What is the artificial cultivation of food called? Artificial food

Man has long mastered the technology of isolating pure protein from soybeans, cotton, canola, sunflowers, peanuts, rice, corn, peas, wheat, green leaves, potatoes, hemp and many other plants. However, these are incomplete plant proteins that do not contain some essential amino acids. And in nutrition, a person needs sufficient amounts of complete animal protein. But where can I get it?

And man has learned, with the help of yeast, bacteria, unicellular algae and microorganisms, to convert carbohydrates, alcohols, paraffins, grass and even oil into cheap, complete food protein containing all the essential amino acids. Refining just 2% of the world's annual oil production can produce up to 25 million tons of protein - enough to feed 2 billion people for a year.

And this method of processing available cheap raw materials into scarce animal protein using microorganisms is called microbiological synthesis. The technology for producing microbial biomass as a source of valuable food proteins was developed back in the early 1960s. Then a number of European companies drew attention to the possibility of growing microbes on a substrate such as petroleum hydrocarbons to obtain the so-called. protein of unicellular organisms (SOO). A technological triumph was the production of a product consisting of dried microbial biomass grown in methanol. The process took place continuously in a fermenter with a working volume of 1.5 million liters.

However, due to rising prices for oil and its products, this project became economically unprofitable, temporarily giving way to the production of soybean and fishmeal. By the end of the 1980s, the BW production plants were dismantled, which put an end to the rapid but short period of development of this branch of the microbiological industry.

Biomass from waste

Another process turned out to be more promising - the production of mushroom biomass and complete mushroom protein mycoprotein using as a substrate a mixture of petroleum paraffins (very cheap waste from the oil refining industry), vegetable carbohydrates from food waste, mineral fertilizers and poultry waste.

The task of industrial microbiologists was to create mutant forms of microorganisms that are dramatically superior to their natural counterparts, i.e.

obtaining superproducers of complete protein from raw materials. Great progress has been made in this area: for example, it was possible to obtain microorganisms that synthesize proteins up to a concentration of 100 g/l (for comparison: wild-type organisms accumulate proteins in quantities calculated in milligrams). As microbial protein producers, the researchers chose two types of all-consuming microorganisms that can feed even on oil paraffins: the filamentous fungus Endomycopsis fibuligera and the yeast-like fungus Candida tropicalis (one of the causative agents of candidiasis and intestinal dysbiosis in humans). Each of these producers forms about 40% of the complete protein.

Scientists have also selected conditions for pre-treatment of waste added to oil paraffins for optimal growth of fungal microflora. Chicken manure is diluted and hydrolyzed under acidic conditions, and brewer's grains are also hydrolyzed with sulfuric acid. After such treatment, no foreign microorganisms that were in the waste survive and do not interfere with the growth of microscopic fungi sown on the substrate.

Technologists also selected the conditions for filtering the multiplied biomass of microorganisms from the nutrient medium. All tests performed have shown that the resulting product is non-toxic, which means that complete microbial protein can be obtained from a mixture of petroleum paraffins, chicken manure and vegetable carbohydrate raw materials. Thus, at the same time, a way has been found to effectively dispose of manure, which is one of the main problems in the development of industrial poultry farming. The result is an artificial “cycle of nutrients in nature” - what comes out of the stomach will return to it.

The next task was that the proteins isolated from fungi grown on the substrate and supplied to food processing plants under the name “biomass” were purified and deodorized, i.e. They are tasteless and odorless, colorless and are a powder, paste or viscous solution.

Designing food

There are hardly any people who want to eat them in this form, despite all the advantages in terms of nutritional and biological value. Therefore, at the first stage, they tried to simply add isolated tasteless proteins to traditional meat, and not only meat, products to enrich their amino acid composition.

But this path did not allow us to radically solve the protein problem. And scientists decided to create and construct artificial food products that do not differ in appearance from the traditional products we are accustomed to, based on the use of existing protein resources. This approach made it possible to regulate the composition, properties and degree of digestibility of the resulting food analogues, which is of particular importance in the organization of children's, therapeutic and preventive nutrition. And the use of special technology and equipment makes it possible to recreate the structure, appearance, taste, smell, color and all other properties , imitating a familiar product. In short, food engineering involves isolating protein from raw materials of various natures and converting it mechanically into an analogue of a food product with a given composition and properties.

