What is food?

Wired’s got a really interesting interview up w/ a chef that’s doing some cool work w/ algae.

Wired.com: What have you been working on lately?

Homaro Cantu: We’ve been trying to incorporate food from the green world, and started growing microalgae. You can get 10,000 to 30,000 gallons of algae per acre. It can be grown in salt or fresh water, in a whole variety of temperatures. It increases the food supply rather than depleting it, and it’s a net energy gain.

For $300 we built a photobioreactor that produced 15 gallons of food per month. The idea was to take algae, process it into sushi and fuel, and deliver it it in a truck running on algae biofuel. And we’re just a bunch of chefs. If we can figure this out, I don’t know why others can’t.

—

Wired.com: What is food?

Cantu: It’s what enables us to live — and more than that, it’s dense energy storage. If you look at it from that point of view, you start shooting two birds with one shot.

How can we get something new into the food supply while serving another purpose, such as making plastic? We’re going to start working with things that grow easily in varied climates, and the end result will be printed food that grows on your roof. Decentralizing food is the wave of the future.

—

Wired.com: Are you aware of what’s going on, at the molecular level, with your dishes?

Cantu: Yes and no. We think of things in simple terms: how can we end world hunger? And then you investigate that.

Recently I started thinking about how people can eat the stuff they don’t eat now, that already grows around them. If you can turn that into food and make it taste good, you’ve got an answer. I can’t tell you more about this, but let’s just say I’ve had my neighbors eating twigs and branches by giving them a supplemental product that makes it taste good.

You have to have some understanding of chemistry, of how taste receptors work, of how people perceive food. But it starts with that initial crazy question: What is food?

I think he’s absolutely right about decentralized food.

Everyday I am more convinced that it’s the tinkerer in his garage/dormroom/kitchen that will save the world if we let him/her.

—

This interview makes me want to go to Tinkering School.

1. Track comments via RSS 2.0 feed. Feel free to post the comment, or trackback from your web site.

   Currently there are no comments related to article "What is food?".

1. You must be logged in to post the comment!