Trees Could Be New Source of Food
- 11 years ago
A Virginia Tech professor is working on a way to alleviate the future crises he feels is inherent in current farming practices. Instead of working to maximize or change the growing areas, he’s trying to cultivate a new food source derived from trees.
While we'll never see salmon farming in real life, farmable land is in short supply in many parts of the world. A Virginia Tech professor is working on a way to alleviate the future crises this could cause.
Instead of working to maximize or change the growing areas, he’s trying to cultivate a new food source.
It occurred to Percival Zhang that trees, bushes and grasses aren’t nearly as high maintenance as most food crops. Now he’s working on a way to turn the cellulose or wood pulp from them into a consumable and nutritious starch option.
The trick is to break down the cellulose using enzymes and reassemble the molecules into the edible starch amylose.
He’s already managed to make a powder good for coating chicken and such, but his sights are set on developing a product that’s both healthy and able to be produced on a large scale if need be.
Cellulose is quite a multi-tasker already.
It doesn’t need to be converted to be edible, it’s just not nutritious in its natural wood pulp state. Nonetheless, it is commonly used as an extender in fast and processed foods.
While we'll never see salmon farming in real life, farmable land is in short supply in many parts of the world. A Virginia Tech professor is working on a way to alleviate the future crises this could cause.
Instead of working to maximize or change the growing areas, he’s trying to cultivate a new food source.
It occurred to Percival Zhang that trees, bushes and grasses aren’t nearly as high maintenance as most food crops. Now he’s working on a way to turn the cellulose or wood pulp from them into a consumable and nutritious starch option.
The trick is to break down the cellulose using enzymes and reassemble the molecules into the edible starch amylose.
He’s already managed to make a powder good for coating chicken and such, but his sights are set on developing a product that’s both healthy and able to be produced on a large scale if need be.
Cellulose is quite a multi-tasker already.
It doesn’t need to be converted to be edible, it’s just not nutritious in its natural wood pulp state. Nonetheless, it is commonly used as an extender in fast and processed foods.