At the end of the USSR (in 1989), the annual production of artificial protein substances exceeded 1 million tons. In conditions modern Russia the high profitability of such productions has made it possible to sharply increase the production of protein surrogates and now replace almost all meat in industrial minced meat products. Artificial meat products are produced in several ways, allowing one to obtain products that imitate meat, chopped cutlets, steaks, lump semi-finished products, sausages, frankfurters, ham and much more. Of course, it is impossible to create an indistinguishable imitation of a piece of meat - its structure is too complex. Another thing is minced meat and products made from it - sausages, frankfurters, sausages, etc. The technique and technology for producing meat analogues varies depending on the type of product. We will only tell you about some of the most interesting ones. In accordance with one of the methods, a solution of the isolated protein is fed under high pressure through a spinneret into a bath with a special acid-salt solution, where the protein coagulates, hardens, strengthens and undergoes orientation stretching, resulting in a protein thread.

Fillers containing binders, food (amino acids, vitamins, fats, micro- and macroelements), flavoring, aromatic and coloring substances are added to the fiber. The resulting fibers are grouped into bundles, formed into plates, cubes, pieces, granules by pressing and sintering when heated.

According to the experience of the textile industry, the resulting protein threads can be converted into a fiber-like food material, which, after swelling in water and cutting into pieces, differs little from natural meat products, but still different... It is not yet possible to reliably fake the complex structure of a piece of meat.

But in the production of meat products for sausages and minced meat products, they use another technology that allows them to optimally hide the fake: animal and hydrogenated vegetable fats, spices, synthetic flavorings, aromatic substances and artificial dyes are introduced into jellies obtained by heating concentrated protein solutions. Modern chemistry is capable of creating a taste and smell of any product that, even by experts, is indistinguishable from natural ones. The liquid mass is injected into the sausage casing, boiled, fried and cooled. Analogue of ready-made sausage mince in taste, smell, appearance, the structure is completely no different from the natural product.

To obtain artificial meat products with a porous structure, highly concentrated protein solutions are mixed with fillers and under pressure at high temperature injected into an environment with lower temperature and pressure.

Due to the boiling of the liquid part, a product with a loose-porous structure is obtained. Some people are frightened by the very term “artificial” or “synthetic” meat, since this supposedly creates associations with something made of nylon or polyester. It should be noted that both the main components and all fillers used in the production of meat product analogs are harmless and balanced in the ratio of various essential nutritional components in accordance with physiological standards.

Scientific contribution of the USSR

You might be interested to know that in addition to artificial meat products, artificial milk and dairy products (based on emulsions of cheap vegetable fats), cereals, pasta, “potato” chips, “berry” and “fruit” products, and “nut” butters are produced. For confectionery, similarities to oysters and even black granular caviar. (In particular, on cans of artificial condensed “milk” they write not “Condensed Milk”, but “Condensed Milk” - be careful when choosing; look on the labels for instructions about the presence of vegetable fats, which cannot be in real dairy products.). Although the volume of production of artificial food products is constantly increasing, this does not mean that analogues of meat products will soon replace natural products.

Obviously, there will be (and is already happening) the distribution of these types of meat products in the diets of rich and poor, primarily through more complete and more rational processing of protein waste from the meat industry into cheaper artificial meat products. The production of food analogues is a relatively young area, but it is already generating enormous profits and providing food to billions of consumers around the world, including Russia. Moreover, it was the USSR, which ruined its agriculture, that made a special scientific and technological contribution to the development of this new branch of the food industry in the second half of the twentieth century.

It is possible to calculate exactly how much protein, fat, water and salt a person needs. But if so, is it possible to prepare artificial food from a mixture of these substances: artificial milk, artificial bread, artificial meat?

About fifty years ago, the Russian scientist Lunin tried to prepare artificial milk. He sculpted exactly as much fat, protein, carbohydrates, salts and water as was contained in milk, and made a mixture from them. The result was milk that looked and tasted no different from the real thing. To test it, Lunin tried feeding it to mice. And what happened?

The mice that ate only the artificial milk died, every single one of them, while the mice that ate the real milk remained alive and well.

It was clear that, in addition to fats, carbohydrates, proteins and salts, there was something very important in real milk that was not in artificial milk.
They began to catch this “something” by chemical analysis. But there was no way to catch it: apparently there was very little of it in the milk.

