Future food, ＂nutrition＂ and a better life (open books to learn new things) – 爱上海419论坛,上海后花园论坛,阿拉爱上海龙凤1314

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Based on biotechnology and bio-industry, food in the future is expanding to richer biological resources, requiring heat and protein from plants and animals. The development trend of food in the future is the high integration of food technology, biotechnology and information technology.

In his important speech at the Central Rural Work Conference, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed: "We should establish a big food concept, build a diversified food supply system and develop food sources in multiple ways." Bread is the staff of life. With the rapid development of economy and society and the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, China’s food consumption has shifted from full to good, and it is increasingly pursuing healthy and happy eating. At the same time, population growth, climate change, resources, environment, public health and many other complex factors pose great challenges to the sustainable supply and nutritional health of food in the future.

The "big food concept" has defined the direction for the high-quality development of food technology and industry in the future. To deeply grasp the changing trend of food structure and meet people’s needs, we should ensure food supply in quantity, improve the function and nutrition of food in quality, change the traditional food supply mode that depends entirely on planting and breeding, develop food resources in all directions and in many ways, and realize the diversification of food sources. Based on biotechnology and bio-industry, food in the future is expanding to richer biological resources, requiring heat and protein from plants and animals.

Develop more nutritious, delicious, safer and sustainable future food.

How will human food in the future be different from today? This is a problem that people are concerned about, and it is also a subject that scientists are exploring unremittingly. Future food is the development of traditional food and modern food, which embodies the change of future production methods and lifestyles. The main task is to solve the problems of food supply and quality, food safety and nutrition, diet and spiritual enjoyment. From the perspective of scientific development, based on synthetic biology, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and nanotechnology, food will be safer, more nutritious, more delicious and more sustainable in the future.

As a high-tech industry, the future development trend of food is the high integration of food technology (FT), biotechnology (BT) and information technology (IT). Compared with today’s food industry, the future food industry has three main characteristics.

The first is to change the manufacturing mode of the traditional food industry. Different from planting and breeding, in the future, food can be made into meat, eggs, milk, oil and other foods by combining food with biotechnology, making the food production mode more efficient, green and sustainable. For example, soybean and other plant proteins are used as raw materials to obtain plant protein meat through extrusion and texturing, or muscle stem cells are extracted from animals, which are expanded and cultured into muscle cells, and then differentiated into muscle fibers to form cell culture meat. These technologies are gradually maturing.

The second is to make people healthier and the earth healthier. A reasonable diet is very important to our health, and a bad diet may lead to health problems. Medical research shows that adding certain plant protein to food structure instead of animal protein is beneficial to health. It is the representative development direction of food in the future that plant protein replaces animal protein. Different from the traditional way of obtaining animal protein by livestock and poultry breeding, the future food will obtain protein by means of plants and microorganisms, which will produce less greenhouse gases, occupy less cultivated land, be more efficient and environmentally friendly in terms of resource consumption and environmental impact, and make the earth healthier.

The third is to be able to cope with the food challenges facing mankind. According to relevant statistics of the United Nations, the global demand for protein will greatly increase by 2050. Therefore, improving the production efficiency of food protein and seeking alternative protein have become an important topic for food in the future. The protein obtained by animal cell culture, microbial fermentation and plant cultivation not only has obvious advantages in production efficiency, but also can meet the needs of different food protein functions and properties more easily.

Explore new possibilities of food in the future through scientific and technological innovation

In the future, food has broad prospects in basic research and frontier technology innovation, key common technology development, systematic product manufacturing, industrial chain technology integration and so on, and has achieved certain results. Plant-based food and substitute protein are typical representatives, reflecting the important trend of food science and technology innovation and future food industry development.

