What To Eat In The Future: Introducing The Future Meals, PART I
“You can’t build peace on empty stomachs.” — Lord John Boyd Orr
There will be an estimated 9 to 10 billion people to feed in 2050.
Over the course of our lifetime, climate catastrophe will be undoubtedly devastating. Global civil unrest is inevitable. Brace for it.
The current geopolitical crisis in Ukraine has provided a hint of fragility in the global food supply chain, especially towards impoverished countries like Yemen — one-third of their wheat supplies come from Ukraine. So, it is not difficult to imagine such disruption to happen in a global scale, especially when climate crisis goes on red alert.
In order to reinvent the future, we have to first build the future.
Keeping our food security above the subsistence level requires a re-envisioning of our future foods.
Despite the premise of this article, some suggested foods are not particularly “futuristic” because they are commonly consumed in some countries. The focus of the discussion is, can we rely on these alternatives for the long term in order to mitigate mass nutrient deficiency, especially when the climate and/or geopolitical crisis goes irreversibly disastrous?
So, without further ado, let’s dig in.
Bivalves: I see seashells by the sea shore and at the seafood section
Anyone who is into seafood are definitely familiar with bivalves. If you’re not familiar with the word “bivalve”, then I hope you’re familiar with oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, etc. Those are what we called as “bivalves”.
Nutrition-wise, they are packed with vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, choline, iron, selenium, and zinc. Apart from their highly nutritional values, bivalves can help solve several food production issues:
First, unlike fish, bivalves does not require any kind of fish feed. Salmon, for example, requires 5 kg of fish feed for every 1 kg salmon produced.
So, to give you a bit of perspective on how much fish feed were consumed in a year: Norway, which is the biggest exporter of salmon in the world, exported about 1.1 million tons of salmon in the year 2020.
Second, farm animals produce surface and groundwater pollution due to excessive manure and urine discharge. Bivalves, on the other hand, can help provide positive impact towards the marine ecosystem, and they are what we called as filter feeders — they are efficient at filtering the water by feeding on organic debris, bacteria, and algae.
However, the fact that they eat things like debris, bacteria and algae is also the reason why bivalves can cause food safety concerns. Oysters, for example, are generally eaten raw. Consequently, we are also at risks of eating oysters that are infected by harmful bacteria. Obviously, cooking the bivalves before consumption is highly recommended.
Enset: False bananas or false prophecy?
According to NASA, our global crop production of wheat, barley, rice and maize is predicted to decline starting from 2030. Think about it. That’s basically EIGHT YEARS FROM NOW.
The trickling-down effects of crop production disruption can affect not just the agricultural domain, but also our nutritional and human health needs.
If the major crops are slowly dying from the unpredictable temperament of global climate, surely there’s no other crop that can handle such stress, correct?
Wrong. There is one, actually.
Enter Enset or commonly called by the Ethiopians as “The Tree Against Hunger”.
Enset (Ensete ventricosum), also called “false bananas” are considered to be a promising crop replacement for wheat, maize, and rice. Commonly found in the Ethiopian Highlands, it is a sister taxon of common bananas but with a few major differences — for example, unlike normal bananas, enset are commonly processed before consumption. Take the enset’s starchy pseudostems and corms, and you can make them into oatmeal and bread.
The fact they can be harvested throughout the year makes them very robust against seasonal change. This is a very important characteristic because as the future weather patterns become more and more unpredictable, we also need to produce more and more predictable crop yields. This is where enset really shines.
With that being said, can false bananas actually lived up to its prophetic name, “The Tree Against Hunger”?
The answer depends on the efforts to learn and modernize the indigenous Ethiopian way of cultivating enset — the current process of transforming enset into consumable food is quite laborious. Moreover, further research on its pest and disease identification are necessary prior to wider cultivation. It is a long way to go before enset foods could be served on our dining tables.
Entomophagy: I would like some locusts on the side, please
If you ever have visited Thailand before, entomophagy (the eating of insects) is actually a common sight. Their insect delicacies are either fried or dried before eaten, commonly served with white pepper and soy sauce.
Insects are typically rich in protein, which makes it a potential substitute for animal-based foods. In the past, the poverty-stricken Northeastern Thais embraced entomophagy because the scarce ability to rear cows and poor crops made it quite difficult for them to acquire quality meals. Learning from their history, you can almost understand why future humans would resort to entomophagy.
Food For Thought
Transforming the way we perform agriculture in order to bring positive change towards our planet is not as easy as it sounds. Not only we are dealing with greedy corporate food industry, the political willpower of the world governments so far have also failed to produce noteworthy policies to decelerate climate crisis.
We need to embrace the new type of delicacies, even if we’re feeling squeamish at the sight of them. The good news is, as a species that continues to evolve, we humans are well capable of adapting to new environments and foods.
But, are we adequately prepared for it? More importantly, are we willing to adapt?
Anyway, that is all for part one of this future food series. If you have enjoyed part one, then you should definitely check out part two of the series.
Thanks for reading and I hope that was an informative read! Once again, be sure to leave a CLAP and hit the FOLLOW button for more!!
