Instant Genius - How widening our palates can help feed, and save, the planet

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

It’s currently thought that around one billion people worldwide aren’t getting enough protein to meet their daily needs. Alongside this, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the large-scale farming of livestock and the overfishing of the Earth’s oceans to provide us with vital sources of protein are causing great harm to the environment. But could the production of more alternative protein sources, such as cultivated meat, plants like algae and duckweed and even insects, help provide us with a neat solution to both of these issues? As part of our four-part miniseries, Future of Food, we’re joined by a panel of three researchers based at The University of Sheffield: Professor of biomanufacturing Tuck Seng Wong, Professor of plant cell signalling Julie Gray and a Senior Lecturer based at the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering, Dr Kang Lan Tee. They tell us about the latest technological developments that are helping us to produce healthy, nutritious proteins in novel ways, how many of these methods can make much more efficient use of resources such as energy and water, and why perhaps many of us could benefit from being a little more open-minded when it comes to thinking about what we put on our plates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's currently thought that about one billion people worldwide aren't getting enough protein to meet their daily needs. Alongside this is becoming increasingly clear that the large-scale farming of livestock and the overfishing of the Earth's oceans to provide us with vital sources of protein are causing great harm to the environment. But could the production of more alternative protein sources, such as cultivated meat, plants like algae and duckweed, and even insects, help providers with a neat solution to both of these issues?

In this episode, we're joined by a panel of three researchers based at the University of Sheffield, Professor of Biomanufacturing Tuxeng Wong, Professor of Plant Cell Signalling, Julie Gray, and senior lecturer Dr Kanglan-Tee. They tell us about the latest technological developments that are helping us to produce healthy, nutritious proteins in other ways. How many of these methods can make more efficient use of resources, such as energy and water,

and why perhaps many of us can benefit from being a little more open-minded when it comes to thinking about what we put on our plates. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Good morning. Hi, good morning. Hello, everyone. So yeah, nice to meet you all. It's exciting. We don't usually have a panel on. We usually just have the one guest. So today we're going to be talking about novel protein sources, your kind of areas of expertise. So first off, let's start with you, Tuck. Why do we need these alternative protein sources in the first place?

So our dietary protein sources very widely across different regions and cultures. For example, like in the UK, the average person, consumes about 64 grams of animal protein and about 44 grams of plant protein per day. Globally, the demand from meat is projected to increase by 50% by 2050. So meeting this growing demand solely through the conventional livestock production is not sustainable because of its environmental footprints and also resource intensity. So to ensure future food security and also planetary health, I think it's actually very important to develop and also adopt alternative sources of protein which are nutritious, affordable, and also environmentally responsible as well.

So Julie, here's one for you then. So currently we hear a lot about global food shortages as the population's growing. Do we have any current figures on this? You know, where are we at the moment? There's probably about a billion people that are not getting enough protein. We've got about 9 billion population. So we have millennium goals to try and improve this. but it's progressing very slowly.

But most of the world are not short of protein. Most people get enough protein. I only need about 40 grams of protein a day. But like Tuck said that some regions of the world, particularly Asia and Africa, where they perhaps rely on carbohydrate-heavy diets, they don't tend to get enough protein. So if you just ate a lot of rice, you would feel full,

but that's mostly carbohydrate. and some seeds, and a lot of our diet is seed, don't store proteins in quite the way that humans need them. So let's have a look. Here's one for you then, Kang. What actually does the term alternative protein mean? I get this question a lot. You might be surprised to hear this, but there's actually no legal or official definition

for the term alternative protein. So informally, scientists, policymakers, and in the food industry, it basically means, used to describe sources of protein that are beyond our traditional norms like meat and fish. So for consumers, this term alternative protein can be a bit tricky to actually pin down because it covers quite a broad spectrum of products. So if we really try to, let's say, break it down, there are perhaps a few main types. So first you have like plant and insect-based protein. So some of this, we will. already familiar with like soy, quinoa, lentil, and we also use this to make other products

like tofu, plant-based meat, and insects, there can be edible insects or even insect powder, which are protein-reach. So the other thing is that we can also have a biomass fermentation. So where fungi are cultivated, for example, we can also have cultivated meat. So that's the other type. So this is where you use or you cultivate real animal cells without really raising or slaughtering animals and maybe finally there's a precision fermentation which some of us have heard of this term. And this is where we use really engineered microorganism to produce specific proteins like a dairy protein casein and all these actually proteins. They exist in nature. It's just really their alternative in their origin and maybe how we use technology to produce them.

