Chef's specials in 2050: Insects and artificial meat. Appetising insects, lab-grown burgers, and plant-based 'meat' including artificial blood. Global demand is skyrocketing, and cows sheep, pigs and chickens can't keep up. So scientists are looking for brand new sources of protein.
On the dinner table in front of you, there is a cheeseburger, a bowl of deep-fried chicken nuggets, and a delicious dessert in the shape of freshly baked chocolate cake. The fast food menu looks like something you have tasted many times before, but nothing on the table is quite what it seems to be.
The juicy burger does not come from a cow in a field. Instead, all muscle fibres were grown in a culture dish. And although the crisp nuggets feel completely like chicken in your mouth, all their protein derives from soybeans and peas. Finally, taking a closer look, you will find that the chocolate cake includes mealworms bred to taste of nuts.
The examples are not pure imagination and future visions. All three courses already exist, created by visionary scientists to find new methods for making protein-rich food, and the reason is a simple one. Proteins are some of the human body’s most vital nutrients, and meat is getting still more popular as our primary source of protein. However, meat production requires so many resources that experts warn us that in a few decades, red meat will be in short supply throughout the world.
MEAT PRODUCTION IS A HUGE PROBLEM
Human evolution is very much associated with meat. When our ancestors began to cook the animals they killed over a fire instead of consuming them raw, their bodies were suddenly able to retrieve more energy from the meals. Today, scientists believe that the roasted meat was key for us to be able to develop relatively large brains, providing us with the advantage that placed humans at the top of the food chain. But although meat historically provided us with great advantages, modern meat production is paradoxically developing into a menace to the survival of our species (and many others).
According to several studies, the demand for meat will keep on increasing in the years to come. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Earth’s population is expected to reach 9.7 billion people in 2050, meaning that the general production of food must grow 70 % to keep up.
In spite of the present population growth being slower than it used to be for the past four decades, general living standards are expected to improve in the poor regions of the world, and this is very important for food production. Just about all meat consumption studies show that the quantity of meat consumed by one person is closely related with his finances. In other words, people in wealthy countries consume more meat than people in poor nations.
Countries such as India and China are, experiencing explosive middle class growth, and this increasing prosperity is expected to make Indians and Chinese demand more meat, which would be a disaster for the environment. Already now, the breeding of animals to be slaughtered is putting the world under pressure in three ways: greenhouse gas emissions, huge water consumption, and conversion of habitats to farmland.
Meat production is responsible for huge greenhouse gas emissions. According to FAO, meat production accounts for about 14.5 % of total human-induced CO² emissions, because the animals are constantly emitting lots of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas, which is 23 times more powerful than CO².
Water consumption constitutes another problem. More than 15,000 l of water go into making just 1 kg of beef. This is not due to the cow being very thirsty, but rather that the animal’s feed requires huge quantities of water to be manufactured. Up to 99 % of the water going into meat production derives from animal feed. Experts talk about “virtual water” – an expression chosen by British geography professor John Anthony Allan and covering all the water going into meat production, but which is not directly visible, when buying fillet steak at the supermarket.
The high water consumption is manifested by the fact that major food producing nations such as the US, India, and China increasingly have to tap into their ground water resources to keep the production going. According to NASA data, more than half of the 37 largest ground water reservoirs in the world are shrinking. And the problem is periodically aggravated by drought, during which rain water cannot be used for watering purposes.
The third major meat production problem is space. Today, the meat industry occupies 70 % of all farmland in the world. If you look at a world map, there are plenty of vacant spaces for increasing food production, but many of the potential new fields are located in a few countries, where the soil is not fit for producing the food required.
PLANT AND LAB-GROWN PROTEIN
The three problems have one basic cause: beef cattle and other domestic animals are very inefficient when it comes to converting plant protein into meat protein. Instead of wasting space and water on the animals, it would be much more efficient, if we just did it ourselves.
Consequently, scientists and food engineers are trying to find manufacturing methods for future meat which are not dependent on living animals. One solution could be growing the meat in labs, in which cattle, stables, and large feed fields have been boiled down into tissue samples in cell cultures.
One of the pioneers is Dutch scientist Mark Post, who attracted international attention in 2013, when he served the first lab-grown burger. By means of a biopsy – a tissue sample from a living cow, Mark Post managed to extract muscle stem cells, which are able to reproduce very considerably in cell cultures in culture dishes.
