In Finland, researchers concocted a recipe for food using water, carbon dioxide, microbes, and electricity. So can this Franken-food be mass produced and solve hunger around the world? It might take a while, as the food powder takes two weeks to produce a single gram and is made from bacteria that live on hydrogen, making it not very appealing to many people looking for a meal. However, researchers think if the production process can be scaled up, it could become a low cost way to feed livestock or a meat alternative for humans. The end product is about 50% protein, 25% carbohydrate and 25% fats and nucleic acids – sounds like a well-rounded meal. Another upside is that they don’t need arable land for this and it can be made in deserts or other places where agriculture can’t exist.
“It’s not so much different than making beer, but in making beer of course you use sugar as the raw material but in this case we use hydrogen,” senior scientist Juha-Pekka Pitkänen of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland told Smithsonian Magazine.