Great, so let's go through some of these in turn then. So let's start with cultivated meats. I think this is possibly somebody listening who's vaguely heard of alternative proteins. They think, well, it must be these cultivated lab-grown meats. So I've seen things like beef, chicken, even sort of like fish, sort of like pieces of salmon. So, Tuck, how do we make these? First of all, I would like to actually kind of like correct the terminology usage that is actually the lab-grown meat. I think that grown meat is a very negative terminology and potentially quite confusing for the consumers as well.

So cultivated meats, also known as the culture meat, is actually produced via growing animal cells in a safe and also controlled environment. So basically, the final product is biologically and nutritionally comparable to conventional meats. It's just that it's actually made without raising and slaughtering animal, exactly what countdown just mentioned. So the entire process actually begins with collecting and also banking stem cells from a living animal. And the cells are then grown cultivated in a bioreactor at high cell density and volume.

So inside the bioreactor, the cells are actually supplied with oxygen-rich nutrient medium, containing, for example, amino acids, sugar, minerals, vitamins, and also the growth factor to really support their proliferation. So by changing the composition of the medium and also providing a physical cue, for example, like a scaffold, that really mimic the structure of a natural tissue, the cells are then guided to differentiate into muscle, fats, and also connective tissue that together form a piece of a meat.

So when the desired composition and texture are achieved, the tissue is then harvested, process, and then the package into the final product. So depending on the animal cell species and also the final product, the entire cultivation process typically take about two to eight weeks. So once we've got this finished product, we can just, you know, we've got it in our kitchen. We can just cook it in the same way that we do regular meat. Is that right? Yeah, that's completely right. So barbologically and nutritionally, they are very very similar, almost identical to the conventional meats. So let's have a look at another source that we've been hearing more and more about over, over. for the past several years.

And that's insects. So we don't typically eat them in the UK, but in lots of places in South America, Asia, etc. There's been a traditional source of protein for absolutely years, you know. So how can we start using more insects and get more insects into our diets? I think insects has, as you've mentioned, been a long part of diet in South America, Africa, Asia.

and there is a growing interest, in fact, in consumer demand, and this is actually expected to reach about half a million tonne in 2030. So there are a lot of technologies that have been developed and are developing at the moment to make insect protein more accessible and also very importantly more appealing for consumers. I think these are two very key points. And I think there are two main ways. First is really farming technologies.

So there are a lot of old. automation that now allows insect farming to maintain very controlled and consistent environment. So this helped to optimize their growth and at the same time keep labor costs low for insect farming. Breeding programs have also been used to enhance, for example, the protein yield of the insects, as well as nutritional profile of insects. And we adopt now vertical farming to help to scale up the insect farming because this can take place using a less space. So farming technology is one. I think the other is really processing technologies. And that is key really for overcoming the ick factor for consumers because I think

this is a very important point. And technologies that's been used like freeze drying actually can turn insects into protein powder. So that is one whereby you see cricket flour on the market. And there are also other technologies like using supercritical CO2 or even other extraction methods where we extract high-quality protein in very high yield. So enzymes have also been used to help to break down insect protein into smaller peptides. This actually makes it easier for them to be incorporated, for instance, into protein bar, protein shakes, and even bake goods. So I think automation, smart farming, processing techniques, actually all are helping to make an insect protein, a more serious protein,

I think, for the world. So you mentioned there, crickets. What are some of the other sort of promising insect species that we can use? So I think cricket has been quite well developed so far. I think Black Soldier Fly, this is another one that we see a lot of. So I think one of the reasons why some of these are interesting is because other than them, a protein sauce, they can be actually cultivated using, for example, side streams from food waste, for instance. So this can make it very sustainable as well. Wishing you could be there live for the big game,

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and most of the world gets its protein from plants. I wouldn't class plants as an alternative protein. The world has plenty of protein, and, you know, as my colleagues were saying, that you could grow cultured meat or insects, but basically they're taking the energy from plants. They're using plants as an energy source, and plants get their energy from the sun. So plants are always going to be the most efficient way of making our food and making our protein.