Mark Post fed the stem cells the same nutrients which they would have gotten from the cow. Subsequently, he deprived the stem cells of the nutrients, which made them join just like muscle fibres. After eight weeks, he had enough to make a burger. In terms of taste, this early prototype was not very delicious – particularly because it only consisted of muscle fibres and did not include any fat tissue like an ordinary burger does. Moreover, the cost was extreme. Due to all the work carried out by researchers in the lab to grow every one of the burger’s 20,000 muscle fibres, the price of this one burger was $340,000. However, Mark Post is confident that the method can be scaled up to such extents in the future that stem cell meat will be able to compete with the old-fashioned method concerning both taste and price.
Mark Post’s burger is made up of real muscle fibres from a cow, but other scientists are more interested in plants as the means to produce burger alternatives. Companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat in the US have developed plant-based meat products, which consist of protein from soybeans and peas, but their tastes and textures are designed to mimic meat from chicken and cattle. The companies have replaced animal fat by coconut oil, and a special blood molecule known as haem, which is extracted from plants, provides the dried protein powder with the authentic taste of meat.
Apart from the environmental gain of producing artificial meat based on plants, there is every indication that the new plant-based food is a healthier alternative to the real thing. In 2016, research by the Harvard Medical School showed that the protein source is an important health factor. People who are already overweight or smokers can benefit particularly from food based on plant protein, reducing their risk of cardiovascular diseases. This is so because real meat includes saturated fat, which increases the cholesterol level in the blood.
MERE BUGS WILL SAVE THE WORLD
The artificial meat products will probably be accompanied by other food in the future. And unlike stem cell burgers and artificial meat made of pea powder, this source of protein is perfectly natural.
The protein content of insects such as beetles, larvae, locusts, and crickets is comparable to that of beef and chicken, and in addition, they also include lots of healthy fatty acids, minerals, and amino acids. In comparison with cattle and chicken, the creepy-crawlies are much more efficient protein factories and can be bred at a fraction of the resources.
According to FAO, cattle require 12 times more feed than crickets for the production of the same quantity of protein. One important reason for this is that, unlike cattle and pigs, insects are cold-blooded creatures. Domestic animals consume lost of energy from the food to keep warmer than their surroundings, but that is not necessary for the cold-blooded insects.
UN experts even estimate that for every hectare of farmland used to breed and feed mealworms, 10 hectares are required to produce the same quantity of cattle protein. Moreover, insects produce much less ammonia and methane gas via defecation.
TASTE AN EXTINCT ANIMAL
Perhaps you hate the thought of having to chew on artificial burgers or insects, but the new protein sources could also involve brand new culinary experiences.
Scientists do not only get ideas for the cuisine of the future among existing animal species. The possibility of poaching on the preserves of Jurassic Park and reviving extinct animal species could perhaps be realized by means of gene technology. In 2015, scientists from the US universities of Harvard and Yale managed to use gene modification to create a chicken embryo with a dinosaur snout instead of a beak.
With the existence of preserved museum pieces of other extinct species such a the dodo, it is reasonable to imagine that scientists could sequence the complete genome of the bird.
When combined with stem-cell technology, the animal’s meat could theoretically be recreated in the lab, paving the way for exotic specialities such as dodo nuggets or mammoth steaks in the future.
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Burger proteins out of thin air
1. 78 % of the atmosphere consists of nitrogen, which is an important building block of life and forms part of all types of protein. The cow in the field cannot convert nitrogen into protein directly from the atmosphere, it must get the element by eating plants
2. Atmospheric nitrogen combines with other substances. It happens when lightning makes nitrogen react with oxygen to form nitric acid, etc. Today, the procedure is primarily an industrial one, by which a chemical process binds nitrogen to hydrogen, producing liquid ammonia (artificial fertiliser).
3. In the ground, the ammonia is broken down into ammonium, which can be absorbed by some bacteria. The bacteria convert the ammonium into nitrite (NO²) and nitrite into nitrate (NO³). So, the nitrogen has been converted into a state which plants can absorb and use.
4. The bacteria's nitrate is absorbed by plant roots. The plants use the nitrate to build proteins, which the cow eats. In the first of the four chambers of a cow's stomach – the rumen – bacteria convert plant protein into meat proteins, and the cow grows muscle and produces milk.
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Farms breed tasty creepy-crawlies
In the Western World, edible insect breeding is getting ever more common. Breeders' favourite is the house cricket, which provides the best taste.
1.The eggs are placed in damp soil
After the mating, females are moved to a separate container, in which they place the eggs in soft soil. The separation ensures that the eggs are not eaten before they hatch.
