Enjoy Your Microbe Food — This Is The Future.
As I munched my cereal this morning, I was reflecting that this may well become a luxury in the near or distant future.
If you think I am exaggerating look at what is happening to the sources from where our precious protein, minerals, and vitamins come from.
Biodiversity at risk
What is happening to all the insects? According to this PLOS ONE report, there has been a massive loss of 75% in just the last 27 years. That is like mass extermination.
This irreplaceable loss of insect diversity is alarming, to say the least. Just let us read together an extract from the FAO report on biodiversity loss to get an idea of the threat this poses for that cereal I had this morning.
“Biodiversity for food and agriculture is all the plants and animals — wild and domesticated — that provide food, feed, fuel and fibre. It is also the myriad of organisms that support food production through ecosystem services — called “associated biodiversity”. This includes all the plants, animals and micro-organisms (such as insects, bats, birds, mangroves, corals, seagrasses, earthworms, soil-dwelling fungi and bacteria) that keep soils fertile, pollinate plants, purify water and air, keep fish and trees healthy, and fight crop and livestock pests and diseases.”
The report goes on to list specific threats to our food:
- Just 9 plant species under threat actually make up 66% of total crop production
- Livestock depends on 40 animal species. Again, a very small group of these provide the meat, eggs, and milk we eat. About 25% of these are under threat of extinction.
- As regards fish stocks, 33% are already over-fished and about 50% are on the borderline of what we might regard as a sustainable limit.
Disasters around the corner.
We all know them because we talk about them as separate disasters. But they are interconnected especially when it comes to the compounded effect our food supplies.
Water supplies.
Just thirty years from now (2050) we will need 20% more water to sustain agriculture to feed the world. But water is running out. Droughts and climate change make this an impossible goal to achieve. Add to the list
- Pollution
- Soil erosion
- Floods
- Energy supplies at risk
- Terrorism
- Wars and mass emigration
Microbe food?
This is the process whereby microbes are used to actually produce food. Now, I know you are thinking that microbes are normally associated with germs, mold and other nasty things. But if there was no fermentation at all in food, we would not have bread, beer chocolate or cheese.
One start-up food company in Finland, Solar Foods, has succeeded in producing a single- cell protein called ‘Solein’. This is produced using renewable electricity, carbon dioxide, and air. Similar start-ups (not affiliate links) are:-
Watch the Solar Foods video here for a brief explanation.
It gets even better. This protein will be in a powdered form (rather like flour) and will be used to produce many types of foods. This is using a fermentation process and that is why it is known as “ferming.” It is not so different from the process we use in making bread, wine, and other fermented products.
What is exciting about this protein is that it can be used to produce food (except fruit and veg) without
- Destroying forests
- Climate change risks
- Using precious water supplies
- Using soil which is becoming scarce.
Enough food to feed the planet without destroying it.
Way to go!
