The proteins of the future are already here | Marta Zaraska | TEDxVUAmsterdam

so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] how many of you have ever eaten insects can I have a raise of hands please well okay this is not what I have expected that's for sure now more difficult question how many of you have actually enjoyed eating insects as in you don't mind eating them every day let's say raise up hands no one okay so I just for those who haven't seen it the first question loads of hands second question I haven't seen anyone when I first tried eating insects well it didn't go so well I didn't know that you are supposed to remove those little wings from the insects before you put them in your mouth so they got stuck between my teeth it was nasty but the second time I tried it insects well it was horrible to to be honest it it didn't go well however it seems I'm not an exception when it comes to Western you're also looking here although around the globe as many as 2 billion people eat insects every day in 113 countries they eat things like ants Hornets Dungy beetles everything among the westerners in the countries that traditionally don't eat a lot of insects excitement is much lowering so only between 13 and 19 percent of people actually admit that they would try eating insects in the first place researchers and scientists alike and business people are on this quest to find the perfect protein of the future and insects are just one such idea so you also have lab grown meat you have plant-based proteins also bleeding plant-based proteins you have microalgae seaweed duckweeds everything but can we just stick to eating meat after all humans have been eat doing it for two and a half million years and for most of the time it was fine actually so much so that scientists now say that for our hominin ancestors meat actually made us human because it allowed our brains to grow so what happened well things have changed first of all our lifestyles have changed but also our priorities have changed because for our ancestors their priority was to keep their stomachs full right but for us and and for that meat was great because it kept you know it will kept them full with the protein the fat the calories the minerals the vitamins but for us we want to live long and these those are as privileged westerners we want to live longer we want to live healthy we want to have long healthy retirements what we don't want is to get heart attacks or diabetes or cancer when we are 50 or 60 but unfortunately research shows that these are the things that eating a lot of meat especially red meat and processed meat is linked with so things have changed for us what's more there is the issue of the burning planet as much as 14 and a half percent of all human related greenhouse gas emissions are actually related to livestock production and if that number doesn't seem so huge consider it is about the same as all the transportation combined so all the cars trucks planes ships everything together is the same as livestock production this is huge and then there are the 80 billion animals that we also kill for meat every year so obviously we need a replacement on paper insects look great they're cold-blooded animals so basically you can say they don't waste energy on living and they produce a lot of protein so as much as for example crickets as much as 12 times as much as cattle 12 times it's quite a lot what's more a lot of species are full of vitamins and minerals think for instance they are also often Superior to chicken and pork in protein production so they have more protein than even chicken and yet you know there is this issue of consumer acceptance basically people don't really want to eat insects in European Union mealworm and Locust have been allowed for consumption since 2021 and yet you probably don't see them everywhere in restaurants and in stores precisely because people are not that excited so maybe microalgae these are this kind of tiny micro unicellular organisms that are great at producing protein for example Tetra cells it's like this insanely green microalgae that even in cold climate status here in Netherlands it can produce 300 times more protein than cattle what's more it can be grown on the unused land and marginal lands where nothing else will grow and even at sea but the problem with microalgae is that it's we're still very inefficient at producing it what's more it's still very expensive and has this kind of fishy off taste so it doesn't really taste like meat to be honest what does taste like meat is love ground meat I know I have tried I actually had a chance this January in Singapore uh I went to the first Butchery store in the world that actually sells labyrin meat alongside you know your chicken and pork and salt and beef and I had some chicken kebab chicken fried chicken skin chicken and it really tasted like meat and especially for me I've been vegetarian for 17 years so that was a huge deal to actually eat meat for the first time so at least as far as I remember it did taste like meat Singapore is the first country in the world that allows sale of lab grown meat other countries are getting close for instance United States well other countries such as Italy are actually considering Banning lab-grown meat the reason the reasoning is that they want to protect their culinary heritage well most likely what they want to protect is their meat industry but well so why should we eat labyrin meat to begin with because it's better for the planet than conventional meat for instance it can reduce the greenhouse gut production by 96 what's more it requires just fraction of land as little as one percent of what you need for a conventional meat but again there are problems first of all there is the price so in Singapore I had three tiny basically this size Chicken Kebabs and they were more or less this wide and they costed 19 Euros and the price was supposedly kept low below the costs by the producer because they want people to actually try and buy the stuff it's still a huge Improvement because 10 years ago in London I I had the pleasure of witnessing the frying of the first lab-grown Burger and then it was the size or maybe even smaller and it costed quarter million Euros so we went from quarter million to 19 huge improvements still there is a way to go because obviously you know lab Girl Meet requires a lab meaning high-tech facilities it's not easily scalable at least as yet well it doesn't require a lab or a high-tech facilities is plant-based meat all those you know impossible Burgers Beyond Burgers vegetarian Butchery things but here there are also some issues so recently this kind of products at least some such products have come under scientific scrutiny because they may not be best for your health at least some of them some of them are okay but a lot of them are actually very very processed meaning they contain a lot of sodium a lot of saturated fats from palm oil or coconut oil a lot of flavor enhancers you know paste enhancers and binding agents things you're not necessarily want in your food right and what's more when you think about this kind of plant-based products they are very often burgers and what do you eat burgers with fries with soda so they encourage this kind of unhealthy eating patterns again not best for you so do you know what's the simplest solution for the protein of the future lentils beans tofu things that we've been already eating for Millennia and which are not only simple to make they're also healthy and good for the planet and cheap for instance lentils are not only low in saturated fats and sodium but they're also loaded with vitamins with minerals with fetal nutrients so things that can actually Stave of cancer then you have soybeans which can produce 16 times as much protein as cattle beans 10 times more you have buckwheat which in my native polish Cuisine is actually very commonly used and is as complete in protein as a meat exactly the same so this is amazing so why do we keep looking for this Holy Grail of perfect meat replacement why do we invest so much money in effort into finding something else and what we already have most likely because humans have been hooked on meat for a very long time probably two and a half million years and the reasons for that are in part physiological because we have taste buds that evolved to Crave the fat the protein in meat but also cultural because meat over the years have become connected with masculinity with power with wealth and then there's some such a simple reason as lack of cooking skills so actually in research a lot of cooking skills is the most common reason for why humans right people abandoned their vegetarian and vegan diets and other research shows that the better you are at cooking the more plant-based you eat the more vegetables and more fruits and last but not least there is money so for one there is the meat industry which obviously doesn't want you to stop buying their products so they invest a lot in marketing but also in things such as sponsoring research for instance and also for the plant-based industry the more things are processed the more they are elaborate so you know plant-based Burgers insects kebabs the more money there is to be made in general this is why we have so much process food to begin with because for the industry the more you process food the more money there is on it simple lentils basically are just not good business so are we going to be eating insects in the future we may most likely all the proteins they've mentioned so lab grown Meats edible insects microalgae but also duck with seaweed all the other ideas that are floating around there will make it to our Supermarket shelves and to our restaurants and this is good we'll have more Choice we'll have more options and we need these options because we have to stop eating as much meat as we are doing right now it's not good for our health it's not good for the health of our planet and yes I still believe that the most powerful proteins of the future are already here lentils beans tofu buckwheat we just have to learn how to cook them thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,848

Keywords: English, Food, Future, Global Issues, Insects, Sustainability, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:53494]

Id: y_pPNotq97w

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023