2. Baby crickets hatch in warm rooms
The development of a cricket depends on the temperature, so the containers with freshly laid eggs are moved to a room with a stable temperature of 25-30 degrees. The eggs hatch after 7-10 days.
3. Fruit and vegetables provide better taste
Breeders first feed the insects dry feed, which makes it easier to keep the enclosure clean. Once the creatures are fully grown, they are fed fresh watermelon, carrots, and more, to improve taste.
4. Quick boiling kills the crickets
60 days after the eggs were placed in the soil, the crickets are fully grown. Breeders remove them from the containers and kill them in boiling water. The taste of crickets is described as nut-like.
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Protein pasta to make it easier to eat insects
Many people cannot bear the thought of eating insects, so several manufacturers have begun to convert bugs into protein-rich flour, which can be used in anything from pasta to cookie dough. The Nutribug company's pasta includes 10 % cricket powder. The pasta includes lots of protein, calcium, and iron.
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How to turn peas into “meat”
US company Beyond Meat has found a way to recreate the protein structure of meat, although its “chicken” is only made up of plant matter.
1. The peas, which are the primary source of protein, are harvested. Protein from soybeans is added.
2. Pea seeds are soaked in water. In the process, protein is collected from the peas and dried to make up a powder.
3. Other dried plant matter is added to the powder, such as fat in the form of vegetable oil. A machine heats, cools, and pressurises the mixture, producing a protein structure reminiscent of that of meat.
4. Flavouring agents are added, and the finished product is boxed before being carried to stores. To provide the meat with the right colour, titanium oxide – a natural mineral which functions as white colour pigment – is added.
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Blood molecule makes plant burger taste of meat
Haem is the secret spice providing plant burgers with the taste of meat and colour. The molecule consists of one iron atom attached to porphyrin pigment. The iron adds that distinct metallic taste to blood. Haem is included in the human body’s blood-carrying haemoglobin protein, but scientists have found a way to make vegetarian haem from soybeans. Haem makes up less than 1 % of the ingredients of the burger.
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Electric fork makes food more salty
Salty potato chips and French fries. Salt on an egg or in bread, sausages, bacon, and sliced meat. Salt is omnipresent in our food, and many people consider it an indispensable flavour enhancer. However, too much salt could harm your health, causing high blood pressure due to the sodium of the salt.
Scientists from the University of Tokyo have created an electric fork, which can produce a taste of salt in food via weak electric impulses from a battery. Ordinary table salt is sodium chloride – or NaCl. When NaCl encounters the tongue, it is dissolved into the ions of Na+ and Cl-, which are electrically charged particles. According to recent research, it is the Na+ ions of the salt that make the taste buds grasp the taste, which we consider salty.
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Digital lollipop lets you taste over the Internet
Sending small, accurate electric impulses into the tongue and varying temperatures, scientists have managed to create digital versions of four basic tastes.
Scientists from the National University of Singapore aim to study how taste impressions can be digitally recreated. So far, the scientists have managed to isolate five different basic tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami, which is often described as "satisfying meatiness". The scientists from Singapore have developed a digital lollipop, which uses the fact that our taste buds can be activated by electrical impulses and temperature changes on the tongue. When test subjects touch a small thermoelectric element with their tongues, the device can produce sour, sweet, salty, and bitter tastes.
The test subjects also experience a very spicy taste at a temperature of 35 degrees, and a taste of mint, when the temperature is approximately 18 degrees. According to Nimesha Ranasinghe, who heads the project, the digital lollipop could one day be used to taste food virtually over the Internet, before ordering it.
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STEM CELL MEAT
I n a small office three floors above the lobby of the busy Maastricht University Medical Centre, the world’s leading scientist specialising in stem cell meat is eating his lunch pack. The modest surroundings do not produce the impression that this man is the founding father of a brand new category of meat, which could revolutionise the food industry and ensure the future protein supply of the world. Even the lunch pack is remarkably uninspiring: two slices of toast bread with a slice of cheese in between.
Science Illustrated has gone to the Netherlands to visit Professor Mark Post, who heads Maastricht University's Department of Physiology and is the man behind the world’s first stem cell burger, which was cooked and consumed in front of the world press in 2013. Since then, only 15 people have had the pleasure of tasting a piece of stem cell meat from Mark Post’s lab, but that will probably very soon change. Right now, the professor is working on removing his stems cells from small culture dishes, converting cell cultures into meat in huge bioreactors of up to 25,000 litres instead.
