Ben Bohrer:         00:00          I don't think enough praise is given to the ingenuity and the food engineering and kind of the ingredient formulation and those types of things of these products because really they're very magnificent products in the way that they're formed. It's really a tribute to how far we've come as food scientists that we can put these different ingredients together and make something that's so similar in terms of its color, texture, flavor to what traditional meat products would be.

Josh Moran:         00:32          You're listening to the Why & How Podcast produced by the Ontario Agricultural College of the University of Guelph where we look to answer the big questions in agriculture, food, and the environment through casual conversation rooted in research. Hello, everyone. I'm Josh Moran. Today, we are joined by a friend of the show, Jordan Terpstra.

Jordan Terpstra:    00:54          Hey, Josh. How are you doing today?

Josh Moran:         00:55          Fantastic. Thanks for being on again.

Jordan Terpstra:    00:57          Hey, it's my pleasure.

Josh Moran:         00:58          Haven't missed an episode yet.

Jordan Terpstra:    00:59          Haven't missed one yet. Who are we talking to today? What's going on?

Josh Moran:         01:02          Well, today I'm very excited. We're actually talking about something that's very topical, talking about some protein alternatives, some plant-based protein alternatives. We're actually joined by someone who's a little bit different than our typical guest. We're actually joined by a professor. Thanks for being on, Dr. Bohrer.

Ben Bohrer:         01:18          Thanks for having me. I really appreciate the invite.

Josh Moran:         01:20          Oh, I'm super excited. Just to start, can we get you to tell us a bit about you, your role at the university, and sort of what your area of research involves and how it kind of relates to what we're going to be talking about today?

Ben Bohrer:         01:31          Yeah. I'm on faculty there in the Department of Food Science here in the Ontario Agricultural College. As far as my research focus, really all things to do with meat science and technology. That can really range in quite an array of aspects all the way from ways that we're producing livestock and then evaluation of the meat from those livestock both from a fresh meat standpoint as well as a further processed meat. Really in a nutshell or to make it very simple, I really focus on everything from how maybe a beef animal is raised all the way to using that meat to make products like hot dogs or bacon.

Josh Moran:         02:13          Very cool. Very cool.

Jordan Terpstra:    02:15          You say you are working with animals while they're live and then also the end product. That must mean you do a lot of collaboration in your work?

Ben Bohrer:         02:23          I do. Here at the University of Guelph, we've really got an outstanding kind of network of researchers in this area. We've got multiple people in the Department of Animal Bioscience that really focus on nutrition, genetics, animal production, as well as some of my collaborators in the Department of Food Science that work maybe on specific macronutrients or specific areas within the food science spectrum, lipid science, serial science and technology, all the way to really basic food chemistry. There's really lot of opportunities for collaboration. Probably one of the best collaborators that we've got here kind of a focusing on kind of the futuristic food products is a food engineer by the name of Mario Martinez. He's really an outstanding collaborator right now as well.

Ben Bohrer:         03:16          We'll kind of get into some of the collaborations that we've got with him hopefully later in the episode.

Jordan Terpstra:    03:22          Very cool. Now I see in the news a lot everyone's... It seems like everyday there's a new article out about a lot of these new plant-based alternatives, things like Beyond Meat or the Impossible Burger. I'm just curious as to like what actually are these products? How are they made? What's going into these?

Ben Bohrer:         03:39          Yeah, to kind of just summarize it in I guess layman terms to try to put it as simple as possible, so these products are meat simulation products. There's several different names that they may go buy. Meat analogs would be one. But really if you look at the package and you kind of look at that broad category of products, they would be meat simulation products. These products differ a little bit from traditional plant-based food products like tofu or tempeh in that they are actually trying to simulate a lot of the visual texture and flavor characteristics of what a traditional meat product would have.

Josh Moran:         04:17          They're using certain things like I remember reading beet juice to like simulate like a bleeding, right? Now, something that I find really interesting because plants more so aren't going to naturally stick together in the same way that ground beef would. What's the ingredient that allows the actual patty to bind?