Similar experiments were done in other countries. Scientists prepared all kinds of artificial mixtures and fed them to animals. But all the experiments ended the same way: the animals died from artificial food, which lacked some substances necessary for life.

Then they remembered that people often die from lack of food, something without which life is impossible.
For a long time they knew, for example, that people get sick and die from a lack of fresh vegetables and fruits. This happened especially often during long journeys.

Sailing to overseas countries once lasted for many months. The sailors on the ships had to eat only corned beef and crackers.
And so it happened that it was not a storm or pirates, but scurvy that stopped the ships of the seafarers. Scurvy almost prevented the famous traveler Vasco da Gama from completing his voyage: out of one hundred and sixty crew members, one hundred people died from scurvy.

But another traveler - Cook - saved his team by landing on the shore at every opportunity and replenishing the provisions with fresh herbs. Onions and cabbage, oranges and lemons helped Cook travel around the world. From this they concluded that vegetables and fruits also contain “something” that is necessary for life.

It's hard to talk about something that doesn't have a name. Often half the work is done when we give the mysterious and unexplored something a hint. It was the same here. While scientists were talking about mysterious healing properties fresh milk or fresh vegetables, things did not move. But then one of the scientists suggested calling “something” found in milk and vegetables vitamins, and things moved forward. All over the world, scientists began experiments. Over the course of three decades, tens of thousands of experiments were carried out.

Several vitamins have now been found.
One of them - vitamin A - helps us grow; another - vitamin D - saves us from rickets; the third - vitamin C - prevents us from getting scurvy.
When you drink fish fat, remember that every spoonful of it makes your bones stronger, your muscles stronger: after all, fish oil contains vitamin D.
When you drink milk, remember that in every glass there is something that accelerates your growth - vitamin A. And an apple or orange relieves you of scurvy, from lethargy, from weakness.

Not only scientists, but also food workers are now interested in vitamins. Tables have been compiled that show how many times cabbage is richer in vitamins than lettuce, or how many times milk is poorer in vitamins than butter. Some vitamins have been produced artificially. There is already artificial vitamin D, one gram of which replaces half a ton of fish oil. Vitamin C has been prepared, which is better than the real thing and does not deteriorate from cooking and frying.

I think that in time we will have factories for artificial food, just as we now have factories for artificial silk or artificial rubber.
At the restaurant you can order a cutlet made from meat made in a laboratory and a glass of milk made without the help of a cow.
However, artificial food is unlikely to be similar to milk or meat.
For food, nutritional mixtures will be prepared containing everything a person needs.
It will be enough to look at the label to find out how much protein, fat, carbohydrates, salts, vitamins and flavoring substances are contained in one gram of food. And, looking at this label, you will remember with a smile those times when people ate without knowing what they were eating.

No matter what anyone says, natural food is bad. Very bad. I don't see any reason why people even touch it. Well, you yourself know its shortcomings:
- expensive (especially in restaurants, especially in Moscow)
- spoils quickly
- not useful (and if you’re unlucky, then dangerous)
- does not allow weight control
- you need to eat a lot to get full.
- has an indefinite taste
- causes mass hysteria (like cooking shows)
- ....
and I’m not even talking about how much money is poured into agriculture, which is so expensive and so ineffective.

But for a long time there has been normal, balanced artificial food that does not have all these disadvantages. Humanity should have switched to it a long time ago. But since this hasn’t happened yet, I’ll have to explain what’s what. Maybe at least someone will listen and change their diet.

I think, in general, everyone understands what artificial food is: it’s something that didn’t grow in garden beds, didn’t eat grass, that was made from start to finish in a laboratory, adding whatever they wanted. But everyone wants to add different things: Coca-Cola producers add all sorts of harmful things, but there are also companies that, on the contrary, produce healthy food.
Such a company was the transnational company Abbott, which, in addition to medical equipment, produces artificial food Glucerne.