STEM CELL MEAT COULD SAVE US
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, i.e. they have the potential to develop into all types of cells in the body, such as nerve cells, skin cells, or bone cells. Generally, they can be divided into two types: embryonic stem cells, which only exist in very young embryos, and adult stem cells, which exist in all tissue throughout life. Adult stem cells are ready to replace dead cells in the body, but unlike embryonic stem cells, they can only develop into cell types that already exist in the tissue in which they live. Adult stem cells in muscle tissue will always produce muscle cells and so, they are ideal for Mark Post’s growth process. Stem cells can divide almost indefinitely – in theory, one stem cell could become one quintillion muscle cells or 10 tonnes of meat.
Mark Post has obviously explained the problem of beef cattle many times before:
“Conventional meat production causes so much pollution that a vegetarian in a large, petrol-guzzling SUV is actually better for the environment than a meat eater on a bicycle And there will be many more meat eaters in the future, so if we do not develop new alternatives now, we will soon have major problems,” Mark Post says. The environmental advantages of stem cells are obvious. According to a study by the University of Oxford, the production of labgrown meat emits 96 % less greenhouse gas, takes up 99 % less land, and requires up to 45 % less energy than beef cattle breeding.
FROM ABATTOIRS TO "BREWERIES"
“Imagine a brewery. Large tanks with the volume of half an Olympic swimming pool,” Mark Post explains his vision of the future production of stem cell meat. He shows me a small, 1.5 l container with something that looks like a miniature ship's propeller at the bottom. The container is a prototype of a bioreactor, in which he and his team of four scientists are testing their cell cultures. Preparing for the first "performance" in 2013, the team spent three months producing two burgers, which each consisted of approximately 30 billion muscle cells. All individual cells were grown in culture dishes, which were manually filled with individual stem cells and a nutrient fluid including vitamins, minerals, and sugar for the cells to feed on. The elaborate process meant that the price of one burger was $340,000.
With the bioreactors, the process will be utterly different, Mark Post promises. In a culture dish, the cells can only grow in one layer, but the large bioreactors involve an extra dimension. The problem is that the cells need a surface to grow on, and the scientists intend to solve it by filling the nutrient fluid with microparticles for the cells to grow on, while the ship's propeller makes sure to circulate nutrients to all the cells of the liquid.
According to plan, the scientists will move from the small prototype of 1.5 l to bioreactors of 25,000 l over a period of four years. One such bioreactor would be able to supply 10,000 people with meat at a price of about DKK 250 per 500 g. Considering the high price, Mark Post expects expensive restaurants to be the first to buy the new type of meat, but within a period of eight years, the new method will be so efficient that the stem cell burgers will be cheaper than ordinary ones.
WHO WOULD EAT LAB MEAT?
In principle, there is no difference between the process taking place inside a cow and the one that Mark Post is carrying out with the cells in the lab. Nevertheless, one of the major challenges facing his project is the outside world’s immediate disgust concerning labgrown food – the disgust factor, as he calls it. However, the disgust factor is all about emotions, he explains, and they can be changed.
In the Netherlands, you can buy a snack called frikandel – a type of deep-fried sausage consisting of a mixture of dubious meat scraps, which often come from different animals. When Mark Post lectures about stem cell meat, he asks the members of the audience who admit to be frikandel eaters if they know what the snack is made of.
“Many of them do not know, and they do not want to know, which is very interesting. It proves that we are prepared to eat things we do not know what is – provided we are familiar with the taste and know that it is harmless. I do not see why the same should not be true for stem cell meat.”
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Extinct animals on the menu
With DNA from extinct animals, chefs might be able to cook meat courses based on animals, which have not existed on Earth for centuries.
Until the mid-1600s, the small island nation of Mauritius was the home of the clumsy, turkey-like dodo. The bird was about 1 m tall and unable to fly, so for seamen arriving to the island, it was an easy prey and a meaty, tasty meal. The population was wiped out, but after 350 years, the dodo may now be on its way to staging a comeback on dinner tables.
That is the vision of the people behind the Bistro in Vitro project, who invent creative future menus based on modern meat research by scientists such as Mark Post of the Netherlands. Dodo nuggets, in which chicken has been replaced by dodo meat, could be one of the new dishes. Trying to draw up the dodo family tree, scientists from the University of Oxford have taken DNA samples from museum specimens. If they manage to sequence the prehistoric bird’s complete genetic code, scientists will have all the information they need to grow dodo meat in the lab. The wild vision also applies to other extinct animals such as mammoths and smilodons, which could stage a comeback on dinner tables throughout the world.
By Mikkel Meister in "Science Illustrated", Australia, n. 52, 13, July, 2017, excerpts pp. 34-47. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.