Rethinking Food & Agriculture
Cell-based meat approved in the US for the first time ever
Earlier this week it was announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared UPSIDE Foods’ cultured chicken safe to eat. This approval came in the form of a No Questions Letter from the FDA in response to the application for GRAS, or Generally Regarded as Safe, …
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could spark global food riots – the solution is precision fermentation
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about to set in motion a chain of feedback effects leading to a sudden, rapid escalation of global political instability. Various UN agencies, and now the IMF, have warned of social unrest at a similar scale to the ‘Arab Spring’ events in 2011. What few understand is …
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The Coming Global Fertilizer Crisis – and How to Solve it (The Pattern of Disruption, Part 5)
A global food crisis is looming, with high natural gas prices driving up the cost of ammonia fertilizer and the war in Ukraine threatening this year’s crops from both there and Russia. The consequences of mishandling this crisis could be dire. Research by complexity theorist Yaneer Bar-Yam suggests that high …
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How to go vegan without really going vegan: precision fermentation, cellular agriculture and the disruption of food
Last year, the folks at Our World in Data published an article and some graphics about how human diets affect land use. The conclusion, as you can see on their chart below, is that if everyone in the world ate a vegan diet – one without any animal products …
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The Protein Universe: To an Infinite Protein Palate and Beyond, Thanks to Precision Fermentation
According to a new report by the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (FAIRR) initiative, a global investor network that aims to put factory farming on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda, animal agriculture is deeply unprepared for the transition to a sustainable food system. But there is one …
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To Save the Rainforests, Stop Doing the Things That Are Destroying Them
Many scientists now believe that the Amazon is close to a tipping point, after which it would become a savanna rather than a rainforest. Instead of pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, it will start pumping them into the atmosphere, leading so-called flying rivers – bands of moisture in …
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The Fermentation Led Disruption of Citric Acid
What do the marmalade you put on your toast and the vitamin you perhaps take at the same time have in common? Both have an ingredient called citric acid, an ubiquitous, weak organic acid. Indeed, citric acid is the molecule that led to the technology which enabled the mass production …
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Sweet Saccharine: Could sweet protein disrupt sugar?
Sugar is one of the world’s most glorious ingredients. Deliciously sweet, it brings flavour and texture to so many of the dishes and products we love. But as we all know, sugar has a dark side. Alongside health issues like obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay, sugar is a volatile and …
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Precision Fermentation and the Disruption of the Palm Oil Industry
How do chocolate goodies keep their sheen and creamy texture, even while sitting on store shelves? Increasingly, the answer is palm oil (and palm kernel oil), the world’s most widely consumed vegetable oil[1]. In our report Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030, we discuss how precision fermentation (PF) is rapidly improving …
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