This post will sound like a 'trip' on magic mushrooms but the facts are even more surprising.

Vegans have been on the look out for milk substitutes for years.

None of the options come close to mimicking the taste and mouthfeel of milk-based food like butter and cheese.

Whey and casein are the proteins that make milk what it is.

And two obsessive vegans, Ryan Pandya  and Perumal Gandhi decided they would create milk proteins without any cows back in 2014. At a company called Perfect Day Foods

And they did. Synthesizing milk proteins with the help of microflora - or mushrooms that feast on plant-based nutrients in massive tanks.

It has all the nutrition that milk provides without any of the problems of managing dairy farms, and cows.

We've reached a point where we no longer need cows to produce milk.

The company claims that the milk proteins produced are free from hormones, antibiotics or cholesterol.

They've got some way to go to produce cans of milk that arrive at your door in the morning, without the dairy farm attached.

Right now, they're looking to supply bakeries and pastry manufacturers. Which is the bigger market.

Will you miss the 'MOO' in the milk?

The cooking gas UX

The blue flame is now available on demand.

India's LPG penetration has reached 97.5%

The transition has taken decades, but look at the hazards that were overcome.

A highly flammable gas used and stored safely at home by people across all sections of society. 

Consider the effort it took to communicate ease of use and the precautions to be taken - to literate and illiterate audiences. 

In India, the first dealerships began in Kolkata in the 60s and people were highly apprehensive about keeping an explosive hazard at home

They changed because it was clearly superior to noisy or troublesome kerosene stoves or firewood .

The design was conceived and executed in the US in the early 1900s

The UX is clear. You can turn the gas stove knobs in just three directions - Full flame, Sim and Off.

Same to operate the gas cylinder - On, Off and remove the regulator.

Cooking gas has a distinctive smell strong enough to be noticed as soon as small amounts are released.

Other safety features are built into the tamper-proof cylinder.

A perfect example of early, intuitive UX. Much before the term was invented or hyped by technology

We're all junk collectors

It starts from childhood.

Kids stuff little stones, pieces of paper and all kinds of debris into their pockets

Adults are no better. We fill our lofts, shelves and cupboard with things that are rarely used

During occasional spring cleaning, we find tickets of journeys made long ago, bank spam envelopes never opened and receipts of products we've thrown away.

But we'll never find guarantee cards when we need them.

The strange aspect is that we follow the same behavior online as well.

Old emails and blurred images from long ago languish in online folders, stuck in limbo.

It's as if deletion means a break with the past. 

What if we deleted something important?

The dread is enough to preserve and prolong the same behavior.

The self-storage market in the US, which is largely personal effects is growing at a CAGR of 135%.  It is expected to go from $87 to $115 billion in just 5 years.

Online data  storage is not far behind, growing at 12.5 %, and already worth over $53 billion 

Memories are supposed to be precious but it's also a great business for people providing the storage.

We're not just stuffing the landfills but our lives!

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