Ben Bohrer:         04:35          Yeah. I guess we'll back up just one step here and talk a little bit about the goals of these meat simulation products. They're trying to as closely as possible simulate the nutritional profile of meat products to start with. That's why we see a lot of these different proteins kind of combining forces to try to get the same type of amino acid profile so that that product can be a complete source of protein. That's really the first challenge is trying to meet those nutritional requirements. Then from there you have to try to get all these different proteins to kind of bind together and get that type of texture that you were discussing. They use really ingredients that are not necessarily new.

Ben Bohrer:         05:18          They're new in this particular combination to get those type of binding characteristics. Traditional binders like gums or a high level of chemistry goes into forming some of these cellulose type of ingredients that are used to help bind all of these different protein sources together.

Josh Moran:         05:39          In terms of actually hitting that nutritional profile that they're trying to mimic, is it very similar or nearly identical in terms of the actual nutritional value in maybe say sodium and things like that as well, or does it differ in some ways?

Ben Bohrer:         05:52          It will differ in some ways, but again, if we look at the goal of these meat simulation like the Beyond Burger for example, they're taking the nutritional specs or at least the macro nutritional specs, so the protein, lipids, carbohydrates that a ground meat product would offer, and then using those to kind of guide them to get to that level of nutrition. That's why they so closely simulate the nutritional characteristics of what a ground beef product would be in terms of their protein and lipid content. Beyond that, there are a little bit I guess subtle differences there with things like the carbohydrate content, as well as the vitamin and mineral content.

Josh Moran:         06:39          Because I've read before that plant-based proteins can account for your entire profile of amino acids, right? I know that meat can't necessarily do that in some ways, but I mean they both have things that they can and can't account for. Now, I'm kind of wondering there, are you actually getting the full amino acid profile out of some products like these Beyond Meat burgers?

Ben Bohrer:         07:03          The challenge with plant-based protein... Let's take corn for example. Corn would be limiting in its lysine content, while rice maybe limiting in a different amino acid. You can combine forces with these different plant-based proteins and some plant proteins that offer very high concentrations of one amino acid and another plant protein that would offer a very low concentration of that amino acid can be combined together to get a full source of amino acids. Really that's what we see with these products. The Beyond Burger for example, a, it's got pea protein, rice protein, and mung bean protein.

Ben Bohrer:         07:44          All of those are probably combining forces and they've probably looked at the nutritional composition of each one and tried to make ones or use ones that are a kind of complimentary dairy to make the product meet all those amino acid requirements.

Jordan Terpstra:    07:59          It's been a while since I've taken nutrition or maybe you can help me a little bit here, but when we're talking about these amino acids, these are requirements for our diet that we need to have. It's ensuring that like this product that they're making has all those requirements.

Ben Bohrer:         08:12          Exactly. Kind of the way that our body was able to metabolize protein, if we're meeting all of our requirements for let's say all of the amino acids except one of the essential amino acids, then we're still going to be protein deficient because we're not able to metabolize enough of that one particular amino acid. That's really why meat is kind of the traditional source of protein because it is high in every amino acid.

Jordan Terpstra:    08:42          I see with a lot of these products like Beyond Meat you're using things like P isolates as ingredients, and I'm wondering how would a P isolate differ from an actual standard yellow pea?

Ben Bohrer:         08:54          That's a very challenging question. To be honest, we're not quite there from a research standpoint. The traditional rule of thumb would be that as we process foods to a greater extent, they're able to be more digestible and more metabolizable so we would get more nutrients from a process product versus an unprocessed product. But with that being said, in some cases, we don't necessarily want foods that are more highly digestible in those types of things. For kind of an example here, that would be why things like refined starches are not necessarily as healthy as whole grain products or unprocessed grain products. That's really kind of where we're at here.

