of rubisco
• 500 million years ago: The evolution of plants continued and accelerated, with rubisco at the heart of it, also adapting itself
• Present day: Rubisco now comes in different forms that have evolved to suit various environments
  

While rubisco has evolved and become more efficient in carbon fixation, it is not as efficient as it could be. Rubisco is a slow acting enzyme, and its dual purposes can ultimately hinder plant growth by fixating more oxygen than carbon dioxide.

Proprietary technology enables Leaft Foods to become the first company globally to extract this utopia protein in high quantities. Not only that, but it can be done with environmentally sustainable, nitrogen-fixing crops like lucerne (alfalfa) in their process.

The result is a huge dual benefit for food production and the planet.

There’s a small sense of irony in that, while humans struggle to utilise rubisco as it occurs naturally, Leaft Foods extraction process actually makes it highly digestible.

This makes it an extremely nutritious protein with huge potential to fuel the body as a food in its own right.

Plant proteins typically have a much more favorable sustainability profile compared to animal foods such as meat and dairy products. 

High protein plant foods such as grains, soy, pea and nuts will all need to play a role in producing and consuming food more sustainably. You can now add rubisco to that mix as well.

Leaft Foods’ rubisco has a better essential amino acid profile than whey isolate, so it sets the new gold standard of nutrition. It has a higher protein content than all major plant proteins. It’s also a lean protein, with few carbohydrates or unhealthy fats, and has other nutrients and minerals.

Rubisco’s eating properties give it another advantage. It is neutral tasting, water soluble and non-allergenic

These are important qualities that make rubisco a great source of protein for people of all tastes and diets.

Because rubisco is in every green leaf, it can be grown in the most environmentally friendly crops. It’s most commonly grown commercially in alfalfa or kale. 

Leaft Foods modeling shows rubisco’s carbon footprint is 37 times lower than dairy protein, and 500 times less than beef. Rubisco is a carbon-fixing crop, which takes carbon out of the atmosphere as opposed to emitting it. 

There are a number of environmental positives to growing rubisco, including:

• Increased photosynthesis and carbon sequestration 
• Reduced nitrogen fertilizer use
• Low irrigation and water requirements 
• Improved soil health
  

For farmers growing rubisco as livestock crops, adopting the Leaft Foods system on just 20% of agricultural land can have significant environmental benefits. It’s easy to grow with minimal inputs, and provides self sufficiency in livestock feeding.

Alfalfa is a perennial crop that can stay in the ground for up to 13 years, reducing tilling and soil damage, and carbon sequestration from the soil.

Rubisco has a variety of applications in different food products. 

One leading example today is how rubisco is being developed as a plant protein powder, commonly used in sports nutrition. As well as rubisco’s high protein content and rapid digestibility, its properties as a neutral tasting, soluble and non allergenic protein make it well suited to being consumed in pre- or post-workout smoothies.

There are many further possibilities for using rubisco in food production in years to come:

1. Enhancing crop varieties with optimized rubisco to promote photosynthesis and increase yields
2. Extracting rubisco to use in other foods and food products
3. Using crops with optimized rubisco to capture and sequester more CO2, including to lower the emissions profile of other food production operations

Leaft Foods was founded by former dairy farmers John Penno and Maury Leyland Penno. Their ambition is to create value for both farmers and consumers, creating more environmentally friendly protein sources that address a multitude of global challenges:

• The environmental impact of food production
• Food security
• Food scarcity
• Nutrition and high quality protein production
  

John and Maury understand the challenges from an agricultural perspective, having lived that life themselves. They are also thinkers and innovators, keen to develop solutions; they spent years developing the Leaft Foods food-safe technology in their own kitchen!

They have developed a farming model that significantly reduces the emissions profile of farming, benefits the land, and provides crop and income security to farmers, all while producing a sustainable, nutritious protein for both human and animal consumption.

It is a transformative solution with a variety of advantages, and that underpins the potential for rubisco as a game changing protein for the world.

Like any growing field, there are challenges to scaling up rubisco production. 

The technology is in its infancy, and is being developed through time to enhance production efficiency and effectiveness. Resourcing and investment is also required.

Rubisco has come a long way in helping to create life on earth, and its continued evolution could unlock huge potential in the future.

It is at the core of sustainable food production, and we are still only in the early stages of understanding how it can be harnessed and utilized.

Leaft Foods is at the forefront of pioneering this innovative approach to food production, for the benefit of farmers, consumers, and ultimately the environment. 

To find out more, follow Leaft Foods on LinkedIn for more regular updates. Do your own research into rubisco innovation and its potential for global food production, and make ethical choices in your own eating.

As consumers, we all have the ability to influence production by demonstrating our values through the foods we eat. Sustainable food production needs to be backed by conscious consumers if it’s to have the influence it’s capable of. 

It’s only by people choosing to eat sustainable foods that we will change food production to be in harmony with the planet.