一種由“稀薄空氣”制成的新食物可能會改變我們的星球

一種由“稀薄空氣”制成的新食物可能會改變我們的星球

Someday, meals may not so much be cooked, as generated.

總有一天，飯菜可能不再像以前那樣煮熟了。

As in, take a little water, add a dash of carbon dioxide, and give it an electrical jolt.

比如，取一點水，加一點二氧化碳，然后電擊一下。

Dinner is … materialized. But you're probably going to want fries with that.

晚餐……物質化了。但你可能會想要薯條。

After all, Solein — a meal that's essentially zapped into existence from thin air — is essentially protein-rich dust, with all the flavorless possibilities that would suggest.

畢竟，Solein——一種從稀薄的空氣中迅速形成的食物——本質上是富含蛋白質的粉末，有各種可能會讓人覺得索然無味。

When the dust settles, a powder than can be produced anywhere — and made into anything — could be a game-changer. (Photo: bonder.olka/Shutterstock)

But if Solar Foods, the Finnish company behind this single-cell protein, can back its claim of being able to produce food that's "free from agricultural limitations," we may finally know an end to hunger.

但是，如果生產這種單細胞蛋白質的芬蘭太陽能食品公司能夠支持其能夠生產“不受農業(yè)限制”的食品的主張，我們可能最終會知道饑餓的終結。

That's pretty revolutionary stuff — especially in a world where, according to a 2018 United Nations report, one in nine people go hungry.

這是相當具有革命性的東西——尤其是在一個世界上，根據(jù)2018年聯(lián)合國的一份報告，九分之一的人挨餓。

Let them eat protein cake. Or whatever form the highly adaptable Solein may take at the grocery store. In fact, Solar Foods says it will most likely launch as a supplement for protein shakes and smoothies, as early as 2021.

讓他們吃蛋白質蛋糕。或者任何形式的高度適應性的Solein可能在雜貨店買到。事實上，太陽能食品公司表示，它最早可能在2021年作為蛋白奶昔和奶昔的補充產品推出。

From there, the sky is literally the limit. Because if there's one thing we currently have a surplus of in our emissions-addled atmosphere, it's carbon monoxide.

從那里開始，天空就是極限。因為如果我們目前在排放混亂的大氣中有一種物質過剩，那就是一氧化碳。

Guess what Solein's chief ingredient happens to be?

猜猜Solein的主要成分是什么?

The company churns out the stuff by extracting CO? from the air. Then it blends it with water, vitamins and nutrients. The entire process, including a lengthy fermentation, relies fully on renewable solar energy. And there's no need to worry about increasingly precious arable land.

該公司生產的東西從空氣中提取二氧化碳。然后將其與水、維生素和營養(yǎng)物質混合。整個過程，包括一個漫長的發(fā)酵過程，完全依賴于可再生太陽能。而且沒有必要擔心日益珍貴的可耕地。

Livestock farming eats up room on our planet — room we're slowly realizing we simply don't have. (Photo: Fedorov Oleksiy/Shutterstock)

"It can be produced anywhere around the world, even in areas where conventional protein production has never been possible," the company noted in a statement to Dezeen magazine.

該公司在給Dezeen雜志的一份聲明中指出:“它可以在世界任何地方生產，甚至在傳統(tǒng)的蛋白質生產從未實現(xiàn)的地區(qū)也可以。”

If it sounds like the only thing Solar Foods is baking is a great big pie-in-the-sky dream, consider that it's already well under development. The seeds for Solein were originally planted at NASA, as a not-particularly-yummy form of sustenance for space travelers and future colonists.

如果聽起來太陽能食品的唯一用途就是烘焙一個巨大的“空中餡餅”，那就想想它已經在開發(fā)中了。Solein的種子最初是在美國宇航局種植的，作為太空旅行者和未來殖民者的一種不太好吃的食物。

After all, Mars is still a long way from being able to grow potatoes. The success of long-term missions to the Red Planet could hinge on a scalable food product that's generated rather than grown.

畢竟，火星距離能夠種植土豆還有很長的路要走。對這顆紅色星球的長期任務能否成功，可能取決于生產而不是種植的可擴展的糧食產品。

But the potential is even more tantalizing here on Earth, where more and more people want to know what's for dinner — and scientists are increasingly mum.

但在地球上，這種可能性更加誘人，因為越來越多的人想知道晚餐吃什么，科學家們也越來越沉默。

Do the math for meat production — and the 7 billion people expecting to eat it — and the numbers don't add up.

計算一下肉類生產——以及預計將食用肉類的70億人——這些數(shù)字加起來是不可能的。

Again, Solein could fill that gap. While the surging popularity of beef-free burgers like Beyond Meat could dramatically ease our reliance on animal agriculture, their production is still resource-intensive. As with anything plant-based, you need space for those beets, peas and even pomegranates to grow.

同樣，Solein可以填補這個空白。雖然像“超越肉類”這樣的無牛肉漢堡的迅速流行可以極大地減輕我們對畜牧業(yè)的依賴，但它們的生產仍然是資源密集型的。和任何植物一樣，你需要空間來種植甜菜、豌豆甚至石榴。

Not so much for Solein, which is not only carbon-neutral, but neutral enough in every other way to form the chief ingredient for those meatless burgers we can't seem to get enough of.

但對Solein就沒那么多了，Solein不僅是碳中性的，而且在其他所有方面都是中性的，足以構成我們似乎無法得到足夠多的無肉漢堡的主要成分。

Now, we're cooking.

現(xiàn)在,我們做飯吧。