Algae as superfood? Countries like Japan have already known for years about the possibilities of using algae as a nutritious food product, as any sushi fancier will attest to. Growing algae to feed the world’s hungry may soon become a viable reality as some forms of algae like spirulina, actually a form of cyanobacteria  and up to now much more expensive to produce as a food source.

This cost factor may now be reduced significantly due to a project being conducted by high school students at Israel’s Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. The school program actually began back in 2013 when the high school students began experimenting with growing the algae in plastic bottles in what they referred to as the Algeed Superfood Project.

Spirulina has been found to contain as much as 70% protein and as such can be a tremendous help to feeding countries such as those in Africa whose large populations suffer from high levels of malnutrition. Since its original inception, the Tel Aviv high school project has expanded to actual involvement with African countries like Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“The idea is to find a low cost nutrition solution to feed the world’s hungry,” says Ben Berger, the project head. Congolese Agricultural representatives recently visited the high school, whose students took on the project six years ago to find a way to reduce significantly the cost of producing the highly nutritious algae at a lower cost than had been done up to now when spirulina was mostly sold in health foods stores at a much higher cost.  Spirulina in its natural state, usually looks like the photo below:

Dr. Zeev Degani, the school principal, is very happy that the project is taking place at his school which has expanded it to the point where some of the students have actually visited African locations to see the progress being made to produce the algae there. The Gymnasia Herzliya students have developed a way to grow the algae in plastic drink bottles, an item that is plentiful all over Africa and usually discarded in trash dumps. The program was aired recently on Israel’s Channel 13 news program.

Beginning originally on South Africa, the project is also being tried in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 1.5 million children suffer from various forms of malnutrition. “Instead of being dependent on aid programs, which usually end after a period of time, why not focus on something that will enable countries to provide their own nutrition solutions?” said a representative of the Lwiro Research Center of Natural Sciences in the Dem. Republic of the Congo.

More about algae as a food and fuel source:

Adding spirulina to felafel could yield the next superfood

Algae returns as fuel for our future

Israeli Teens Bottle Algae in “Algeed” Superfood Project for a Hungry Africa

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One in eight people around the world are chronically hungry, and in the future things may get even worse. Human  population is expected to increase significantly, and climate change is making it harder than ever to grow healthy crops in more and more regions.

Netherlands-based Solynta is a leading seed breeding company which has developed an innovative technology for targeted breeding of one of the world’s fourth largest staple crops – potatoes. The mighty spud is relatively cheap, highly nutritious, and already eaten in most countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommends potato cultivation for countries seeking to increase their food security, as they can be grown most anywhere.

Compared to other crops like rice, corn and wheat, potatoes produce far more food per hectare, and far more food per liter of water used, helping feed large numbers of people while also mitigating the effects of climate change. According to the FAO, up to 85 percent of the plant is edible human food, compared to around 50% in cereals.

Potatoes are highly nutritious and contain more of the 21 vitamins and trace elements than any other staple crops. They are rich in carbohydrates, making them a good source of energy, and boast the highest protein content (around 2.1 percent on a fresh weight basis) in the family of root and tuber crops. They are also rich in vitamin C and contain a fifth of the recommended daily value of potassium.

Currently, most potato farmers are forced to rely on poor-quality ‘seed tubers’ – specially-grown potato tubers which are used as starting material, but which are easily perishable and are infected with pests and diseases. The result is low yields.

Solynta’s “True Seed” technology has the potential to help solve all these problems, by delivering potatoes which can double yields over seed-tubers; are more resistant to drought; and require fewer harmful pesticides and fungicides. These hybrid seeds are completely disease-free and are also far easier to store and transport than tubers. On average, 25 grams of True Seeds produces the same crop as 2,500 kilos of seed tubers, resulting in significant reductions in transport costs and carbon emissions.

Agriculture consumes more than 2/3 of total available freshwater through irrigation. Depletion of water reserves could cause a 40% supply gap by 2030. An increase in the proportion of potato in the diet would alleviate pressure on water resources. Also, by breeding natural resistances into the crop there will be a significant reduction (>60%) of pesticide use and therefor limit the runoff of pesticides into the water system.

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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently issued a report calling for wider uptake of insect for food and feed. Citing benefits such as quality nutrition, fast reproduction and even low greenhouse gas emissions, the FAO suggests that the food industry should add insects to restaurant menus to help overcome western aversion to eating them.

Although most westerners would turn their nose up to a dish of fried beetles, two billion people around the globe currently consume insects as part of their daily diet, according to the UN FAO report.

Still, the UN considers edible insects to be an excellent but poorly utilized food source that suffers from undue discrimination in certain countries.

Rich in minerals, fats, and protein, insects also reproduce quickly and have high feed to protein conversion rates – 12 times higher than cattle for the same amount of protein, for example.

And whereas livestock are responsible for a dangerous level of greenhouse gas emissions, insects are said to emit less ammonia. In other words, insects are not only a good source of nutrition, but eating them is a smarter environmental choice for a planet in crisis.

The FAO also suggests that insects are a “promising alternative” for livestock feed.

“Nevertheless, a tremendous amount of work still needs to be done by a wide range of stakeholders over many years to fully realize the potential that insects offer for food and feed security,” the report’s authors note.

The food industry could help by adding more tasty insects to recipes in order to mitigate the “eww” factor, while a dedicated education program should focus on both the nutritional and environmental benefits of incorporating edible insects into more diets.

“Additionally, insect rearing should be promoted and encouraged as a socially inclusive activity. Rearing insects requires minimal technical knowledge and capital investment and, since it does not require access to or ownership of land, lies within the reach of even the poorest and most vulnerable members of society,” the report adds.

“In the future, as the prices of conventional animal proteins increase, insects may well become a cheaper source of protein than conventionally produced meat and ocean- caught fish. For this to occur, there will need to be significant technological innovation, changes in consumer preferences, insect-encompassing food and feed legislation, and more sustainable food production.”

Image of insect dish, Shutterstock

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