Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about the future of our food: how humans are trying to come up with alternative food sources to sustain our food supply and ensure food security in the world.

In week 9, we had a tutorial where each one of us in our project group had to pick and read one reading out of the four readings that were available. At the start of the tutorial, we were split into our “specialists” groups to discuss about the reading and after which, we went back to the project groups to share with one another what our readings was about. This way, each person only has to read one reading but would be able to get information from all four different readings!! Yay.

In my case, I read the article called: The meat of affliction. Initially when I read the article, I assumed it would probably just be about the usual kinds of meat we are consuming in our daily lives, how unsustainable the practices to produce all these meat actually are etc. But shortly into the reading, I found out that this article is actually about entomophagy, which is the eating of insects!

This article talks about how insects are actually full of nutrients and proteins and should be considered a very viable alternative source of food, not only in times of crisis.

The view that Western people typically have is that they will never in their lives treat insects as real food and consume them willingly, unless there is really no other choice. Only at the verge of starvation would they consider the consumption of insects.

Personally, I actually would want to try eating insects (but only those that are handled properly though!! :’)) but only for the sake of novelty, to know how these insects actually taste like. If someone told me that I had to eat a bowl of insects for breakfast/lunch/dinner I probably wouldn’t be able to take it. Hence, I understand where people are coming from. It’s a huge step for most people.

However, the article also mentioned ways that could overcome this problem such as improvements in marketing and packaging of these insects. When consumers do not see the insect as a whole, they become slightly more willing to give these insect-based food a shot. Hence, disguising these insects and maybe grinding them up into powder and shaping them into other kinds of food may be helpful in getting people to get used to the consumption of insects? If they didn’t know that it was made from insects they would probably just think that it tastes like chicken or something lolol.

Jumping from the food we consume now straight to insects may be too drastic, so alternatives such as plant-based food are actually getting more popular. Many plant-based food such as the Impossible patty has proven themselves to be just as delicious as their meat-based counterparts and could very likely be the main source of food for humans in the future.

For more technological alternatives, we have the 3D printing of food, which is a very interesting and novel idea. The possibilities for 3D printing is endless. We could print ready-made food, such as 3D printed gummies that are currently already available in the market, or 3D print uncooked food such as pizza from the raw ingredients before cooking it using conventional methods like baking. Alternatively, we could 3D print the food using the raw ingredients and cook it at the same time using heat from lasers. With more research being done in this area, 3D printed food may also be a possible food source in the future.

From all these readings, it can be seen that tackling food security issues may be a handful. We need to ensure we do not starve, but also ensure that our practices are sustainable and not damaging to the earth. Some viable food sources such as insects may not be pleasant to consumers as of now but who knows if their mentalities would change in the future.

That’s all for this post. Thank you for reading!