Is algae the new kale?
nationalgeographic.com
nationalgeographic.com
I'd be interested to know any counter research to this.
> almost all algae revealed vitamin B12 analogues instead of the real thing. Analogues are not only ineffective, but also potentially dangerous. Most researchers have consequently dismissed algae as a B12 source and recommend natural B12 supplements as a safe alternative
> In order to properly understand the discussion about the B12 content of algae, it is important to first take a closer look at analogues. Also known as pseudo B12, analogues are molecules which are so chemically similar to real B12 that they bond to the same transport molecule. In contrast, however, they have no vitamin effect on the body whatsoever. This is detrimental to health, as only real B12 that is bound to this specific transport molecule can be used by the body.
Less than 1.5 milligrams in a year.
Looking at the cost of Cyanocobalamin, it appears to be around $1000/kg.
https://www.pharmacompass.com/active-pharmaceutical-ingredie...
Complete B12 supplementation is going to set you back literally 0.1 cents per year. All B12 you'll ever take in your whole life is not even worth 10 measly cents.
Just some supplement for thought to consider before changing your diet for that.
But I also wouldn’t shun algae just because they occupy some B12 transporters. There’s all kinds of metabolic tradeoffs with every kind of food, and we are designed to tolerate that. Most metabolic pathways are 4-5x redundant IIRC.
Seemed hard to find numbers, but one source said 331mg of EPA per gram of Spirulina platensis (https://www.ripublication.com/ijac16/ijacv12n4_05.pdf).
Was considering what it would be like to eat like 6 grams of spirulina for 2g of EPA, versus that in one teaspoon of fish oil (high EPA type).
But got stuck on the B12 blocking stuff. I wonder if your point is true that there's enough redundancy it doesn't matter. It would be nice if it was easier/cheaper to get bloodwork to do some experiments with this kind of stuff.
Re testing, the article you linked has another article linked on the same site: https://www.b12-vitamin.com/analogues/ They mention MMA testing here (you could get one as part of the Organic Acids Test at „The Great Plains“ lab for example), but that’s quite expensive ($299 right now). It’s maybe the most accurate B12 test out there. Technically, it’s a test by proxy.
If you are currently serum B12 deficient, then there’s probably not that much to worry about, because the B12 analogues in algae also won’t be absorbed properly (maybe due to a lack of intrinsic factor). Supplemental methyl- and adenosyl-B12 don’t have that problem.
The same group tested Chlorella in another paper, same result.
So no, people don’t need meat. Not for B12, or for proteins or for iron or for anything else.
Do people want to eat meat? That’s a different story.
Something people frequently overlook (or are unaware of) is that in much of the world, animal agriculture utilizes B12 supplementation. This is part of why there is B12 in commercial animal products. Without that, B12 levels in commercial animal products would be lower. Further, people who eat animal products aren't guaranteed to avoid deficiencies.
The idea that we "need" meat is thoroughly debunked by decades of excellent, high-quality research. What we "need" as far as B12 goes is essentially less sanitary environments; we (and animals we ate) used to get enough from food and water which wasn't clean by current standards.
I take a big multivitamin in the evening and that’s it.
So why not just take B12 supplements ourselves? Cut out the middleman and as a bonus lower stress on our biosphere and reduce our carbon footprint.
Theres probably lots of cheese that you could say the same about that is well enjoyed. That said, I don't know if the whale skin I had could be called "good" to my taste. It was beluga I think, from the Canadian arctic. What was striking though was how sour it was and the strong taste of ascorbic acid. With a very chewy texture.
IIRC that's mostly from plants and algae, and definitely can be substituted with things made purely from plants and algae.
However, I was replying to someone who said specifically "meat", and crude oil isn't meat.
> Not sure if we count insects as animal products but the work of bees helps pollinate our crops. We don't eat the bees but we do take advantage of them and breed them to go around and pollinate crops.
If you're that expansive, humans are also animals, and we also rely on each other's labour.
