Truly Artificial Food

[nolnacs]

Traditional furniture craftsmen are nearly extinct. There's no money in it. 50% of the price is in showroom space, commissions - the cost of selling.

I'd like to think that the average person could avoid those showroom charges and commission a custom piece of furniture designed specifically for their space, but that's not the reality.

Really? I had a custom cabinet made for me a few years back - a really nice looking piece made out of reclaimed barn wood and it was cheaper than buying an equivalent piece from a place like Crate & Barrel. Perhaps it is because the guy I bought it from just had a website that he used to showcase his furniture and sold direct to the consumer thereby avoiding the showroom, commission etc.

I've also heard of other furniture makers doing the same. Perhaps that is the way for these craftsmen to stay afloat.

[rebecca]

If we are ever able to create everything artificially and easily, we will do just that. We will replicate all the flavors and textures that we use today, and will start creating new ones. The problem there arises from choice. If you can combine all textures with all flavors, the number of options becomes astronomical, and choosing Thursday lunch becomes either very hard or very easy. People will start falling into ruts of eating only what they know, or following the food trends of those still trying to create real new food. However the food trends will spread much more quickly, making haute cuisine either non-existent, or very time-sensitive. However, I agree completely with chris hennes: there will always be someone who will pay more for “all natural food cooked the old-fashioned way,” if only to be trendy and retro, or if natural food becomes the exotic curio.

On the other hand, we may create the technology to make everything, but if it isn’t easy to use, or it isn’t cheap, then artificial becomes the exotic cuisine, and cutting edge chefs will come (more often at least) from labs and things, similar to what is happening already. Again, with truly artificial creation, and food parameters easily transferable as data, the trends will still move quickly, but they will remain within the subset of people who can afford those delicacies.

What I think would be really cool, though, is some kind of machine that could do the star trek scanner thing, that evaluates your genetic preferences, your mood, hormone levels or whatever, to create a dish tailored to be perfectly satisfying to you at that precise moment in time. I wonder how often it would give me just good bread and cheese?

[angevin]

Speaking of artificial food:

Kinda like the modernist cuisine version of the "Easy-Bake Oven"!

[rebecca]

Speaking of artificial food:

Kinda like the modernist cuisine version of the "Easy-Bake Oven"!

That is quite possibly one of the strangest things I have ever seen. And I think it is candy, yes? But I really wanted it to actually be trying to taste like sushi!

[angevin]

Yes, it's candy. But it certainly wouldn't be a stretch to make it taste like sushi, given the technical advancement in flavor science and texture technology.

But then I would ask, where would the benefit be? To consistently have every piece taste exactly the same. Not be subject to seasonality of available fish varieties. Lower cost. "Better" , more intense, or customized "dialed-in" flavor.

The disadvantages?

Don't get me started...

[Chris Hennes]

The disadvantages?

Don't get me started...

No? I'd be very interested to hear the disadvantages, really. The idea of being able to turn out consistent, high-quality products defines what makes a restaurant "good" to a certain extent. And if we can do it with less overall detrimental impact than current farming/husbandry/fishing/etc. practices (not a given, but one possible reason to pursue it) I see an awful lot of upside.

[angevin]

Well for one, the extinction of real sushi, real fish, real food, nourishment from authentic sources. The loss is difficult to articulate, but just like the extinction of certain species on this earth, it's just hard for me to swallow that what we have now may be gone forever. It may be a stretch to speculate that the execution of artificial versions of foods will eventually cause the demise of their authentic predecessors, but if the replacement is cheaper and tastes better, it's not all that difficult to imagine.

But then again, the generations that come after us won't be at any disadvantage, as they'd never know what real food was like.

Again, my response is more emotional than logical. But I don't see that as being a cause to value it any less.

Second, I do have concerns regarding how our bodies respond to such severe changes in what we put in them. The relatively smaller shift, from meats and fruits and veggies to the modern diet, high in processed carbs and refined sugars, is already having a detrimental effect on our overall health.

