Future foods both real an imagined
A talk on ‘Future Foods’ both real and imagined. Which explores the glimpses of food from the futre in sci-fi films, contrasted with the reality of what is around and available to use today.
Presented at Pecha Kucha as part of Brighton Science Festival 2011, the theme for the night is ‘Stranger than fiction’.
The talk is available on SlideShare with speaker notes (and downloadable), or there is a version below with links to all the relevant articles.
Hi I’m Oli Shaw.
I’m not a food scientist, I’m more of a culture explorer employing techniques from anthropology and sociology to see how we live day to day and the things we do and what we use.
Which brings me on to food, one of the 3 basic survival necessities; Food, Shelter, Warmth.
I’ve always been a fan of science fiction getting glimpses in to possible futures, and one of the things that fascinated me most in sc-fi is the food.
In this talk I’m exploring the imagined food of science fiction and the reality of the foods that are available and we eat today.
The talk will contain some film spoilers, sorry about that. I also I hope you have strong stomachs.
In the 1973 Film Sleepers there is a scene where when scavenging for food Woody Allen finds a future farm with oversized fruit and vegetables…
Oh and there’s also a giant chicken…
The technology to genetically modify animals and vegetables has been around for some time, there is a lot of caution around using it on animals, such as the Salmon eggs which was in the news last summer, there are lesser qualms about modifying fruit and vegetables.
In China they sent a load of seeds into space and when they returned grew them into giant ‘space veg’, they needed’t have gone to all that trouble, UK allotment owners have been doing that for their village fetes for years.
In the 1995 film Waterworld the sea’s have risen and drinkable water is a rare commodity and a valued currency, as a result its possible to use an osmosis machine to convert urine into drinking water.
They don’t really explain why you cant just convert the sea water, but we can only assume that drinking converted pee makes for a better film.
So on the topic of drinking urine, the US military have developed the technology to have meal re-hydrated by using urine, the rational is that water accounts for a large amount of the weight in a back pack, by reducing he water content solider can carry less.
They don’t say its only pee that will do it, its designed so any kind of water, muddy or otherwise will be purified enough to rehydrate food. Also the same technology is being tested for aid supplies to disaster sites where the same problem of the weight of distributing drinkable water is an issue.
And in India cow urine is a healthy alternative to cola…apparently
In the 1989 film: Back to the Future 2 we see a glimpse into the year 2015 where Black an Decker have made a Food re-hydrator / microwave.
A fantastical device where you put in a foil sealed pizza and in just a few seconds out comes a pizza as fresh and hot as from any pizzeria.
Despite all the advances by the Space programs of the world, re-hydration on this scale hasn’t yet been achieved, yet in other areas that have surpassed this concept.
But we do have things like Shake & Bake pancakes, Smash mash potatoes and meal replacement shakes such as slim fast which just need water adding to them.
In the 2003 film Matrix: reloaded there is a scene where inside the world of the Matrix the Merovingian character reprograms the DNA of a cheesecake to induce an orgasm in an unsuspecting diner.
A cake that takes delicious & tasty to a new level…
While we don’t yet have food to create an orgasm, sprinkling viagra on a cake wouldn’t quite create the same effect, we do have the ability to make things tastier.
There is a chocolate currently only in Japan called GABA which uses hormones to create anti-stress.
And Nestlé are apparently researching into chemicals which can make you salivate more making things taste more refreshing and juicer.
For the moment we will have to live with the holy trinity of Salt / Sugar / Fried for our orgasmic food sensations, Krispy Kreame anyone..?
In 2000 film The 6th Day it heavily features the topic of cloning, from pets to the outlawed humans, which is a large topic when considering the future of food, bigger then I could cover in tonights talk.
But there is a very ‘throw away’ scene in the film where Arnold Schwarzenegger is offer a choice of 2 bananas ‘Nacho flavour or original’
Flavours and colours have long been around our foods from home baking dyes to mass manufacture flavorings.
Much like the horseradish and carrot jelly beans from the Harry Potter film merchandise,
Heinz tried to make tomato ketchup more interesting by making it green and purple
Kit-kat have tried a few flavors from apple and carrot to sports drink flavors
Meat water, is an exclusive meal flavored water drink, so exclusive its probably a hoax
Cheetos flavoured lip balm…
In the 1973 film Soylent Green the population has grown beyond the food supplies,
Most of the world’s population survives on processed rations, including Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, which are advertised as “high-energy vegetable concentrates.” The newest product is Soylent Green – which is advertised as being produced from “high-energy plankton.”
Green is the tastiest of the three but in short supply…as it turns out it’s not plankton, “Soylent green is people”
So…eating people…
Forgetting the incidents when an unfortunate worker get’s dismembered and it ends up on our plate.
And the taboo of eating the placenta…and brought back into the main stream discussion by Tom Cruise.
We now have rice with human genes in, which contains 2 hormones found in breast milk, the rice is to be used in creating babies milk
and Human hair is used to extract a food additive called L-cysteine (L-cys for short) which is often used to give bagels, pizza dough, and a range of ready meals to make the softer and or fresher.
Oh and more recently breast milk ice cream
All this talk about enhancing the food, we haven’t touched on the other side of this relationship, why not modify humans…
In the 1992 film Fortress, the prison warden is a modified human who only need to ‘eat’ once a month, when he receives a combination of proteins and amino acids to keep himself fuelled.
We have had things like SlimFast for some time now, where you replace 2 of your daily meals with a shake and only need to eat one meal per day.
A growing trend amount some vegan celebrities is to have a regular vitamin b12 injection to top up the food nutrients they are not receiving, which go beyond the supplements we are used to.
With todays fast paced life it might not be long before a slim fast and red bull diet is upgraded to something where we only need to top up once a week with ‘body fuel’
Some other topics I haven’t covered which are important are:
Cloned animals for farming
Cloned meat – skip the animal
The terminator seed (that wont reproduces) as seen in corn
Patenting foods / seeds and controlling what can be grown by who
The rise and rise of salt and sugar in foods
Medicine grown through foods
Food that wont rot, is it really food?
The images show Sally Davies happy meal project, and the US militaries sandwich which lasts for 3 years
They where just a few examples of what the state of food is today.
But, to begin concluding this talk I’ll leave you with 3 closing thoughts
1. Children
Growing up now consists of packets, not produce – The skills needed are in finding the best packet, and knowing how to cook it, usually in under 3 minutes in a microwave.
The knowledge of what food is and where it comes from is rapidly being lost with each generation, from knowing what simple fruit and vegetables are to where cheese comes from.
Which is not surprising when they are packaged for consumption in such a variety of ways before they enter the home.
2. Bliss
From the Matrix in 1999, in the real world they eat:“A single celled protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins and minerals – everything the body needs” which they affectionately refer to as snot
But its not enough for at least one of them, Cypher, whilst inside the Matrix he says that I “know this steak doesn’t exist, when I put it into my mouth the Matrix is telling my mouth that it is juicy and delicious…and after nine years, what I have realised is that ignorance is bliss”
Which brings me on to the 3rd and final thought…
3. Worse
The next time your watching a science fiction movie and you see some outrageous example of the future food, just think to yourself, the reality of the food around you everyday is probably much worse! :)
Don’t be fooled by the steak of deception, it’s available and offered to you every day…
The image is from the 2006 film Idiocracy, where everyone drinks sports drinks instead of water, including the livestock and crops.
Its a topsy turvy world of food out there, we have meat shaped like sweets, and sweets shaped like animals…
I hope you’ve enjoyed these examples.
Thank you!
Olishaw.com
@olishaw