To the best of my knowledge, the last time I consumed any meat (which is what you're agreeing with to begin, even though you later say the much more general "animal products" which includes milk), was on a 2015 trip to Kenya, where the cook somehow randomised the ingredients in everyone's sandwiches (I asked for a "cheese and pesto" sandwich, my cheese was switched with someone else's chicken), and the time before that was 2009, where my vegetarian lasagna was switched with someone else's beef lasagna.
Even with those accidents, twice in 13 years doesn't seem like a "you're delusional if you think you can go without" kind of a thing.
Also, full on vegans are a thing. I'm not one (cheese is too tempting), but it's not crazy like breatharians or whatever.
I feel obliged respond. I'll try and put a short useful response. ( It becomes a little tiring to give an elaborate, well thought out response when one repeatedly encounters what one sees as irrationality).
- I have _never_ see a vegan thrive (health wise) in the long run.
- Many 'honest' vegans admit occasionally binge eat animal products - in your case cheese.
- May 'vegans' lie outright
- There are lot of ex-vegans out there, some of them who were truly committed. Search for them on the web and you will find them.
- https://www.beyondveg.com/ has information from people who probably tried being vegans from the sixties. Grandpa may have some wisdom that you may not be aware of.
Oldest known vegan - Dr Wareham (heart surgeon) - 104 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham
Athletes thriving on a plant-based diet: https://gamechangersmovie.com/
100s of physicians recommending a plant based diet: https://www.pcrm.org/
Vegan doesn't mean automatically being healthy. Vegan is mainly about being cruelty free as much as possible, as killing and exploiting animals is cruel.
By adopting a plant based whole food diet you can be healthy and at the same time reduce your carbon footprint and damage to our biosphere.
Just don't eat Pringles and drink Coke all day (technically being vegan).
Don't call me a vegan. I'm vegetarian. That means choosing no meat, no more, no less.
It does rather look like you are unfamiliar with the difference, both from this response and your previous comment replying specifically to meat.
> Grandpa may have some wisdom that you may not be aware of.
I'm older than I think you think I am. And both my grandfathers died before I was born.
Not as a substitute for something else, but as a snack on its own, for which there is no substitute. Unfortunately prices have nearly doubled in a little over a year.
Here is a short portrait in English:
https://thebestchefawards.com/2021/06/06/angel-leon/
His restaurant, Aponiente:
It is very cheap and readily available at most fish markets through all the country.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durvillaea_antarctica#Chilean_...
Japan pretty much identified every kind of seaweed that you can eat without puking a thousand years ago and the list is not long. A tablespoon of spirulina is a great way to ruin a smoothie, never mind that it mostly comes from the disappearing Lake Chad.
So it's heavily processed, and it could certainly get into food products that way, but nobody will notice — or care — that they're eating algae-derived food products. If you doubt that, just look up where xanthan gum comes from, or consider that Aspergillus niger is the primary source of citric acid.
I’m eating them for a topup of omegas in a nice balance. And not too much, just enough to cover the surface of the bowl, which is still a few tbsps. A salad for me is mostly quinoa and chickpeas so I’d rather get my protein from them. Somewhat similarly, lentils and other beans in a stew.
I'm very curious if we could mass manufacture something like algae and then pyrolize it to get fuel and solid carbon to sequester.
If we find some good ideas for kelp, there's whole coastlines whose kelp forests have been decimated. We could start propagating and sustainably harvesting it and provide an incredibly rich coastal habitat.
For a while I was interested in algae biofuels. IIRC, the problem is other life tends to get in and eat the algae you want while blocking the pumps and filters you need to maximise growth.
(But I've been out of that loop for a while now, so for all I know some random YouTuber has found a solution).
The folks on youtube all seem to just harvest it wild.
Edit: currently I am in a landlocked region.
You forgot some are potent neurotoxins
It's too bad because one of my weird dreams would be to have a vat of genetically modified algae in my house that removes CO2 and turns into some kind of Soylent.