Plant-based food is a kind of food with texture, flavor, shape and other characteristics similar to animal food, which takes plant raw materials or its products as the source of protein, fat and so on, with or without other ingredients. In layman’s terms, it is a new type of food with similar taste to meat, eggs and milk with plants such as soybeans, peas and wheat as the main raw materials through processing. Plant-based foods can be divided into plant-based meat products, plant-based dairy products and plant-based egg products. People are familiar with traditional vegetarian foods such as vegetarian chicken and duck, which are the primary forms of plant-based meat products. However, plant-based foods are significantly different from traditional vegetarian foods in reducing the intake of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol and providing high-quality protein. In recent years, plant-based meat products have been applied in hamburger stuffing, and domestic enterprises have jointly launched whole plant beef, pork and other products that meet the taste of China population, and their shape, flavor and taste are closer to traditional meat products. Oat milk, almond milk and other products on the market are typical plant-based dairy products with the characteristics of low calorie, low fat and high dietary fiber.

With the breakthrough of design and manufacturing technology, especially the application of synthetic biology technology and advanced manufacturing equipment, plant-based food will become more nutritious and healthy. Taking plant meat as an example, by changing the structural characteristics of plant protein, adding hemoglobin, glutamine transaminase, vitamins and other substances, and using technologies such as hemoglobin synthesis and scientific compounding, plant meat not only has almost the same appearance, color and taste as traditional meat, but also has more reasonable amino acid composition and is easier to digest, which can reduce the intake of salt, sugar and oil and provide more choices for people’s healthy lifestyle.

Substitute proteins involve emerging protein industries such as microbial fermentation proteins and microalgae proteins. We often hear the suggestion of "supplementing protein". The scientific reason behind this is that food protein is an important nutrient for human beings, which has the functions of constructing and repairing human tissues, transporting various substances, maintaining nervous system function and providing energy. Innovative development of sustainable and high-quality protein production methods has become one of the key directions of food research in the future. Substitute proteins came into being.

Among the substitute proteins, microbial fermentation proteins are representative. With the help of biotechnology, microorganisms are programmed to convert raw materials into protein needed by human beings through specific metabolic pathways. The efficiency of protein synthesis is thousands of times that of traditional aquaculture, and it can significantly improve the efficiency of protein production and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It is pointed out that if microbial protein replaces 20% of the global beef consumption by 2050, it is estimated that the global annual carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 56%, and the amount of deforestation will also be reduced. In the production and application, there has been a workshop to obtain high-quality protein with high fiber and low saturated fat by Fusarium oxysporum fermentation. The fermentation tank with industrial scale of 165 cubic meters can produce 250,000 sausages at a time. In addition, microbial fermented protein has certain advantages in nutrition, taste and so on. For example, yeast protein contains all the essential amino acids of human body, which is a complete protein with rich nutrition, can meet the nutritional needs of human body, has no beany smell and no allergenic components, and is suitable for a wide range of people.

There are three synthetic processes of microbial fermentation protein. Firstly, starch resources (such as corn) are used as raw materials, and sugar which can be used for fermentation is obtained through microbial liquefaction and saccharification, and then used as substrate for cell growth and protein synthesis. This method has the characteristics of mature raw material treatment process and stable fermentation process control. Second, organic wastes generated in production and life are used as raw materials. This method has low raw material cost, realizes the recycling of wastes and promotes the development of circular bio-economy. Thirdly, carbon compounds are directly used as raw materials, such as carbon dioxide, methanol or methane, which are rich in nature, as substrates, to create a microbial cell factory with efficient coordinated metabolism and transformation of carbon and nitrogen, complete the transformation from carbon compounds and inorganic nitrogen to microbial protein, and finally realize the efficient and green manufacturing of microbial protein.

Food is closely related to human survival and development. Behind the delicious food, the strength of food technology is condensed. Under the guidance of the "big food concept", researchers are exploring new possibilities of food in the future, contributing scientific and technological strength to ensure the self-control of China’s food industry chain and building a diversified food supply system, striving to achieve high-level self-reliance and self-reliance in China’s food science and technology, promoting residents’ nutrition and health, and creating a better "China on the tip of the tongue".

(The author is an academician of China Academy of Engineering and a professor of Jiangnan University)