Glucerne is similar to a regular juice packet. But there’s no water inside (like in Dobry juice, for example). Inside is a delicious, balanced drink that contains everything your body needs. nutrients. I drank a packet and immediately got a bunch of vitamins and minerals that you can’t get with any hamburger. Here's what's there:

This time.
Secondly, Glucerne was developed back in 1990 as a food for diabetics. Therefore, it has a low Glycemic Index, i.e. The sugar level rises very slowly after eating it. This is not only necessary for diabetics; 90% of people are recommended to eat foods with a low glycemic index.
But the most interesting thing is that due to Slow Release technology (slowly digestible carbohydrates), after drinking one sachet a feeling of satiety sets in, i.e. I don't feel like eating! Everyone knows that one of the reasons for overeating is the fact that the feeling of fullness when eating regular food comes too late, when we have already eaten more than normal. Look at the graphs of “hunger feelings” and remember yourself:


If we add to the absence of overeating the fact that the sachet contains only 206 kcal, and one sachet replaces one meal, then this diet turns out to be quite good: 618 kcal (with three meals a day) instead of 2000 or more. Of course, manufacturers do not recommend switching completely to Glucerne, but only talk about consuming it instead of breakfast or lunch. But it seemed to me that this was from the series " side effects- pregnancy" and I decided to try to eat only it for several months. Every day I measured my weight on the Withings scales, which build weight graphs. And this is what happened:

I won't even comment. Let me just say that I am not a fan of fasting and cannot stand it when my stomach growls. However, during these two months of consuming Glucerne, I really did not feel hungry or uncomfortable from the emptiness in my stomach.

More from personal experience: convenient to take with you on trips instead of a ton of groceries, convenient to have a snack on the go, cheap to have a snack in the center of Moscow.

Well, besides, it's delicious. There are three flavors: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. Like a cocktail.

In total, we have: healthy, balanced, dietary, practical, convenient, tasty, stylish trendy youth

What kind of natural food, one might ask, can do this? And why is it needed at all, if you can buy a jar of “juice” and forget about shopping, cooking, and overeating?
People! Switch to normal, artificial food!
Well, or try to switch, at least. Or just try it.

For bores, I give a link to a more scientific description of the action of glucerne. For special nerds, I give a link to

Today, overpopulation of the planet and lack of food for everyone is forcing humanity to look for new ways to solve the nutrition problem. We know from science fiction novels that in the future food will be completely different from what it is now. Writers are preparing us for the idea that we will eat exclusively healthy food created artificially. It turns out that today people are ready to create such food.

In the summer of 2013, the world's first hamburger with artificial meat was introduced in London. The cutlet was created using artificial mince, which was essentially grown in the laboratory using cow stem cells. True, although that experience turned out to be remarkable, it has not yet become successful and widespread.

Culinary critics noted that despite the presence of real beef taste, the meat still lacks juiciness. Interestingly, this is not the first attempt to create high-tech food of the future. Let us tell you what other attempts have been made in this field.

Artificial cutlet. Let's start the story with that same cutlet created on the basis of stem cells. It took five whole years and an amount of 375 thousand dollars to implement such a project and the appearance of the first artificial hamburger. At the same time, the majority of the funding (330 thousand) was provided by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. To create artificial minced meat, a whole group of scientists from the Dutch University of Maastricht, led by Professor Marc Prost, was called upon. Small particles muscle tissue were grown from myoblasts. These stem cells are present in muscle tissue even in adult animals. Scientists have calculated that artificially growing meat weighing 141 grams will require 20 thousand myoblasts. As already mentioned, tasters confirmed the natural structure of artificial cutlets. But this product contained neither tendons nor fat. It is worth noting that the main task of such artificial minced meat is to combat a possible food crisis. And this product is already able to solve such a problem. Scientists believe that with the development of such technology, synthetic meat could appear on the mass market in 10-20 years.

Printed food. Technologies are gradually becoming so widespread. Some researchers have even decided to print a food product. A prototype of a special printer to solve this problem was created in 2011 by scientists from the English University of Exter. And since April 2012, a chocolate printer is available for purchase on the Choc Edge website for $4,424. The creators of this installation say that home chocolate Factory works similarly to a regular printer. The user specifies the figure he needs, for example, a giraffe. And then the printer will gradually, layer by layer, begin to pour out a volumetric copy. The owner of such a machine only needs to have time to fill the printer with raw materials - chocolate. And in America they launched an even more interesting project for printing meat. The technology was developed by Modern Meadow. The starting material is animal cells - muscles, fats and others shared by the donor animal, as well as a nutrient medium consisting of sugar, salts, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. As a result of mixing, a jelly-like tissue is obtained, which, with the help of electrical stimulation, obtains a texture similar to muscles. Already in 2013, the first sample of such artificial food should appear. The project seemed so interesting that a major investor has already appeared - co-founder of the Paypal payment system Peter Thiel. He gave 350 thousand dollars for the development of the project.