Ben Bohrer:         09:40          In terms of proteins and looking at these different isolates and comparing those to kind of the natural source of that protein food, we're not quite there yet from a research standpoint. There aren't enough studies really available to tell us what the differences are in terms of digestability and nutritional application of ultra processed foods versus unprocessed foods.

Josh Moran:         10:05          Yeah. This would be considered an ultra processed food, correct, by definition?

Ben Bohrer:         10:10          Yes. By definition, really any type of meat simulation product that's on the market today would be considered an ultra processed food. Really that's just based on the definition of taking multiple sources of whole foods, processing them to a great extent, and then combining those together.

Josh Moran:         10:29          With it being so new, you really don't know the health implications as to whether it's better for you or worse for you in comparison while comparing it to like regular meat, right?

Ben Bohrer:         10:37          Exactly. I think really where we're at right now is just kind of interpreting what the macronutrient profile is and looking at the vitamin and mineral content. We can say that that very closely matches a traditional meat product. Right now I would say with the evidence that we have and where we're at in terms of the science that the two products would be very comparable.

Josh Moran:         10:59          In the same way that you wouldn't eat a burger every day, you probably shouldn't eat a Beyond Meat burger everyday? I mean, just to be on the safe side when you talk about being nutritionally sound. It's not something that you're supposed to have everyday, right?

Ben Bohrer:         11:12          Exactly. That's a great point. I think really where the challenge here is is if we look at the sodium content. Sodium is one of the minerals that we certainly need for several different bodily functions. But in North America, we kind of have an epidemic right now with over consumption of sodium much further and much beyond those daily recommended limitations. I think those limitations that are pretty widely used are 1500 milligrams per day for women, 2100 milligrams per day for men. If we look at some of these products here, especially once we get them into a burger with the bun and all the other toppings, I wouldn't venture to guess that probably the Beyond Burger that you would get at A&W is well above a thousand milligrams of sodium.

Ben Bohrer:         12:06          You do want to limit intake just from a sheer sodium standpoint. That's not to say that traditional meat products, especially further processed products, are lower in sodium. They're probably very comparable, but that is a challenge with most of these protein foods that we see comes along with an over consumption of sodium as well.

Josh Moran:         12:26          Yeah.

Jordan Terpstra:    12:27          Well, and I think that's the tough thing that I think people... They think of plants and they think of healthier. I think a lot of people without knowing much about these products think, "Oh, it's made of plant, so it must be healthier," but that's not necessarily the case.

Ben Bohrer:         12:40          Yeah. I would say that's the case certainly with these meat simulation products, but also with traditional meat products, and we'll kind of go back to that, or really any type of food product for that matter, there's healthy food products really of all categories and unhealthy food products of all categories. Maybe unhealthy is too strong of a word, products that maybe aren't quite as healthy. We can look at this in several different examples, but if we compare let's just say a lean beef steak versus a hot dog, they're going to be very different in terms of their nutritional composition, the amount of sodium that they elicit, and those types of things.

Ben Bohrer:         13:21          It's the same with this. If you have a bowl of peas versus a Beyond Burger, to say that they're comparable from a nutritional standpoint is certainly an incorrect assumption.

Jordan Terpstra:    13:32          Right. I find it so interesting. I find that these products have just kind of popped out of nowhere. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to it, but what is the process for something like this? Is it that consumers were looking for a product like this or where these big companies like, "Oh, we should kind of get ahead of it. We know that more people are eating vegan, vegetarian, so let's come up with a product like this."

Ben Bohrer:         13:54          I think that's probably where it started was kind of the vegan and vegetarian marketplace and people are vegan and vegetarian for a variety of different reasons, including perceived health benefits, environmental impacts or perceived environmental impacts, animal welfare, and those type of issues as well, or really maybe they just prefer to eat just plants. There's a variety of different reasons there. I think what's kind of gone beyond here, and I guess I use beyond with no pun intended, is that these new products are more focused on appealing to all consumers and not just the vegan and vegetarian marketplace.

Ben Bohrer:         14:37          Really that's where the expansion is growing and that's where this marketplace is growing in my opinion.

Jordan Terpstra:    14:42          It can fit a flexitarian sort of lifestyle. You're not just married to... It doesn't have to be married to one thing, which I think makes it a super interesting product.

Ben Bohrer:         14:50          Yup.

Jordan Terpstra:    14:51          I see a lot of these things too, especially when it comes to red meat, about the concerns with red meat being a carcinogen. Now, I'm assuming that because you're barbecuing more often than not these Beyond Meat Burgers and running through the same way that you would be doing a red meat burger, you would probably have some of the same implications with the charring and the condiment and the sugar bone and so on and so forth. Would that be the case?

Ben Bohrer:         15:12          Yeah. We'll step back here maybe just one step and talk about some of these carcinogenic attributes of meat products or kind of where all of that began. A lot of these food products that are carcinogenic or perceived to be carcinogenic, almost all of these chemical compounds that are carcinogenic are formed during the preparation and cooking process. That's really where these different different compounds are being formed. If we think about how we're cooking a meat product, if we're barbecuing it or those types of things or even if we're frying it in a pan on the stove, we're forming kind of a char on the edge of this product, and that's where these chemical compounds are being formed.

Ben Bohrer:         16:03          It's really no different if we're charring cauliflower or broccoli or something like that on the grill. We're still forming similar type of compounds in the char and kind of on the crust of those foods. That's really no different with whether you're cooking plants or meat. That's just kind of one of the things that maybe is not quite as well understood as it should be. That we probably don't have a lot to fear with cooking meat products like that because that's really how we cook any type of food product.

Jordan Terpstra:    16:35          Yeah. It's just kind of something that's been associated with it even though it's something that's actually associated with almost all foods that we're cooking in this manner.

Ben Bohrer:         16:45          Yup, and particularly with these meat simulation products because they're going to be prepared in a very similar fashion to what traditional meat products would be. They're all perishable. They all require cooking before consumption. You're going to run into the same type of issues there with the formation of these potentially carcinogenic compounds.

Josh Moran:         17:05          I think that this Beyond Meat product is pretty extraordinary in terms of the technology it provides. I know there's probably some people that feel threatened out there. Maybe some producers like livestock meat producers or beef producers might feel threatened. But on the other hand, I think it provides an excellent amount of opportunity to pulse farmers and people that are growing things like yellow peas or canola is another product that's prevalent. Could you maybe speak to the concerns that beef producers may have?

Ben Bohrer:         17:36          Well, I think that the concerns are somewhat justified because whenever another industry is simulating a product that you've kind of got a staple on and have for centuries, then sometimes it cause for concern. I would encourage livestock producers not to get too concerned about this. Consumers have been eating plant proteins really for as long as humans have existed, and they've been eating these plant proteins in a variety of different ways and with a variety of different foods. This just so happens to be kind of the newest and most innovative food kind of within the plant-based sector or food industry, if you will.

Ben Bohrer:         18:18          As far as looking at different statistics, and I did bring some statistics here just to kind of analyze what the predictions are for the global output or global industry size of the plant-based simulation marketplace versus the traditional meat, seafood and poultry industry. These predictions come from peer-reviewed sources. The global prediction by 2025 of the simulation market is $21.23 billion and that figure is in US dollars. Then the global predictions for meat, seafood and poultry industry by 2025 is $7.2 trillion. Again, that's in US dollars.

Ben Bohrer:         19:03          If these predictions are any indication at all, that would put the global meat simulation marketplace around 0.3% of the global meat, seafood and poultry industry by 2025, which I think those numbers are very telling. I think that if you're a livestock producer, that should be encouraging and you shouldn't really lose sleep at night worrying about these these meat simulation products.