<https://www.extech.com/products/CO240>
Automatic CO2 Baseline Calibration (ABC) The ABC algorithm continually tracks the sensor’s lowest reading over a fixed time interval and slowly corrects for any long-term drift (as compared to the expected fresh air value of 400ppm). The ABC period is 15 days, during which the ABC function default is always on.
So if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts, thus making them no better than any other modern highly processed food, so we might as well stick to rice and potatoes in that case...
https://doaj.org/article/94b48d8e1f40488992f3534900e8f0f1
* Lower in total fat
* Higher in omega-3 and CLA
* Higher in Vitamin A, E, K
* Higher in polyphenols and beneficial plant compounds
For these reasons, eating meat is both irrational and immoral because it's suicidal and omnicidal.
This is wild speculation. Plenty of scientific research shows that farming plants, algae, and producing fermented food in a controlled environment can be even healthier than "natural" food.
I don't even know what questions I'd have to ask, off the top of my head I'd like to know what the risks regarding eg mercury and microplastics contamination are. Also, would we be eating 'wild' algae, or would they be farmed? I guess it'd have quite different implications both ecologically as well as nutrient-wise.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21732-z
> "Distribution of metals and metalloids in dried seaweeds and health risk to population in southeastern China (2018)
Most sources report levels low enough to not cause health risks, but eating large quantities ( > 5g day ) is probably not the best idea, and it should be tested for lead, mercury and cadmium (industrial waste sources). Arsenic and iodine are also naturally accumulated in seaweeds, particularly iodine, which while a necessary trace element, can be dangerous in high concentrations.
this stuff was awesome https://www.delish.com/food-news/a33596417/costco-seaweed-sa...
Eating algae is not a compromise or a burden, it's a fabulous luxury we should all experience.
I've had delicious rich chocolate cake and delicious rich spirulina, on a spirulina farm, that I had harvested earlier in the day. I spent several years studying microalgae & running bioreactors, until the pandemic threw a wrench into things.
Personally, I'm not opposed to this kind of food but integrating it into your existing diet can be challenging.
No one liked it. It would do in a pinch.
There's no good way to describe new food, comparisons are useful though they can be used to mislead your expectations.
I think Amway is still selling those tablets in some countries now.
And from what I understand it's mostly micro-algae with EPA/DHA.
Any article that proposes a new source of proteins should mention which is the protein content of the new food, and more importantly, which is the amino-acid profile, i.e. which is the limiting amino-acid. Also a price estimation per amount of contained protein must be given.
The problem with vegetable proteins is that they are combined with starch or fat, so the ratio of protein content to energy content is low. For most kinds of vegetable proteins, separating the proteins raises the cost above the cost of meat.
It is likely that when algae are produced, they contain mostly proteins and little starch, unlike the seeds of cereals or legumes, and this is good. However the algae consist mostly of water, so they must first be dried, to be comparable to cereals or legumes.
To be useful as a food, the cost of dried algae per amount of contained protein would have to be less than the cost of legumes per amount of contained protein.
This might be possible, but until now nobody has offered for sale algae at such a price, but only at much higher prices, where they are not competitive as a staple food.
Supposing that it would be possible to reduce a lot the costs of producing algae, they still could not replace the cereals as the cheapest source of energy in food, but they could replace the legumes and the meat as complementary sources of proteins.
However, until now nobody has shown practically how such a cheap production could be achieved.
Edit: since, I'm getting downvoted, here's a study:
Which also makes the hysteria against uniodized salt also look like a qanon conspiracy theory.
Since then I am VERY sceptical about articles praising algae as the next big thing.
I won't eat bugs, lab grown meat, algae, or any other experimental food until the rich do it first, and do it consistently, not just once as a demonstration.
My logic is simple. If the rich don't embrace an innovation, it tells me that the innovation is either not what it's cracked up to be, that it gives a poorer quality product than the traditional option, or that the rich think the innovation is for suckers or the poor. If that's the case, I'll stick with the traditional option.