and if we want to address some malnutrition, I don't really think that cultured meat is going to do that in the way that plants is going to do it. Plants can be produced on a much, much bigger scale and are the primary producers. The only problem with plants is that some of them, although every plant can make all of the building blocks of protein that we need, some of them store in their seed proteins that are lacking,

in particular building blocks called amino acids. So peas and beans are lacking in methionine. And cereals like wheat and rice are a little bit short of lysine. So as long as you have a varied diet, if you have a little bit of peas and beans or nuts and a little bit of cereals, you're going to be fine. So if you are having a proper varied diet, like a peanut butter sandwich,

beans on toast, rice and dal, tortilla chips and chili beans. You know, all our cultures have these meals that are plant-based and much of humanity lives on plants, we would have enough protein for the world. There is plenty of protein. The problem and the reason for malnutrition in some places in the world is poverty. It's not that there's not enough protein. It's that people have not been clearly educated,

they've been told how to get enough food, but not how to get a proper balanced diet. And, you know, they know how to feed their children so that they're full, but perhaps not to balance their proteins. So I would say that, you know, crops are already sufficient. We just need to supply them and educate people to know how to use them. Yeah, so it's sort of coming off the back of that. We've already got traditional sources of protein made out of beans or beans. or gluten like tofu tempe, satan.

So Tuck, I mean, somebody listening might think, well, why don't we just eat more of this? All right. I think it's an interesting question. So tofu, tempe and satan's are staple produce sources in many Asian cuisines and made primarily like what you say, soybean and also or wheat's gluten. And I enjoy all of them, to be honest, and they are also gaining popularity in the Western world.

But I think we must recognize that not all consumers appreciate the texture and flavor, and some might actually need to avoid gluten-containing food products because of the health reasons. And so I think it's actually very important to really diversify protein sources and also develop a broad range of alternative food products to really address the nutritional needs and also preferences of a broad and also inclusive consumer base as well. Yeah, so Kang, you mentioned earlier, precision fermentation. So that's something that probably a few people will have heard of, but won't really know exactly what it is.

So sort of how does it work and what end products can we make using this process? So many of us would already be familiar with fermentation because it's a process that is behind a lot of our everyday food like beer, yogurt, cheese, kimchi. So it is really one of the oldest biotechnologies we have. where microorganisms are combined with a nutrient feedstock to make something new. So if we take a beer as an example, so you put yeast, which is the microorganism, and then you take the sugars from barley and putting them together, cultivation gives you alcohol.

So precision fermentation works in a very similar way, but perhaps with a modern twist, where in this case, the microorganisms that we are using are engineered, and engineered because this is so that they can produce a very specific targeted molecule that they don't normally make, and often to make them in large quantities. Thanks to a lot of advances in engineering biology now, we can really find you this microorganism to become like tiny factories to produce these proteins that we want. And once the fermentation is completed,

the product is then purified to regulatory standards before we actually use them in our food. So the results actually now is quite impressive because we can make dairy proteins like casein using modified yeast. We can make sweet proteins that we can use to enhance the sweet flavor of our food using modified bacteria. So precision fermentation is really, let's put it, an HO process given a high-tech.

upgrade in this case so that it enable us to really create alternative ways of producing animal protein or protein ingredients for our food. So are there any concerns about safety concerning any of these processes, you know, like Tuck there, you mentioned perhaps people who have celiac disease being unable to eat gluten, for example. But how about, you know, things like people are a bit worried about things like zoonotic viruses these days? I mean, do we have to be careful about anything like that? So food safety is actually not unique to alternative proteins or cultivated meat and it applies to all the food that we consume every day. So in the United Kingdom, we have a very robust regulatory framework to ensure that all the food products actually meets

the safety standards overseen by organisations such as the Food Standards Agency FSA and also Food Standards, Scotland FSS. And so I think that, and this organization also actually work very closely with the stakeholders, for example, like with the National Alternative Protein Innovation Center, NAPIC, to really objectively assess the safety of all forms of alternate proteins that we discuss today. So if we really consider how cultivated meats is actually being manufactured, I would say that the likelihood of contamination or zoonotic disease, transmission would be actually lower compared to in a conventional meat production.

And that is because the entire process actually takes place in a controlled food safe environment or a dedicated food manufacturing factory with robust monitoring and also quality assurance throughout. So I would say that the concern is actually minimal. So how about we kind of touched on this a bit earlier. How do these food substances that we're talking about compare to life? livestock farming and the environmental impact. So I'm thinking of things like water use, energy use, fertilizer use, even the use of antibiotics in livestock is becoming more and more of an issue. So can we say anything about that, Kank? I think when it comes to sustainability,

the numbers really speak for themselves because recent studies have shown that producing plant-based meat can actually cut greenhouse emission by 94%. And it also uses 93% less water and requires 81% less energy if you compare it to, let's say, conventional beef. So in terms of fertilizer, even, it might be surprising for many, but traditional livestock farming depends heavily on synthetic fertilizers to really grow the massive amount of animal feet that is required to go into animal farming. So that really also drives up like water pollution through fertilizer runoff. And Julie mentioned earlier, When we use, let's say, a plant for as animal feed, it is actually an extremely inefficient process