Josh Moran:         19:27          Another thing that I see with Beyond Meat is sort of them talking about environmental implications. I think that that might bother some producers as well because I'm sure that from... Well, you vary so much from practice to practice, right, when it comes to farming, whether you're like on unusable land and it's pasture and you're feeding cows that way. That's arguably more sustainable than other farms. To say that one is more sustainable to the other isn't so clear cut black and white. I was wondering if you could speak to that.

Ben Bohrer:         19:59          Yeah I'm certainly not an expert on environmental use of land and those type of things, but I would caution a lot of the consumers out there that maybe listening that are maybe buying into some of these environmental claims and how environmental differences would be and say that there is an environmentally friendly way to raise livestock and there's an environmentally unfriendly way to raise plants and vice versa. I think that that's something that should be more talked about as really the benefits of both plants and livestock to the environment.

Ben Bohrer:         20:40          I think that a lot of the times food as kind of an entire industry gets kind of a bad rap in terms of what is happening to the environment, where in a lot of cases there's a lot of benefits of agriculture and particularly crops and livestock to kind of the agro ecosystem and kind of our environment. I would say that that doesn't get really played enough. These benefits include things like returning nitrogen to the soil with manure and those types of things, as well as having a place for wildlife to kind of grow and live on some of these cow pastures, particularly these cow pastures in Canada. I think that some of those things don't get talked about quite enough.

Josh Moran:         21:29          I think the fear tactic runs both ways. I think that in the same way that certain alternative products may feed into the fear of lack of environmental sustainability, I think they go after things like environmental sustainability and talk about the implications of livestock being raised, but I think in the same way other industries tackle it. Something that I've seen in the media that kind of worries me is they talk about hexane being found in Beyond Meat products, which is a neurotoxin, right? But the amounts in it doesn't necessarily translate to something that's going to be detrimental. I'm kind of curious as to what your view on this back and forth kind of targeting that we kind of see in between these two industries.

Ben Bohrer:         22:15          Yeah. I think a lot of it like you kind of mentioned is based out of fear and trying to compare the two products rather than just stating what their product is really good at. I think that's what you see with a lot of, and particularly in this situation with these plant-based meat simulation products, it's a lot of comparing their products to traditional meat products versus just just trying to promote their product. I think that from a marketing standpoint, and again, I guess this is just kind of a personal pet peeve, is whenever these companies try to compare their product to other products rather than just promoting what their product does does so well.

Ben Bohrer:         22:58          Really if we're going to talk about some of these different meat simulation products, I don't think enough praise is given to the ingenuity and the food engineering and kind of the ingredient formulation in those types of things of these products because really they're very magnificent products in the way that they're formed. It's really a tribute to a how far we've come as food scientists that we can put these different ingredients together and make something that's so similar in terms of its color, texture and flavor to what traditional meat products would be.

Josh Moran:         23:32          With these meat simulation products, as I've mentioned before, it's kind of everywhere. You're seeing it... You can't drive down the road without seeing some kind of advertisement for them. Do you think it's a fad? Do you think in like five years down the road we'll still have these products? You think it'll get bigger?

Ben Bohrer:         23:48          Well, I think it's more than a fad. I think that they're going to be here to stay and they're going to be kind of mainstays particularly in these fast food restaurants. I think that's really where they have a better opportunity to sell in my personal opinion as opposed to kind of retail, but we see them both in food service and retail now. But I do think that it's a mainstay. If we think about kind of the illustrious history of meat simulation products dating all the way back to tofu and tempeh probably two or 3000 years ago, these products were kind of emerging and first coming out.

Ben Bohrer:         24:28          They've been around for a very long time. Now, what the technology is finally... I don't know if it's caught up or the technology has kind of been focused towards this group of products and we've seen tremendous strides in terms of their ability to replicate and effectively simulate meat and a variety of different meat products now. We see these products on everything from burgers to tacos to sausages. There's a variety of different ways that these products are being used and this technology is being used. I think that the technology is finally getting there, and I think over the next five or 10 years the marketplace is just going to continue to expand.