Flies with the taste of fried potatoes. One of the newest trends in the food industry is the consumption of protein-rich insects. All that remains is to give them the desired, digestible appearance. German industrial designer Katharina Unger has created a special insect farm that allows you to create protein right at home. food supplement. The Farm 432 device must be filled with insect larvae, such as flies. There they end up in a special sleeve, where they grow to adulthood. The flies then move into a large compartment where they lay their young. These creatures will already fly up the pipe, either ending up in a compartment for repeating reproduction, or in a special cup for frying. There is even a video of the fly production process. The designer reported that her installation made it possible to obtain 2.4 kilograms of flies from a gram of larvae in 18 days. Brave Katharina Unger dared to try the grown food herself. According to the German woman, the larvae taste like fried potatoes. The value of such an installation is that each fly larva consists of 42% protein; this food contains a lot of calcium and amino acids. This invention became known in June 2013, but there is no talk of industrial scale yet. Maybe people are just not ready to eat flies?

Vegetarian chicken. In our meat-oriented world, vegetarians sometimes have a hard time finding tasty and varied food. The American company Beyond Meat has solved the problem of replacing chicken meat. Development lasted for 7 years, and in 2012 a new product was introduced to the market. Fake Chicken is created using a mixture of soy, flour, legume proteins and protein fibers. The new product was tested by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. He stated that such chicken really resembles natural chicken in taste. If synthetic product If it were served to a vegetarian in a restaurant, it would be appropriate to be indignant at the presence of meat in the dish. Together with his business partner Evan Williams, Stone even financed the development of such a project. At first, chicken for vegetarians could only be purchased in Northern California, but today the volume of supply has increased significantly. This food of the future is already available in both Brazil and Colombia.

Egg replacement. Young businessman Josh Tetrick launched Hampon Creek Foods in 2012. This company is designed to develop an artificial replacement for such a popular product as bird eggs. With the participation of biochemist Johan Booth, the first result was obtained - a yellow powder from mysterious plants. Beyond Eggs is recommended to be added to the dough instead of eggs. The website states that target audience The companies are large food manufacturers who use eggs or egg powder in large quantities. And the proposed substance can be used when baking pasta, muffins and mixing mayonnaise. True, it is not yet entirely clear why to replace a natural product with a mysterious powder. The author of the idea himself states that the industrial production of eggs has a bad effect on the environment, and the treatment of chickens cannot be called humane. It's not yet clear how much egg powder will cost, but its creators promise to make it cheap.

Long shelf life bread. Who among us has not faced the need to throw away stale and moldy bread? In 2012, the Texas company Microzap introduced innovative microwaves. According to the creators, such a machine can create bread that will be protected from mold for 2 months. A special technology was developed by scientists at Texas Tech University. To make bread lived longer, it is immersed for 10 seconds in a complex microwave oven, which is tuned to radiation of the desired frequency. This kills mold spores. The inventors claim that their technology will help not only those who bake bread. After all, in such a device you can process vegetables, fruits and even baked poultry.

Wine and nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has already entered the food industry. The Dutch design studio Next Nature specializes in adapting future technologies to the food industry. And so a new, dynamic wine appeared. Changing the temperature of the environment leads to changes in the taste, smell and even color of the drink. Nano Wine contains molecular compounds with different properties and aromas, which are activated precisely when heated. If the nano-wine is not exposed to microwave radiation, it is similar to merlot with fruity notes. A graph of how the drink changes when heated is attached directly to the wine. The vertical axis shows the power in watts and the strength of the aroma, and the horizontal axis shows the taste and time in seconds. The grape variety turns out to be scattered in the field between the axes. For example, to obtain a tart and soft cabernet, you need to heat the wine in the microwave for a minute at a radiation power of 900 watts. Such a reminder will be attached to each bottle if such a diverse wine ends up on the market. For now, the creators of such a product are simply studying the interest of potential buyers. And the launch of sales is a matter of the future, it’s not clear how far away.