So go ahead, you can eat algae too, it's not a new experimental kind of food.
It's because the article is talking about making it more of a primary source of nutrition. It isn't even the primary ingredient in sushi.
So, if the rich (and politicians) start eating it as a primary source of nutrition, then the commenter to whom you were replying might consider it similarly.
I had eaten it, the green are good, salty when fresh and a little bland after cooking it, the red are a little bitter with a medicine aftertaste. You should use it sparsely in kitchen. Is more a spice than a main dish.
The main problems are that climate change removed 90% of the Laminaria forests here in the last 20 years and that the red algae are harvested and sold for pharma and industry, so aren't really available to harvest to the common people. You need a permit for this. The culture is also complicated here.
Should be used for marine weeds [upper plants with flowers], but the term refer to algae that are a different category. Some algae are plants. Other are neither plants, animals or fungi and have their own category.
In the year 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution, and some apparent climate catastrophe have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. There are 40 million people in New York City alone, where only the city's elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food, and even then at horrendously high prices. The homes of the elite usually include concubines who are referred to as "furniture" and serve the tenants as slaves.
Within the city lives NYPD detective Frank Thorn and his aged friend Sol Roth, a highly intelligent analyst, referred to as a "Book". Roth remembers the world when it had animals and real food, and possesses a small library of reference materials to assist Thorn. Thorn is tasked with investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, and quickly learns that Simonson had been assassinated and was a board member of Soylent Industries.
You don’t really need a conspiracy to prefer more precise terms.
The entire planet is 3 missed meals away from total anarchy. The reason it is prominent (IMO) is that any politician who fails to deliver on food may as well dumpster the rest of their platform. Ensuring the acquisition and availability of food is every country's #1 priority, and "food security" covers all of the political and logistical and agricultural activities that need to happen for that priority to be delivered.
I could ask why use the term "Hunger" rather than "Starvation" or "malnutrition" etc.
Food security I think of as a measure of the risk associated of available nutrient supplies not being adequate to meet the need (not the market demand, as that may differ) of people in a particular locality.
Hunger is an end state feeling in a human-being when they feel the need to eat.
You can have terrible food security and no hunger if there is tremendous risk of mass starvation due to small unforseen disruptions in supply, but there is existing supply and forecasted supply to meet demand if all goes well.
Except, it didn't?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...
Just because you are just now noticing something common doesn't mean it recently became common.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2... is a much more readable and accurate graph.
Note how both are ~equivalent for a majority of the time, barring 1943 - 1951 (slight edge for food security) and 1960-1970 (larger lead for 'world hunger'). At 1970, food insecurity takes and maintains control.
This is likely because it - as discussed in the rest of the thread - encompasses more, and is a more useful term for scholarly discussion.
Sounds like this term became popular in the 1970s. That was a while ago :)
My lay observation is that “food security” has been the standard term in non-profit/NGO contexts for at least 15 years, while “hunger” is still colloquial. My guess for why is precision.
The intermediate names Carlin mentions, however, are absolute euphemistic bullshit. "Battle fatigue" and "operational exhaustion" were strictly rebrands with the intent of minimizing the problem.
Hunger, in the strictest sense, is about a lack of calories.
This made sense as a metric to track, when the issue was almost entirely people who starved to death. Now however, first in the developed world and also in many developing countries the issue is also calorie quality, usually a lack of access to non-junk foods. You can now be both malnourished and obese.
People being hungry near you is an 'individual problem', but with police intact you're roughly fine (under assumptions). If your country is facing food security crisis, it will likely spread to other domains and you are not fine.
https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurit...
No need for silly conspiracy theories.
Hunger of the previous generations was mostly due to countries not having enough agriculture or imports to feed their population.
Today with modern farming and agriculture methods, hunger is mostly a distribution issue, rather than a we don't have enough food issue, so now food security is used as a more general term. My hunch is driven by -- may be getting the exact specifics wrong - that countries like America throw away enough food daily to satisfy much of the remaining world hunger.