Josh Moran:         25:07          Very cool. Most of the products right now are more of like a ground meat product turned into, as you mentioned, a sausage or hamburger. Do you know.... Is there work on these eventually becoming something like a steak or more of those like a full chicken breasts or anything like that?

Ben Bohrer:         25:25          Certainly. There's a team of researchers here at the University of Guelph actually. We've got a... I'm on that team of researchers. We've got several different sources of funding to kind of tackle this particular question on whether we can get the texture of these meat simulation products to more closely replicate something like a steak or a chicken breast where we actually get this fiber structure. We're working towards that. Now, we've got a team of four food scientists and a food engineer, and we're going to be doing a variety of different testing to try to get that type of texture similar because the technology really already exists for the other components of flavor and color and those type of attributes, but texture is oftentimes the most challenging to to replicate.

Ben Bohrer:         26:18          It's not as challenging to create a ground product because the structural integrity of that type of product isn't quite as strong as what a steak or chicken breast would be. We're working towards that now. We're going to be working with a variety of different ingredients and a variety of different processing methods to try to get this type of replication. Hopefully we'll have something come of it here the next year or two.

Josh Moran:         26:44          That's awesome.

Jordan Terpstra:    26:45          I was going to ask too, since you're using a lot of products like P isolates, I was wondering would there be allergy implications for someone that is allergic to peas or does the fact that it's an isolate make it okay?

Ben Bohrer:         26:57          Well, that's the big challenge. If we look at a food allergies, almost all food allergies are caused by proteins, whether it's the proteins that are in nuts, the proteins that are in soy, or a variety of different allergens. Almost all of kind of the root cause of these allergies are proteins. When we start kind of mixing a bunch of proteins together, that certainly is a challenge. We could see that one of the most popular allergies I guess out there would be the soy allergen. We can see that a lot of these meat simulation products are trying to avoid the use of soy, but there may be other challenges with some of these other legumes or pulses that are being used with allergens. That certainly is a concern.

Jordan Terpstra:    27:43          I'm also curious. When I picture kind of a factory, I have no idea what this would look like when they're producing these products, because there's plenty of more ingredients in them, is the actual processing process a lot more difficult and are these companies having to buy a lot more equipment to make these products?

Ben Bohrer:         28:00          Certainly. That's another challenge is the equipment. Not to say that the traditional meat industry or other food industries aren't very equipment heavy, but these type of products may require unique pieces of equipment. Maybe things like a high moisture extruder or things to kind of get all these ingredients mixed in kind of a homogenate without completely ridding the product of all of its structural integrity. There's new pieces of equipment that maybe required.

Ben Bohrer:         28:40          Again, I'm certainly no expert in terms of engineering and equipment, but I would perceive that to be a challenge with several of these different products is just figuring out the processing techniques from an equipment side of things to make sure that they're getting kind of what they want. There may be a lot of investment for these companies to kind of start up and start producing these products.

Jordan Terpstra:    29:08          Right. That would probably have an implication on the price. But I think over time as the technology becomes better and better and more efficient, you're going to see a drop in this Beyond Meat price and see something that's probably extremely comparable to these actual...

Ben Bohrer:         29:23          Certainly. These meat simulation products, I was at the grocery store a couple weeks ago, and they're very comparable to meat products in terms of their price already. I think the the Beyond Burger here and Guelph is retailing for $7.99 for two patties. If we think about traditional beef, it's probably somewhere between $6 and $7 for a couple of patties from the butcher area of the grocery store. They're already fairly comparable in terms of their price. That kind of gets back to another point on this whenever we're talking about price maybe not for the consumer, but for the distributor, these products are perishable just like regular meat products would be. They are taking a chance if they inventory these products and they're hoping that they are able to sell all these products.

Ben Bohrer:         30:14          Because if they're not able to sell these products, then they're perishable just like traditional meat would be. They're not able to kind of keep them on the shelf for an extended period of time.

Jordan Terpstra:    30:26          I know processed food is typically known for being able to last longer. Does it last longer though in comparison to an actual meat burger?