Edible packaging. Today, most food comes with packaging. And the more food we consume, the more waste in the form of film, paper, and plastic remains. This idea is designed to solve such a problem. Harvard professor David Edwards created a special form of packaging called WikiCell. It consists of calcium, ground nuts and a sticky substance produced by algae. This mixture is used to prepare a hard spherical shell. You can pour juices, ice cream, yoghurts or even soups inside it. But such edible packaging cannot be purchased separately. By the end of 2013, two products that can be eaten in their entirety will go on sale at once - Frozen Yogurt Grapes and GoYum Ice Cream Grapes.

Seaweed cookies. In 2003, The Solazyme company announced itself as the creator of algae-based biofuels. But in this business the manufacturer had many competitors. The company had to expand the list of products created from algae. This is how new flour was obtained. The pale yellow powder can be used to make ice cream, chocolate or cookies. It should be noted that there is nothing surprising about eating algae. For example, in Japanese cuisine it is a common addition to many dishes. The innovation of the Americans is that the taste of their additive is not noticeable in traditional European food. This way you can get much tastier and lower calorie dishes. The same ice cream turns out to have half the calorie content. And although the technology has not yet found wide application, the authors of the idea hope to find their investor.

Daily diet in one drink. Rob Rinehart, a young programmer from Atlanta, is trying to bring this drink to market. The uniqueness of the nutritional mixture lies in the fact that it contains all the microelements necessary for human life. The author of the project, using the Kickstarter service, decided to raise money to launch production in 2013. This site allows you to collect the required amount through donations. It is obvious that Rinehart managed to collect necessary funds, at least this is what the successful status of the project on the Kickstarter website reports. The author of the startup told Vice magazine that such a drink will allow people to save a lot of time. Rinehart himself was tired of preparing his own food, deciding to take the simple route and create a universal product. It contains minerals, vitamins, beneficial microelements, fats and carbohydrates. The creator of the drink of the future tried to ensure that in one glass there was room for everything that the human body needs. Rinehart claims that he himself ate the drink he invented for several months, but never got tired of the taste. The product resembles yogurt, only without the sweet additives. A person's monthly diet in this form will cost only $100. The author and main tester of the idea is currently undergoing medical research. Based on the blog posts, the product actually works. Rinehart plans to launch the new product for sale in the United States and Canada at the end of 2013, and in Europe the miracle drink should appear in March 2014.

Elite molecular cuisine. While most food inventors of the future think about satiety, practicality and price, French chef Pierre Gagnaire has other motives. He strives to slightly modify the cooking in accordance with his own vision. The results of his activities indicate success in this matter. In 2008, the chef, together with chemist Hervé Thies, one of the creators of molecular gastronomy, created a new dish that consists entirely of artificial ingredients. The difference between molecular cuisine and traditional cuisine is the use of new technologies. For example, chefs use high-tech refrigeration, mix insoluble substances, and literally conduct chemical experiments in the kitchen. This is how very unusual dishes are obtained. Regular pasta can taste like strawberry. Still, it is worth noting that in chemical gastronomy, ordinary products, such as whole berries, are more often used. Gagnaire's synthetic dish is a jelly ball made from citric and ascorbic acid, with the addition of glucose and maltinol. This dish has an apple-lemon taste. The eminent chef managed to instill an interest in this kind of product in his students at the Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Together with his followers, in 2011, Gagnaire managed to introduce the Note a Note lunch, which generally consisted entirely of synthetic food.

This statement by D.I. Mendeleev, who deeply believed in the possibilities of science, was perceived by his contemporaries as nothing more than the fantasy of a scientist. But less than half a century has passed since chemists have learned to make artificial fats from coal processing products, yeast from oil, meat from vegetable fats and even animal stem cells. All this allows us to look at modern food differently and think about the likelihood of a real revolution in the food industry with a complete replacement of traditional food sources.
On the production of synthetic food products (SFP) from chemical elements and artificial (IPP) from lower organisms were conceived back in the late 19th century. However, in practice this began to be applied only in the other half of the 20th century. The first patents for the production of artificial meat and meat-like products from isolated soybean, peanut and casein proteins were obtained in the USA by Anson, Peder and Boer in 1956-1963. Then a new industry arose in the USA, Japan, and Great Britain, producing a wide variety of APIs (meat different types, cutlets, sausages, sausages, bread, pasta and cereals, milk, cheeses, sweets, berries, drinks, ice cream, etc.).