To those saying that "hunger" refers specifically to a physical state, we used to have the term "world hunger", and we obviously weren't talking about the planet itself being hungry.
I avoid it, possible ALS risk.[1][2][3]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplemen...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295368/
[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/1748296090327848...
Lake Mascoma isn't too far from us, and we do see cyanobacteria blooms around here.
We don’t need to eat crickets, we don’t need to eat algae, we don’t need bioreactors for growing meat.
I think the main reason we don’t hear more about just how goddamn efficient a bowl of lentils and rice is, or oatmeal, is because it’s not sexy. You just can’t make a start up on beans and rice.
Which is a shame, because beans and rice are healthy and tasty. And also are one of the avenues to save the planet.
No, we don't hear about it more because it's not healthful. If it were, the human digestive system would be like that of cattle, but it's not. You can feed everyone carby, fibrous meals, but that's not optimal and not even necessarily better for the environment.
The reason algae is proposed as a way to feed people is that it's not dumping a bunch of carbs, fiber, and incomplete protein down everyone's gullets. Humans don't need to be consuming these things, and there's drawbacks to diets that aren't based on what our species developed to primarily consume over the last 4 or so million years. There's aspects of algae that are preventing it from being a serious food source across the world, but if those roadblocks can be overcome then it can be a game changer because of where it can be grown and what kinds of nutrients it's capable of producing.
In the present, there's no good reason to believe that "everyone" needs to eat more plants and less meat. Meat is a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, just as are crops. On the contrary to what you're suggesting, and putting aside the fact that fossil fuels are being used throughout livestock and agriculture, individuals can eat whatever they see fit for themselves.
Crops use something like 1% of the resources to grow that meat does. It's not just about where carbon is stored, but land and water usage and where carbon is produced (cows fart. a lot.). Overall plant-based diets are far superior for the planet than meat-based diets, and contrary to popular opinion they don't have to suck.
Water and land usage is also A: grossly overstated (you can't grow anything except grass on most land) and B: cited as something against all meat when chickens, goats, ducks, geese and pigs use far less of both. At that point, substantiate or correct your statement to 'beef'.
The overwhelming majority of soy grown globally is fed to livestock. That's definitely does not fall under your category of "can't grow anything except grass on most land".
"More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products"
The proportion is lower for corn, but only because a huge chunk is being used for fuel. If we exclude that, it would still be the overwhelming majority.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/104842/corn_dom_use....
How do you plan on solving the problem of eating the bits of soy plants that humans can't eat?
Sounds like the South Indian Sambar with rice meets this criteria.
Or rice-dal-subji combo in North Indian cuisine.
Your comments about what "people" were designed to eat also sounds pretty ignorant, since we're not genetically homogenous for starters. Most humans of European descent have evolved for seasonal carbohydrate consumption, which is why they make you fat in excess (good luck surviving a hard winter lean). The only people who really shouldn't be eating carbs are indigenous people from very cold areas with a primarily marine diet. There are pockets of indigenous Americans from desert regions who don't do fantastically with carbs either, but those people mostly have issues with a caloric surplus in general.
Seaweed is a better food (and habitat) for fish than humans. We should create artificial reefs and forests to feed fish, then sustainably harvest fish from those manmade "farms".
Source for this? I don't doubt that there are groups with genetic adaptations to food (eg. genes for lactase persistence), but I'm not aware of anything for carbs.
On the “complete protein” concept, by a famous popularizer of plant-based protein-combining[0]
——
There is no need to combine foods at individual meals.
“In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought. With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet.”
—-
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_for_a_Small_Planet
Edit: adjust description of what Lappé was popularizer of
> The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat).
This part could be important for some folks. :)
Thx for the amendment.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1...
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...
Edit: correction, it appears that soybeans are the exception. But when one thinks of having a serving of "beans and rice", soybeans are unlikely to be the bean served.
