36 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATEDO
n 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 meathistorically 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 inBurger proteins out of thin air
Proteins are vital for all living organisms to be able to grow and repair damaged tissue. The key building blocks start out as
nitrogen in the atmosphere, and with plants and cattle as intermediate stations, the proteins end up in your burgers.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.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 (NO 2 - )
and nitrite into nitrate (NO 3 - ).
So, the nitrogen has been
converted into a state which
plants can absorb and use.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).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.
NO 3N 2O 2 NO 2O 2NH 4 +
AMMONIUMHENNING DALHOFF/SHUTTERSTOCKTECHNOLOGY FOOD