Modern food products receive about 2,500 non-food additives, most of which come from the chemical industry - flavorings, thickeners, foaming agents, preservatives, esters, acids, salts. Without nitrates, the sausage will look gray and unappetizing; phenylacetic acid gives the product a cheese smell; bluing colors the sugar. White color, sorbic acid is used to sterilize canned food, oils are purified with alkalis, and even gasoline is used to extract oil from seeds. Of course, all these measures
At this stage of life, a person directly receives his main food from the plant and animal world. But it is likely that in a few decades, synthetic food may completely replace the original. Its introduction has already been observed in the food market, but often the consumer treats it very conservatively and only the fact of its complete safety can convince him to accept such substitutes.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

The idea of ​​synthetic food seemed to be a solution to severe food shortages in times Soviet Union. Then scientist A.N. Nesmeyanov worked on artificial protein foods. Its substitute for black granular game, so rare at that time, was prepared on the basis of the milk protein casein, an aqueous solution of which was introduced together with gelatin into a cooled vegetable oil, as a result of which “eggs” were formed. The taste and smell were provided by herring extract and fish oil. The resulting product was a delicious protein product, almost indistinguishable from the natural one. The installation for the production of caviar substitute was called “CHIBIS”, which stood for “artificial black protein caviar”.

In 1963, Donetsk chemists under the leadership of Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR R.V. Kucher began research on the industrial production of yeast protein from microorganisms grown on petroleum hydrocarbons. Yeast organisms grow very quickly, doubling their weight every five hours or so, which means they synthesize protein several thousand times faster than animals. A kilogram of oil can produce a kilogram of yeast.

Soon, scientists decided to repeat a similar experiment by synthesizing yeast protein from coal. The resulting product was also intended for livestock farming. By adding it to animal feed, livestock specialists noted an acceleration in the growth of live weight of pigs, calves, and poultry by 25%.

However, according to scientists, this technology does not exhaust itself. If yeast protein is hydrolyzed in the presence of special enzymes, the resulting hydrolyzate, containing a mixture of amino acids, can serve as a basis for cooking. In addition, amino acids can now be obtained even from methane.

Soon they learned to make artificial meat, pasta, and cheese from synthetic protein. Yeast obtained microbiologically from petroleum hydrocarbons has already been tested in the baking of bread and the production of sausages. Synthetic rice and buckwheat cereals have been created that contain three times more protein than natural cereals. What unites all these products is the method of their preparation. The protein is crushed, the resulting fibers are rolled up in a special solution, then mixed with the animal or vegetable fat, give it the desired taste and color and, finally, at elevated temperatures, it is combined into a lump along with egg white. In this case, they get not raw, but already cooked “beef”, “pork”, “poultry” and even “fish”. Artificial meat can be cut, dried, canned.

Soybeans have been an effective replacement for traditional human food sources over the past decade. The now popular soy “meat,” or soy textured protein, is produced by extrusion-cooking a dough of defatted soy flour or white flakes with water. The resulting mass is crushed and then dried, forming minced meat, flakes, goulash, chops, cubic or oblong pieces as needed. Soybean oil, in turn, is widely used to make artificial creamer for coffee and tea.
In addition, scientists note the benefits of soy not only in its rich protein component (approximately 50-70% protein), but also in the presence of a huge amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids, including linoleic acid, which is not synthesized by the human body and can only be obtained through food. At the same time, fatty acids prevent the deposition of harmful cholesterol on the walls of blood vessels. Plus, soy contains a number of vitamins: β-carotene, vitamins E, PP, group B, folic acid, choline and thiamine.

But in 2009, the famous French chef Pierre Gagnaire created the world's first completely synthetic dish. Together with the chemist and founder of molecular gastronomy Hervé Thies, he prepared an artificial dessert “le note à note”, which includes glucose, maltitol, ascorbic acid and citric acid. Essentially, the dish looked like a snack made of apple and lemon flavored jelly balls, with a creamy filling on the inside and a crust on the outside.

CUTLETS FROM STEM CELLS

And the most “freshly prepared” dish of artificial origin, served on August 5 at a press conference in London, was a hamburger. Scientists research institute Netherlands grown from cow stem cells muscle mass, and then made a cutlet out of it. 380 thousand dollars were spent on the creation of such “meat”. The project was financed by the co-founder of the company Google Sergey Brin, covering 87% of its total cost.

