What will you please? GMO, Soy Protein or Natural?
Soviet science fiction writers loved to paint a future where people would switch to fully synthetic food. Like black caviar from oil invented by chemist Alexander Nesmeyanov. Oddly enough, but the current stories about food prophesy about the same, and from some predictions the hair stands on end. Instead of meat - surrogates, of which Asian larvae and test-tube algae are the most harmless. How do you like the meat grown from cell cultures? Would you like a chicken synthesized from plant substances? Pork will be 3D printed from scrap components. There is an idea to ditch traditional foods altogether in favor of Soylent, a fully synthetic nutrient cocktail invented by programmer Rob Reinhart. All this is seriously discussed by inventors, futurists and journalists. What do food industry experts say? We asked the chemist, food flavoring specialist, science popularizer Sergei Belkov about this.
Chemist Sergei Belkov
Enlighten, please, what will we eat in the near future?
- While the global trend is the production of natural food, in particular organic, that is, grown in traditional ways, without the achievements of science, without artificial additives. This trend is typical for both the food industry and agriculture. In my opinion, the desire to consume everything natural is more likely a reflection of some phobias that have not been completely outlived in people.
What about nutritional supplements? All these substances, in the designation of which there is the letter "E"?
- By and large, there is nothing to add to food, because the market for food supplements is quite established. There is an international list of approved substances, among which manufacturers can choose anything. This is one side of the issue. Adding a new substance to the list is not easy: it takes many years of research and billions of dollars. The requirements for the safety of food additives are no less than for drugs, while they themselves must be cheap, that is, the invention of new ones simply will not pay off. Some simple additives such as stabilizers, enzymes may appear, but you should not expect something fundamentally new that will turn the food industry upside down.
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How about food flavorings?
- There is an international list, which contains about four thousand fragrances allowed for the creation of fragrances; any fragrance can include any substances from the list. The main trend is that the market is increasingly demanding natural flavors. Despite the fact that they are more expensive, they have no advantages in terms of security.
Explain, what is the difference between natural and natural flavors?
- In a natural flavoring agent, we can only use substances that are of natural origin, that is, obtained from natural products directly using classical processing or fermentation methods. For example, linalool is derived from coriander essential oil. Coriander needs to be sown in the field, grown, then processed, oil extracted from it and then linalool. If you make a flavoring from it, then it will be natural. And if we synthesized linalool in a reactor, then the output is just a flavor. Previously, it would have been called "identical to natural". But this is the same linalool, its properties do not depend on the origin. Only natural is more expensive. But the laws of the market work, since buyers believe that natural is better, then manufacturers are happy to offer them this.
It turns out that our food is what consumers want it to be? Does it depend little on some global trends in the development of science and technology?
- In principle, the natural course of development of any industry is the demands of the market. Technologies that are revolutionizing the food market, such as the Internet that changed our society, are rare enough. And food production is generally a conservative industry. It is difficult to expect radically new products from it.
Why are natural substances more expensive than non-natural ones?
- It is longer and more difficult to obtain a natural product or natural substance than a synthetic one. But everything is individual, it cannot be said that all natural substances are expensive. For example, food grade acetic acid is probably all natural. It is obtained by fermentation, it is a simple technology. And there are substances that are very difficult to obtain from natural raw materials, so they are extremely expensive. For example, p-menta-8-thiol-3-one, which gives currants their characteristic “feline” note, is rare in nature, and the natural version costs mind-boggling money.
Vanillin, as far as I understand, we have all synthetic
- You can also buy natural vanillin. It is obtained from vanilla that has been grown. There are even programs to support farms in Madagascar, or in other parts of the world, that grow vanilla, process it and then extract natural vanillin from it. It is very expensive, the price depends on a lot of factors, so little natural vanillin is produced. The second extreme is chemical vanillin. It costs around $ 20 per kg. And there is a new option - biotech vanillin. It is not made from vanilla, but from natural substances through fermentation. Such vanillin, by law, can be called natural, and it is ten times cheaper than made from vanilla.
Your assessments contradict popular reviews about the food of the future. They write about replacing meat with insects or a chemical cocktail, but it turns out that the food, on the contrary, will be more natural?