But the truth is that you don't need to eat them in the same meal, and most people don't have a shortage of grain in their diets if they aren't going out of their way to make it so. Porridge in the morning and lentils at lunch and you've done it.
*I don't cite the source since I am unsure if there are caveats or if the claim is controversial.
Everyone always mentions beans and rice, but Potatoes by themselves are a complete protein. Some of the essential amino acids aren't found in high quantities in potatoes, so you have to eat a lot of them if you go that route. They are missing some vitamins and minerals as well, so you have to add sweet potatoes if you don't want scurvy.
I disagree. A high carb diet make me fat. A high protein diets does not.
There is no vegan way for me to eat my daily protein target without eating far too many carbs along with it.
(edit: I should have stated that there is no way beyond eating highly processed foods)
I think the "protein" obsession we have currently (even my milk carton brags about protein content) might be dialed back in the near future. It came from the weight lifting community, and lifting weights is one of the least healthy and functional ways to stay in shape. Hopefully we view hiking and doing physical activities as being "in shape" soon versus going to a gym to do a bunch of isolated movements with weight.
My main point is that defined abs and a giant chest and arms have little to do with health and performance, but the body-building culture has convinced us all that they do. It got ridiculous in the 90s when Arnold and Stallone were portrayed as heroes good at everything due to their big muscles, when the reality was that Arnold needed help wiping his own ass when he was at his biggest.
But if your goal is attracting a mate or intimidating other males bench press and bicep curls are your path.
I am also coming from a place as someone who hit 315 on bench in my mid 20s but felt like an old man.
Not trying to sidestep your point here though and I understand and agree with what you are getting at re: over focus on lifting.
I don't kid myself. I know the feeling of being hungry when I'm supposedly full. I know the feeling of being sleepy after a big lunch. If you stop eating carbs you get neither of those things.
The obsession with protein is rooted in the fact that your body hungers for protein, and eating whey protein is definitely not the healthiest way to consume it.
- everyone is different
- there are plenty of low-carb, high-protein vegetarian sources (see: tofu)
Indian/Pakistani food may be vegetarian but it tastes good because of animal products like eggs, butter, cream, milk, and cheese.
It's vegetarian but not vegan.
Source: I grew up eating this type of food daily
I consider food that can be mass-produced in those 71% of the world's surface that cannot grow lentils or rice quite sexy indeed.
Also, my impression is that at least in the U.S. there isn't a shortage of farmable land. It's just that most of it is used to grow corn and soybeans, and most of the corn is being used to feed cattle and make ethanol.
I think a lot more work needs to be done to show how tasty plant-based foods can be. Anecdote: growing up, I hated brussel sprouts b/c we ate them boiled; now I love them oven-roasted. Salads can be amazing if a bit of effort is put into them (more than just iceberg lettuce and dressing).
0: https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/do-brussels-sprouts-taste-...
Who ever popularized boiling them is a damn fool. Pan friend then oven roasted, just amazing. Best thing in the world.
Also you’re right on all points, but god, love me some sprouts.
While beans and rice are pretty damn good (or what I tend to do, beans and potatoes) it definitely isn't complete nutritionally and there is pretty important stuff that's missing or there isn't enough of (EPA/DHA, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, etc).
Variety is also good just because of allergies and oversensitivites to certain foods and even just taste preference. Just about anything is better for the planet than meat!
I also love falafel though and find the texture close enough to a burger for my uses.
Edit-nonetheless the mock up stuff is fun and fills needs. Love me some “benevolent bacon”.
The concrete existence of train technology causes the ball to get pushed further than the the 3D render stage to the far less exciting endeavors of drafting up projects, gathering political support, securing funding, doing environmental impact studies, battling NIMBYs in court, and may end up undercutting the bottom line of auto manufacturers that could make campaign contributions, and won't line up the pockets of visionary consultants writing reports on how other solutions to car traffic and long commutes could be dreamed up.
