Creating Protein from Industrial Waste?
Have you heard about solar protein or other 'food' made from feeding carbon dioxide to microbes? Thanks to science , you will be able to eat the poop, I mean byproducts, of fermenting microbes. Yummy! And it will save the planet!
Solein is produced using a bioprocess where microbes are fed with gases (carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen) and small amounts of nutrients. The bioprocess resembles winemaking, with carbon dioxide and hydrogen replacing sugar as the source of carbon and energy, respectively.
https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/solar-foods-on-track-to-launch-air-and-electricity-based-protein-by-2023.html
The Solar Foods company in Finland has received $30 million in government grants since 2017 to develop their fermented microbe protein powder, Solein. Their materials say they are using a non-modified organism. They got the idea to make the microbial protein from NASA.
The goal is to replace food made by carbon-emitting cows and resource-intensive traditional farms with carbon-eating microbe protein. There's only one small problem, you need electricity to make the protein. Solar Foods plans to use solar and wind generated electricity.
The progress of this extraordinary technology has been hailed by the environmental campaigner George Monbiot, who has made a TV documentary, Apocalypse Cow, broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK at 22:00 GMT on Wednesday. Monbiot is generally pessimistic about the future of the planet, but says Solar Foods has given him hope.
He said: “Food production is ripping the living world apart. Fishing and farming are, by a long way, the greatest cause of extinction and loss of the diversity and abundance of wildlife. Farming is a major cause of climate breakdown.
“But just as hope appeared to be evaporating, ‘farmfree food’ creates astonishing possibilities to save both people and planet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51019798
The process uses industrial waste to feed the microbes. In other words , carbon captured from natural gas-burning plants. Creating protein doesn’t actually remove carbon, it recycles it. The carbon reduction happens by removing animals and farms.
Quick science lesson:
Carbon is the foundation of all life on Earth, required to form complex molecules like proteins and DNA. This element is also found in our atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon helps to regulate the Earth’s temperature, makes all life possible, is a key ingredient in the food that sustains us, and provides a major source of the energy to fuel our global economy.
The carbon cycle describes the process in which carbon atoms continually travel from the atmosphere to the Earth and then back into the atmosphere. Since our planet and its atmosphere form a closed environment, the amount of carbon in this system does not change. Where the carbon is located — in the atmosphere or on Earth — is constantly in flux.
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/carbon-cycle.html
I gotta admit that the science involved in this is pretty ingenious. But I think I will stick with eating eggs, meat, and dairy for my protein. But all microbes aren't bad. Without them and their byproducts, we would not have beer, wine, cheese, yeast bread, or chocolate!