Turning Green Leaves Into High-Performing Protein with Ross Milne

Episode Summary: What if the most abundant protein on Earth has been hiding in plain sight inside green leaves? In this episode of Business For Good, Paul Shapiro sits down with Ross Milne, CEO of Leaft Foods, to explore how a new approach to food production could unlock massive amounts of high-quality protein directly from plants. Instead of feeding crops to animals or waiting for plants to produce seeds, Ross explains how his team isolates Rubisco, a highly digestible protein found in every green leaf, through mechanical fractionation processes that separate proteins, fiber, and carbohydrates. The conversation explores why Alfalfa is uniquely suited for this system, how Rubisco compares nutritionally to whey and egg proteins, and why leaf-based protein could become a fourth pillar of global protein production alongside meat, dairy, and seed proteins. Things You Will Learn:

1. Why Rubisco is the most abundant protein on Earth, and why humans rarely consume it directly.
2. How isolating protein from green leaves could dramatically increase food system efficiency.
3. Why Alfalfa is a powerful crop for scalable protein production.
4. How Rubisco compares nutritionally with whey, eggs, and plant proteins.
5. Why leaf-based protein could become a fourth pillar of global protein production.

Tools & Frameworks Covered:

1. Leaf Protein Extraction: A mechanical fractionation process that opens plant cells and isolates protein, fiber, and carbohydrates for different food applications.
2. Rubisco Protein: A highly abundant plant protein involved in photosynthesis that offers strong amino acid profiles and high digestibility for human nutrition.
3. Systems Thinking for Food Production: Reframing the food system by removing unnecessary conversion steps (like feeding plants to animals) and extracting nutrients directly from plants.

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