Already today, many institutes are working on artificially growing tissues that can be used to replace damaged muscles and cartilage. A similar experiment was carried out by the author of the “hamburger”, Professor Post, who used cells of potential “beef” as a building material.

The process of growing such “meat” occurs a little faster than growing a real cow. Stem cells have the ability to quickly multiply and develop - so that after just three weeks their number exceeded a million. Next, the cells were transferred into small test tubes, in which they fused, forming pieces of muscle tissue 1 centimeter long and several millimeters thick. The finished strips were folded into small briquettes and frozen. When a sufficient number of briquettes were collected, they were combined into a single piece immediately before cooking.

The “meat” obtained for the hamburger was white, but in order for the product to be as close to the traditional one as possible, it was colored red using beet juice. In the future, scientists plan to use muscle myoglobin as a dye, the use of which is still being studied. For taste, the cutlet was also seasoned with saffron, and for an appetizing appearance, it was rolled in breadcrumbs.

The “meat” was fried in a frying pan and included in a hamburger, which was tasted by two restaurant critics. Despite the fact that its taste was considered quite “pleasant,” experts noted that it lacked the juiciness usually characteristic of “live” meat. Otherwise, its taste was practically no different from usual.

HOW TO FEED EVERYONE FROM THE LABORATORY

According to the authors of the cutlet, such technology could help solve world problem growth in demand for meat products nutrition. The head of the Center for the Study of Food Programs at Oxford University, Professor Tara Gamet, noted in this regard that the solution to the problem lies not only in the production of large volumes of food, but also in revising the supply system - the general availability of products; After all, as you know, about 1.4 billion of the world's population is obese or overweight, while a billion others go to bed on an empty stomach. But critics of the experiment, on the contrary, believe that reducing meat consumption will help in the fight against food shortages, which are already observed in many regions of the world and, according to forecasts, will only get worse.

An independent study conducted during the experiment also found that, compared to raising livestock in stalls, raising beef in a laboratory uses 45% less energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 96%, and requires 99% less pasture and farm land.

According to Professor Post himself, the widespread introduction of technology for producing meat from animal stem cells will save humanity not only from additional material costs and long-term care for animals, but also from the need for mass slaughter of livestock. In his theory, the professor sees a world where people breed farm animals not for food, but only for aesthetic purposes, such as dogs and cats.

Food adulteration

When resorting to replacing traditional food with artificial food, it is important not to allow false surrogates in its composition. So, in particular, to reduce the cost of alcoholic beverages, unscrupulous producers sometimes added technical alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol.
A clear example of such falsification occurred at the end of World War II, when German chemists managed to obtain a substitute from coal, water and air. butter. In appearance, smell and taste it was similar to real oil and did not spoil at all. But it turned out to be harmful, since scientists were unable to synthesize fatty acids absolutely pure, without impurities. This is where the genetic danger of using such imperfect products arose.
Similar side components can be observed in genetically modified products, although, in contrast to the warnings of doctors, scientists argue that it is impossible to generalize all GMOs as the only harmful ones, and it all depends on how exactly a particular organism was modified. However, will such an argument convince the mass consumer?

ECONOMY

In the USA, which accounts for almost 75% of world soybean production, the production of IPPs based on soy proteins reaches hundreds of thousands. tons Plant proteins are used in the production of PPIs in Japan and the UK. The latter even conducts experiments on making artificial milk and cheeses from green plant leaves.

Belarus also grows soybeans in its fields. Moreover, according to the Committee on agriculture and food of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee, Belarusian soybean varieties are not genetically modified and, unlike foreign analogues, are able to grow in conditions of long summer days and lack of heat. The potential yield of Belarusian varieties is up to 45 centners per hectare and, as a rule, is 3 thousand tons per year. Part of the soybean land falls on the domestic needs of the country, and the other is intended for sale to the markets of neighboring countries.

As we see, artificial food has been conquering the market for a long time, even despite consumer conservatism. Ultimately, chemical products imperceptibly penetrate into every food product, so that even sugar cannot escape their intervention. But creating food from stem cells is a new and original idea. And if the chemical industry can bypass it, such an experiment will probably prove to be quite effective and efficient in the future.

For the magazine “Director”, section “New Technologies”