Edited March 17, 2011 by angevin (log)

[rebecca]

Well for one, the extinction of real sushi, real fish, real food, nourishment from authentic sources. The loss is difficult to articulate, but just like the extinction of certain species on this earth, it's just hard for me to swallow that what we have now may be gone forever. It may be a stretch to speculate that the execution of artificial versions of foods will eventually cause the demise of their authentic predecessors, but if the replacement is cheaper and tastes better, it's not all that difficult to imagine.

Playing devils advocate, if we can find a way to get all our necessary nutrients into our food even in their artificial capacity, the loss of "authentic sources" shouldn't be a problem. Our bodies wouldn't know the difference, and we if can make fish without fishing and depleting the natural supply then fish populations would grow. Not sure how they would become extinct from that. There would always be romantics (amongst which I'd likely be included) that lament the loss of "real" products, but if you can artificially create an identical product, then what does "real" matter? (If you are not creating the same product, then the point is moot...)

Second, I do have concerns regarding how our bodies respond to such severe changes in what we put in them. The relatively smaller shift, from meats and fruits and veggies to the modern diet, high in processed carbs and refined sugars, is already having a detrimental effect on our overall health.

I think this is a totally valid point. It is also where I see the challenge for artificial food creation. I don't know how far into the future we are thinking of for this artificial food, but I think we as a people, as a species have a much poorer understanding of the processes of the human body, nutrition, actual requirements, etc, than we think we do. Creating artificial food that is good for us, that can actually mimic what what our bodies evolved to process, is way farther off than we think.

[Dakki]

Well for one, the extinction of real sushi, real fish, real food, nourishment from authentic sources.

I know you meant the metaphorical extinction of natural fish as an ingredient, but I have to point out it would likely have the opposite effect to literal extinction, i.e. allowing badly depleted wild fish populations to recover, which I imagine anyone who loves fish would agree is a good thing?

Anyway, I don't see that the availability of let's call it manufactured fish would remove natural fish from the market. Even if manufactured fish was of perfectly acceptable quality and available at a better price than the wild-caught stuff you'd still have some holdouts demanding "real" fish and the commercial fishing industry would continue to exist (hopefully at a much smaller scale).

Think about the disadvantages if we -don't- change our dependence on wild-caught fish.

[IndyRob]

You're right. I think seafood would experience a huge comeback. Pigs, cows, and chickens, maybe not so much.

If the artificial food is better than the natural, and it's nutritionally sound, the man-husbanded natural sources will go away. But not the wild natural sources that aren't in our way (those in the sea).

But I guess we'd also need to identify where all these miracle chemicals are to come from. Do we need to remake the world for the production of, say, kale?

[Chris Hennes]

Right: no food production is going to be without consequences, the resources have to come from someplace. It's impossible to really guess where at this point, though.

[Moopheus]

No? I'd be very interested to hear the disadvantages, really. The idea of being able to turn out consistent, high-quality products defines what makes a restaurant "good" to a certain extent. And if we can do it with less overall detrimental impact than current farming/husbandry/fishing/etc. practices (not a given, but one possible reason to pursue it) I see an awful lot of upside.

It's hard to speculate on the disadvantages of technology that only exists in our heads. And we know what the disadvantages are of our current food production system are. In order to assess the disadvantage of a new product, we'd have to know what it actually is.

One thing we can generally assume is that no new technology is likely to be a perfect substitute for the old it replaces. No technology is a perfect solution to a problem, so new solutions just present different sets of tradeoffs/advantages. This is one of the reasons that old technology persists way beyond when the "market" has declared it obsolete. So a new product can succeed in the market if it presents some appealing advantage, relieves some perceived disadvantage, even if it doesn't really capture all of the qualities of the old product. And there's no question that one of the main advantages that drive the market is that something be cheaper than the old product. Not necessarily better or even as good. Otherwise we wouldn't be whining about crappy toasters.

