Greetings friends! Today I will try to look into the future and find out what products will be in trend and what we will be eating in a few decades.
Insect farms are developing
Most people in the Western world do not find grasshoppers or cockroaches appetizing, but there are two billion people in the world whose diet includes insects. At the same time, insectivores consider those who behave squeamishly towards such food as strange.
In cities in Mexico or Thailand, a beetle is a common crunchy snack and an affordable source of protein for a nutritious lunchtime snack, for example. Insects require very little land and water to grow, which means your dinner plate will have far less greenhouse gases than, say, a beef steak.
Some statistics: for the production of one kilogram of beef, you need 10 kg of compound feed, while for a kilogram of cricket meat you need only one and a half kilograms of compound feed. Another advantage of insects is that they are less susceptible to various diseases that can play a cruel joke on the human body.
In fact, the statistics on the benefits and benefits of eating insects are nothing more than confirmation that there may be problems with real meat in the future. This could be due to a decline in the number of cattle, which will make meat prices cosmic. Consequently, for commoners, so to speak, it will be cheaper to get protein from a beetle. And all this looks like a necessity, when suddenly there is nothing to eat. Therefore, the benefits and all other pleasant bonuses regarding insects are rather dubious.
Algae could be the next big food trend
Humans have been eating seagrass for a long time, and algae have obvious benefits: they are high in protein and do not need fresh water to grow. In general, algae need practically nothing at all to grow. Exaggerating, we can say that algae could be grown in the middle of the Sahara.
Many businessmen are involved in the construction and development of algae farms. The challenge is breaking the barrier of disgust, as many consumers treat sea grass like snotty mucus that tastes like licking a wet bag. The chance of success in the development of such enterprises is due, among other things, to the fact that there are thousands of types of sea grass. In one experiment, it was possible to breed a species that tasted like bacon. The most common is salty algae, which is used as a food additive in foods such as noodles, for example.
Of course, all these aspirations and changes do not mean that one day you will buy a herb burger instead of a cutlet. However, it can be a cheap and easy way for many people to get the protein they need.
Artificial meat production
Plant-based meat substitutes are becoming more popular, and the race begins to try to make artificial meat taste as similar as possible to real meat. Founded in 2009, Beyond Meat spent several years bringing products to market that didn't taste like salty ice hockey pucks. Texture was one problem, but the problem was addressed by heating the soybeans before mixing with the gel to make the meat more fibrous. The big breakthrough came with beet juice, which was added to make artificial beef more beautiful and bleeding, if you will.
The production of artificial meat is potentially sustainable, as reducing beef consumption could result in reduced carbon emissions. This means that the fight against climate change would be much more productive.
Printed food
Literally printed using a 3D printer. In 2019, a project appeared that is working on the technology of producing "alternative meat" and even whole dishes using a 3D printer. The project is developing quite rapidly, and in addition to Jet-Eat, which print meat, there are projects that print pasta, sugar, chocolate and much more on machines. More and more machines appear for different kitchens - a printer for pastry chefs, a printer for a bistro-bakery, and so on. It would be interesting to know what is the difference between printed cakes and handmade cakes. But here, probably, as with purchased and homemade dumplings: homemade, of course, tastier and better.