- Everything that you have listed is a kind of toys that, over time, can become niche products, mainly for a narrow circle of amateurs. The Soylent cocktail will never replace natural food for one simple reason - our way of life is not conducive to that. It suits geeks (computer geeks - ed.) Who are more comfortable with a glass of cocktail instead of eating a full meal. And for the vast majority of people, eating is a process: sitting, talking, maybe even drinking. The situation is similar with the replacement of meat protein by insects. You can imagine such a trendy product, which contains insect protein, which some exotic lovers buy. In addition, harvesting protein from insects is unlikely to be cost effective. Vegetable protein is much cheaper. And when it comes to the cheapest source of protein,then the priority should be given to yeast.
Is the fashionable molecular cuisine now something niche too?
- I think so. These are interesting experiments with food that are pleasant to try in restaurants, nothing more.
How about GMOs? We were banned from growing them, right?
- We have never allowed them, so this prohibition (No. 358-FZ of 03.07.2016 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in terms of improving state regulation in the field of genetic engineering" - Ed.) by and large did not change anything in the status of genetically modified organisms.
I recently bought a package of corn sticks that had a 'Non-GMO' badge …
- An interesting story comes with this marking. I personally don't care whether the product contains GMOs or not. This icon does not affect my product selection. But most people are wary of GMOs, they do not want to buy products containing them, and this sticker, as it were, assures them that everything is ok. Accordingly, the non-GMO badge serves as a means of attracting buyers to the product.
So, but if we cannot grow GMOs, and corn sticks, as the manufacturer assures, are made from domestic products, then this sticker is useless?
- It is redundant. In our country, manufacturers are required by law to label products if they contain GMOs. If there is no GMO, then this explicit indication is not required. The non-GMO sticker is just a vendor gimmick, but to some extent it works. You might just as well be stamped "Doesn't contain mercury".
What foods can contain GMOs?
- In our dumplings, sausages, theoretically, there can be GM-soy. Less commonly, sugary drinks made with fructose-glucose syrup fall into this category, since the raw material for it is cornstarch. With syrups, everything is easy: there are fructose and glucose, and there are no proteins or nucleic acids, which means there is no genetically modified DNA, so even the most anxious customer has nothing to worry about. But since the raw material for the production of syrup can be starch from GM corn, formally these sugars will be called GM. However, today it is very difficult to meet a GMO product on the market. You can look at the reports of Rospotrebnadzor, which regularly conducts inspections. Cases of detecting GMOs in products are rare.
No, explain why you don't care whether the product contains GMOs or not?
- I believe that any sane person should not care. Logically, GMOs are even better than non-GMOs. They are assimilated by the body in the same way. However, GMOs have been far better researched than any other product.
Then what are the common people afraid of? That their genes will be replaced?
- The fear that other people's genes will be incorporated is no longer popular. It seems to me that they are afraid of GMOs only because it is something unknown and incomprehensible. Such an irrational risk avoidance. We have been eating potatoes for three hundred years, nothing happened to us, which means that it is safe. And GMOs have existed for only a couple of decades, let's wait and see.
I often see on the labels of cutlets and sausages that they contain vegetable protein. As far as I understand, this is soy. Should such foods be avoided?
- There are two things with soy. On the one hand, soy protein is cheaper, which really allows the manufacturer to reduce the price of the product, and in this, and especially in the case of concealing the composition, there is an element of consumer deception. But if we talk about health, sausage with soy is even better. The fact is that during the heat treatment of meat, carcinogenic substances are formed. This does not happen with soy. Sausage with soy is not only no more harmful than sausage with meat, but it is better.
Well, this is completely perpendicular to the philistine views. My son forbids me to buy sausage, there is soy in it
- No problem. If you want to buy sausage with meat, then just buy it. Personally, I don’t bother on this topic. I don't care whether it is soy or meat sausage, the main thing is that it is tasty and affordable.
How promising is soy as a substitute for animal protein?
- I would like to think that its share will increase, because it is the most adequate and cheapest source of protein. Soy has good nutritional properties, and it makes good oil along the way. This plant is unpretentious and studied in detail. Its production needs to be expanded to meet the growing needs of humanity.
What food tendencies, on the contrary, should you be wary of?
- Paradoxically, but the main trends are the main problem. The climate on the planet is changing, the population is growing, and already now we see signs of impending problems: stagnation or decline in yields, increased risks of agriculture. The return to naturalness, "organic food", all exacerbate these problems. The Green Revolution has given us an unprecedented treasure - the availability of food. But its resources are coming to an end, this is not yet very noticeable to the layman, but scientists have been pointing this out for several years. And if we stop now, as we have already done with GMOs, or turn back, which shows the trend for "organic food", then we will get hunger, cold and wars. I hope we don’t turn out to be that stupid.
Tatiana Pichugina