Even down south here at 57°N it's still more ecologically sound to eat meat and potatoes, because potatoes grow pretty well and tough heathery grasses and sedges grow pretty well, and we can't eat those but sheep can.
While this is true, algae has been a common, almost staple food for thousands of years in Asia.
TFA, "start eating algae" only betrays its narrow perspective.
Taste is subjective.
All of this is a moot point if demand were to stop growing, and that will only happen when population does. Another accelerant is that as more of the world is lifted out of poverty, demand increases. All of the increases in efficiency and swaps for green energy are outpaced by demand, and will continue to be.
Btw, immigrants are not moving to the 1st world so they could consume less. They're going to eat meat, buy gadgets and single family homes. In fact govt policy is counting on it (that's what a GDP increase means, more consumption). Reduction in overall meat consumption helps, but you shouldn't bet on it to end, nor is it the most exacerbating source of emissions (plus, I hope, seaweed infused feed could trivialize methane emissions as it rolls out).
The alternative to lower demand is a staggering transition away from fossil fuels (only like 15% of fossil fuel consumption is for electricity), but that will probably take awhile. Lowering immigration rates would marginally help (probably not as much as people think) but that would be unpopular anyway. It's simultaneously "just" to pad the numbers of those consuming like Westerners (literally what "a better life" describes), and a moral imperative for the same concerned class to pressure Westerners to avoid consuming arbitrary things, or in general. Regardless, increase in consumption will arrive in the rest of the world.
I think expanding access to contraceptives worldwide is probably the greenest possible thing that can be done right now. That's not coming from a perspective of anti-natalism either. EDIT: use your words if you disagree, like adults. If you can't even elucidate how, you should question your premise.
some people do want to eat crab and lobsters, some don't.
it's not a naming issue or a perception issue, it's a choice issue.
The title is called "Is it time to start eating algae?" even...
The answer to the title is no, unless you want to, which you can already.
If it was about another option it would be a recipe article, not a climate change article.
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
"We have discovered happiness"—say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one's neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.
One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.
"Formerly all the world was insane,"—say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
[...]"
(Not sure that blowing up the biosphere, literally so when considering geological timescales, is a better alternative...)
Is that all cultures you're waiting to die out that are using ICE vehicles and eating chicken, or just Western peoples?
Lots of babies and and future babies who live those lifestyles you're going to have to wait to die...
A ten year old Tesla Model S is superior to my car in every way except for cost and range. It's literally a better product.
There is nothing that even comes close to the nutrition and taste of chicken/beef/pork/lamb etc in the plant world.
Your existing car is already better than a Tesla.
You'll die out with the others at this rate of token changes.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-...
Cattle farming is absolutely not causing water shortages for most of the world.
About algae, there are a lot of different vegetables of all shapes, consistency and colors. The only difference is that in nature algae grow under water instead of under the rain. Considering how many of our vegetables are farmed without even seeing the rain once in their life, that's a non problem.
If you provide antibiotics to a cow they probably will fart less, but also will grow poorly and will not produce good milk. Cows need their gut bacteria to liberate the nutrients in their food and remain healthy.
Many macroalgae have antibiotics as chemical defenses so feeding cows with it is the same as feeding cows antibiotics. Its ability to eat cellulose will be destroyed.
Even worse, this algae they evolved to use chemical defenses, so they grow slowly and only in a narrow ring around the continents. If some thing grows slowly, to harvest it at large amounts will destroy the resource in no time. Is a totally non-scalable plan.
Feeding cows with Chondrus is a false solution. If we try this path I predict that we will soon hit a dead end.
Feeding cows with Spirulina would fall into a different situation and maybe could work (but Spirulina is contaminated and spoiled easily).
Feeding Cattle Seaweed Reduces Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions 82 Percent
https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces...
Aaron Franklin has gone on about why and it’s because of the long cook times. BBQ is smoked and seasoned so I’m not sure the bland opinion matters.
Speaking as someone who has actually raised grass-fed beef.