Introducing 'World Changing Ideas' from Fast Company
It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow and what better way to spend it than examining how our food is produced? While we can’t live without food, we also can’t afford to have the current agricultural industries, which grow and produce our food, continue contributing to climate change at such a rapid pace. The global population is larger than ever before, but in order for industrial agriculture to provide for everyone while not destroying the planet in the process, a lot has to change. Could bioengineered food be the next world-changing idea? We looked at three companies working on revolutionizing the food landscape: Meatable is headed by Daan Luining, who was part of the team that created the first cultivated burger. Cultivated meat requires only three months to develop versus the three years it takes for a cow to mature before it’s slaughtered for food. But how will the end product’s taste and texture measure up to traditional animal meat? Neggst is creating a completely vegan egg made from fava beans, sweet potatoes, and peas. It may fry like a chicken egg, but will it help decrease environmental degradation? Perfect Day has made an animal-free ice cream that contains the same protein found in milk but it doesn't come from cows. Its taste might be indistinguishable from our beloved cow-derived ice cream, but the verdict is still out on whether this cellular-fermentation process will make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions.