Artificial food and synthetic food

According to statistics, the world consumes a total of 1.2 billion tons of grain every year, which is equivalent to paving a global highway with a width of 17 meters and a thickness of 1.8 meters on the equator. Moreover, the growth of population has extended this "grain highway" by 1 kilometers every year. This makes mankind face a serious situation of food shortage. Facing this challenge, on the one hand, human beings are controlling population, on the other hand, they are trying to find a new source of food-artificial food.

One of the ways to solve the human demand for protein is to produce single cell protein through non-agricultural means. Single cell protein, commonly known as "artificial meat", is a microbial food. Microorganisms are mostly single cells, which are the entities of nucleic acids and protein. The production of this single-celled microorganism by fermentation can obtain extremely rich single-celled proteins. The reproduction speed of microorganisms is amazing. Under suitable conditions, 5 kilograms of living bacteria can produce 125 kilograms of single-cell protein one day and night. A cow weighing 5 kg can only synthesize .5 kg of protein every day.

The main ingredients of "artificial meat" are protein, fat, sugar, vitamins and minerals, and its nutritional value is comparable to that of milk and eggs. The nutritional value of 1 ton of microbial protein is equivalent to 2.1 tons of lean meat, 3 tons of eggs or 12 tons of milk. It can be used as both food and feed.

Algae is a leader in the microbial world. It can take carbon dioxide as the nutrient for photosynthesis in the sun like higher plants, but its growth rate is several times faster than higher plants. The algae powder harvested in a lake the size of an acre of land is converted into concentrated protein, which is equivalent to 5 tons of soybeans, which shows a broad prospect for human beings to make food by using air, moisture and sunlight.

In the future, there will be synthetic food, which is made of genetically modified microorganisms or immobilized enzymes, no different from natural food. You can also use mutated fungi and yeasts to turn food that people don't like into food that gourmets like. For example, people can weave, knit and shape the hyphae produced by fungi according to a certain texture structure just like synthetic fibers, so that they can specify the production of a special food, such as beef legs, beef tenderloin, beef liver, beef tendon and so on. Britain has promoted synthetic beef food to the market, supplying synthetic beef hamburgers and frozen "beef" stuffing.

irradiated food that will not rot for a long time

This is a kind of food that has been treated by radiation, and it can be stored for a long time without freezing. The United States once listed a kind of meat wrapped in silver foil, which was specially prepared for astronauts with chicken, beef and lean pork with juice. It was stored for six years, but the color, fragrance, taste and nutrition of the food were as fresh as fresh.

when food is irradiated, it is necessary to put the food into a multi-layer plastic film bag and use a vacuum pump to pump out the air in the bag. And then put into liquid nitrogen for cooling. This is done in order to minimize the loss of color, taste, meat quality and nutrients of food in the later processing.

The radiation treatment was carried out in a huge room surrounded by 1.8m thick walls. Commonly used rays are gamma rays and electron beams. Gamma rays can make electrons escape from food molecules or atomic structures, resulting in new ions. The newly generated ions react with protein in bacteria, molds or other eggs, thus killing these microorganisms and eggs or preventing them from growing. At the same time, it can kill pathogens and bacteria that cause gastrointestinal diseases.

with different irradiation doses, different effects can be obtained. Low dose irradiation is generally used to inhibit plant germination and over-maturity, and to kill pathogens and parasites. Moderate dose irradiation is mostly used for meat, eggs, fish, shellfish, fruits and vegetables to prolong the shelf life and kill salmonella. The purpose of high dose irradiation is complete sterilization, such as meat, fish and bacon frozen at extremely low temperature.

food radiation is widely used. After irradiation, vegetables can inhibit rot, prolong storage period, delay post-ripening period, etc., and provide more vegetable varieties in off-season. Radiation sterilization of meat can prolong the storage period and keep fresh. Banana, litchi, citrus and other fruits can delay the ripening process after irradiation, and will not rot and deteriorate after long-distance transportation. Radiation treatment of various famous wines can accelerate the aging process, improve the quality and increase the output.

Irradiated food can not only be stored for a long time at room temperature, save a lot of electric energy, but also has good safety, no drug residue and no influence on quality, and can improve food quality, so it is an ideal food for military, medical, tourism and field workers in the future.