Ben Bohrer:         30:33          Well, that's one of the things again that I don't know if the research is quite there. I don't know if anybody has really tested the bacteria growth over an extended period of time or those type of things with this product. The challenge here with this product is the main ingredient is water and that's to just try to closely replicate a traditional meat product. These products are probably somewhere between 60 and 70% water. They are a high moisture product and with that high moisture comes the proper environment for bacteria growth and spoilage.

Josh Moran:         31:08          Now, your role is a little bit different than most of the guests we do have on, which is usually graduate students. Now, I was kind of wondering if you could maybe explain a little bit of what your position entails as an assistant professor at the university.

Ben Bohrer:         31:22          Yup. Like most assistant professors in the Ontario Agricultural College, my appointment is split between research, teaching, and service. I do a little bit of all three. I teach a few classes there in the food science department, and then I have a research team that I have made up of postdoc and graduate students and undergraduate students. We research really what we've been kind of discussing earlier today, a variety of different aspects within the meat science and technology realm. Then the third component of my appointment is service and that really is split between professional affiliations where I volunteer my time to help out with different scientific and professional organizations, as well as interaction with kind of the general public and producer groups.

Ben Bohrer:         32:17          The final component of that service, the final part of that service component would be service within my department in college and university.

Josh Moran:         32:28          Okay, that's cool.

Jordan Terpstra:    32:29          Teaching. What kind of courses are you teaching?

Ben Bohrer:         32:32          I teach food chemistry for third year students, and then I teach the meat and poultry processing course.

Jordan Terpstra:    32:38          Awesome. Awesome.

Josh Moran:         32:39          In terms of exciting projects, is there anything that you want to share with your research right now?

Ben Bohrer:         32:44          Yes. Some of the projects that we have going on in my lab right now, kind of in the meat processing realm, is investigation of new and novel sources of starches and binder ingredients and meat processing ingredients that not only have the traditional kind of binder role, but also elicit other functional properties, whether it be improved nutritional components or improved color, texture, flavor of meat products.

Josh Moran:         33:16          That sounds super exciting. It looks like we're running a little over time so maybe we'll start to wrap it up. I've got two more questions for you, and the first one would be what sort of advice would you have for someone that's interested in food science?

Ben Bohrer:         33:31          I tell our students a lot, food science is such a large area and there's so many different specialties within food science. I tell a lot of our second and third year students that at some point you've got to decide what area of food science that you're most interested in, whether it's a food chemistry, food safety and food microbiology, food processing or specific aspects such as cereals, dairy or meat. You have to really decide at some point what area that you're the most excited about and what area that you'd want to work in if you're going to be majoring in food science.

Ben Bohrer:         34:09          I would say that's probably one thing that I would tell most potential food science students.

Josh Moran:         34:15          There's lots of opportunity by the sounds of it. Also, for the last question, do you have any shout outs that you'd like to make?

Ben Bohrer:         34:22          I guess I'd like to thank all of my colleagues there in the Department of Food Science. If you've got any questions really related to any type or any type of questions related to food science, just let us know.

Josh Moran:         34:34          Awesome. This is very exciting, and I wish I could stay and talk about this all day. I really do. I love this topic, but unfortunately I think our producer here would probably kick us out. With that, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Jordan, for being here again.

Jordan Terpstra:    34:50          Hey, my pleasure. I enjoyed talking with Ben today. Thanks for joining us.

Ben Bohrer:         34:52          Yup. Thanks for having me.

Jordan Terpstra:    34:53          Until next time, take care.

Josh Moran:         34:58          The Why and How Podcast is published by the Ontario Agricultural College of the University of Guelph. it is produced by Stephanie Craig and Jordan implications. Recording and editing done by Jacob Isaac and Kyle Richie. The host is me, Josh Martin. Funding for this episode was provided by the WS Young Memorial Communications Grant for the OAC Alumni Foundation.