because only about 2 to 4% of the calories that we use in feed actually end up in meat on our table. So plant-based protein can get around this problem by really reducing the fertilizer needs as well, not to mention all the greenhouse gas emission, reducing water and also using less energy. I think plant-based meat is the one that has been most investigated in terms of environmental sustainability. But when it comes to also cultivator meat, for instance, there has been some evidence to suggest that if we use, let's say, renewable energy especially, to power the cultivation of cultivated meat. This can help us to reduce energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emission and also using less water. Insect is quite interesting because insect actually get most of their water from their feet. So growing insects actually use even 99% less energy compared to traditional meat as well.

And compared to, let's say, livestock, they are extremely efficient in converting feet into protein. So this really speaks for their sustainability as well. So we've talked about a lot of different sources of protein there. and a lot of different ways that it can help our global food systems. But we haven't talked about maybe the most important thing to most people. And that's what it actually tastes like. So if we want to make people eat these foods, of course, you've got to make them appealing. So is there anything we can do to sort of produce foods with the texture, aroma and flavor that people will crave?

When it comes to alternative proteins, I mean, you are absolutely right that flavor and texture is very important. In fact, there are two of the most important things that people look for. So you can have the most sustainable burger in the world, but if it doesn't taste good, nobody is going to buy it. So actually, that's why scientists have turned a lot to cutting edge technology. For example, using high moisture, extrusion, 3D printing, and creating new blends of a binding agent that will help us to create that juicy, chewy bite that we loved in meat. And some of the questions that we are looking at is really how do we trap water in plant-based meat, for instance, to mimic juiciciness in the meat, and how do you build fat marbling into the plant-based meat or even cultivated protein? So these are the kinds of questions that's really driving the feel.

So on the flavor side, plant protein or plant-based meat, for instance, have some off-notes. So it can have this beanie, sometimes bitter taste. So in terms of improving flavor, it's all about masking these of notes coming from plant protein and adding aroma and savory depth by, for example, using other ingredients to improve these savory depth. And it's really that creating that familiar feel and satisfaction that we derive from eating meat, for instance. One of the example perhaps is in plant-based meat, for instance, we use a particular ingredient called Lake Hymoglobin. So this ingredient is produced using precision fermentation, and it is the addition of

this ingredient that gave the plant-based meat. It's a meaty flavor that we are familiar with. And also, in some cases, for example, umami is very important. So amino acids are actually very important for giving. this umami taste and using precision fermentation, for instance, to produce amino acids that can help to give the plant-based meat, the umami flavor, is also one of the ways that we are looking at to improve, for example, the flavor of these proteins. Do you think also there's perhaps a problem amongst some consumers with image? So I can say

a sort of a personal anecdote, several years ago, I cooked a musaka for a, my partner's father, using the famous Myco protein brand. And as it was eating it, he says, oh, this is delicious. I'll say, oh, you would never believe it. There's no meat in that. And he says, oh, no, I wish I hadn't told me that. I was enjoying this. Even though he'd said five minutes earlier that it was delicious. How can we change these people's minds? The people aspect of a plant base, or even alternative protein, is actually quite critical. And this is something where, for example, in most consumers, I think it's a psychological thing, where you kind of associate meat with that specific flavor and taste profile.

And because food is not just about flavor and taste, I think one important thing is about memory as well. So people remember and recognize a certain food with a certain taste. So even if they do not know what the food is, is they get that. same flavor, they associate it directly with that food, which is meat, for instance. And if you then subsequently tell, oh, it is actually not that, it's kind of confusing, I think, for consumers. And they have to try to reconnect the flavor with the meat. And we are, I think most people are quite resistant to change. And this is something that I think a lot of education and maybe the education is really important to help to get consumers familiar with it.

But having said that, I think a lot of the younger generation are already very open to this form of alternative proteins. And I think this is something that will change as time paths. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Professor Tuxeng Wang, Professor Julie Gray, and Dr Kang Lanthi. If you liked what you just heard, then please do consider subscribing to Insidgenius on your preferred podcast platform. If you'd like to see our guests and hosts in person, then why not check out our YouTube channel at ScienceFocus. The current issue of BBC ScienceFocus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines or download us on your app store of choice.

You can also find us on Apple News or online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. gesture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal, Name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.

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