Published 145 days ago
SAN FOOOD office Towers Moscow
UN estimates that by 2050 the number of world’s population will reach 9 billion, therefore it will be necessary to produce by 70 per cent more food.
Unlike the tendency to think how to produce more and more, the FOOOD project proposes genetically modified human metabolic bacteria that have been endowed with the ability to synthesise enzymes that break down cellulose.
Cellulose, a simple sugar glucose polymer, makes up a significant part of plant biomass. In the ordinary human metabolism, cellulose is indigestible and totally without nutritional value. That is why these enzymes that break down cellulose would allow the use of everyday food products from the vegetable world with almost a third more efficiency. Potatoes, carrots, rye, wheat, rice, buckwheat, cabbages, lettuce etc. contain a significant amount of material (cellulose, hemicellulose and similar) that is indigestible by humans.
They would also allow the more effective use of completely new types of food resources for example, cellulose rich wood and paper. If we managed to create a complete process to break down cellulose then humans would obtain 11% more kilocalories from 100 grams of paper than from 100 grams of bread (400 kilocalories from paper and 355 from bread).
Published 145 days ago