There would have to be question of resources: if the food product is truly artificial--not derived from plant or animal sources--then that suggests that it is synthesized from some material that has to come from somewhere else--a mine or an oil well. On a large enough scale, this is not necessarily a much better solution than what we do now.

[Dakki]

if the food product is truly artificial--not derived from plant or animal sources

I don't know that's a fair definition. Imitation crab meat is "artificial," i.e. made by art, but it's derived from fish.

One of the ways I've seen this sort of thing proposed has been to produce food from organic waste materials via nanotechnology - tiny little robots capable of manipulating matter at an atomic scale. I'm not optimistic about this sort of thing becoming available in our lifetimes but there you go.

[Moopheus]

if the food product is truly artificial--not derived from plant or animal sources

I don't know that's a fair definition. Imitation crab meat is "artificial," i.e. made by art, but it's derived from fish.

Oh, I agree--there isn't really a bright line between categories, and many foods we eat now exhibit some level of artificialness, but what I think FG was getting at with his initial post was food that would be entirely made from synthetic nonfood sources.

[Dakki]

Okay, so would you regard a steak derived from a tumbleweed as artificial in the sense used by the OP?

[IndyRob]

We recently had a thread about wood chips - AKA cellulose - which would seem to fit the spirit of artificial while being plant based.

To me, imitation crab is more like a fish in disguise.

Out of curiosity, I once put a chicken boullion cube into a cup of water and nuked it and added a little cornstarch slurry to thicken. It worked, and was arguably a chicken soup - although not very good by any measure. But I'd think I'd accept that as an artificial soup.

Although by that measure I guess we'd have to include the entire Knorr family of envelope-based sauces on display at the local supermarket.

[Dakki]

Isn't chicken bullion derived from actual chickens?

[IndyRob]

Isn't chicken bullion derived from actual chickens?

It is. Well, some of it is. And methyl cellulose is made from plant material. But I think one would be hard put to argue that either are natural ingredients.

[Dakki]

You misconstrue the thrust of my inquiry, sir.

I mean, the distinction between natural and artificial foods is, well, artificial (as I think the OP points out), flexible, vague, and open to interpretation, but it would be hard to argue chicken bullion cubes are artificial if they are merely (largely) dehydrated chicken stock (which was my impression and which I hoped you would either confirm or disabuse) but they are not really natural in any (to me) meaningful sense of the word.

I think we're falling into a semantic trap, here. Surimi/imitation crab and chicken bullion cubes are neither natural nor artificial. I propose we refer to such gray-area foods as "highly processed foods" or just "processed foods" for the purpose of this discussion.

[rebecca]

If we are talking "highly processed foods" I would argue that the base for most artificial vegetable products would be algae or seaweed because they grow so fast, and as IndyRob points out, their breeding grounds are not anywhere that humans are (currently trying to develop. Nutrient rich, certainly, but it would have to be given new flavor and form. But for ease and speed of production, I think the harvesting of algae will eventually become a large part of what we consume.

[Lora]

In other words, it will be possible to replicate any combination of flavor, texture, color, etc., using laboratory-created materials. [...] When it becomes possible to have any food with the push of a button, what will it all mean for cuisine?

I think that we will quickly develop a situation where we go beyond replicating natural flavors and attempt to create truly novel ones. And therefore, I think one of the trickiest aspects of this will be developing an appropriate vocabulary to discuss uncharted regions of the six (or more) dimensional flavor space. "Tastes like chicken" ain't gonna cut it anymore.

[Aotearoan]

Philips have some interesting ideas about the future of food, including food printing. More info and videos here - http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2009/08/20/philips-food-design-probes/

[Aotearoan]

Having just read Modernist Cuisine volume 1 I think the main drivers for artificial food will be to grow and print food in environments that ensure the lowest possibility of contamination and disease.

Sort of like the food equivalent of the Demolition Man virtual reality reproduction scene. BTW I'm a little embarrassed that I have seen that film...