With more of us looking for alternatives to eating animals, new research has found a surprising environmentally friendly source of protein -- algae. The University of Exeter study has been published in The Journal of Nutrition and is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the ingestion of two of the most commercially available algal species are rich in protein which supports muscle remodeling in young healthy adults.

With more of us looking for alternatives to eating animals, new research has found a surprising environmentally friendly source of protein – algae.

The University of Exeter study has been published in The Journal of Nutrition and is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the ingestion of two of the most commercially available algal species are rich in protein which supports muscle remodeling in young healthy adults.

  • jjagaimo@lemmy.caEnglish
    31·
    10 months ago

    One of the problems with large scale algae farming afaik is the algae getting contaminated by other algal species that are toxic and outcompete the edible algae. I’d like to see the solutions to that issue

    • fukhueson@lemmy.worldOP
      151·
      10 months ago

      It is a complicated topic, pest management strategies can vary. A lot of the time it is site and organism specific as far as what you’d end up with, certain species can be susceptible to different infestations. So many invasive organisms require different cures, these can include chemicals, fungicides, filtration, but these kinds of contamination events are somewhat expected after enough time, so as long as the same issue isn’t recurring too frequently, the economic strategy is to just reboot the pond after a clean.

      Typically, the strategy is to outcompete what you may get contaminated with. Ideally your crop is a high productivity strain of algae (much more productive than things originating outside the pond), and as long as the algae exhibit faster growth rates, the invasive species doesn’t have an opportunity to take off as the desired algae will continue to take the majority of nutrients.

      If you get something toxic in there, it’s gotta be dealt with accutely based on the critter, but other preventative strategies like inlet media filtration/heating, crop rotation, and organism population monitoring can help mitigate these things from starting up. A good review can be found here.

    • TDCN@feddit.dk
      121·
      10 months ago

      I guess the production could take inspiration from the pharma industry and use strict increasingly clean zones and sterile environments the closer you get to the core production. After sterilising everything and sigeling out the alge you want you should in theory be able to run more or less indefinitely. And if a contamination of found it just a matter of sterilizing everything with steam and reboot the system.

      • freeindv@monyet.cc
        1·
        10 months ago

        Yeah we’ll just make our food like we do our drugs. Surely those who can’t afford a steak will be able to eat…

      • Francisco@lemmy.world
        23·
        10 months ago

        Keeping things sterile is very labour and energy intensive, even in the Pharma industry, where the profit margins are orders of magnitude above what you can do in the food industry.

        Look this will sound harsh, but it’s not, really.

        Your reasoning is good if you compare it to an hypothesis a student of Pasteur or Koch could have thought of 150 yrs ago.

        Thus I have to ask you, why did you think you have a good take on this?

        • TDCN@feddit.dk
          21·
          10 months ago

          Did you read what i wrote? i said “take inspiration from” not "should copy 1:1 also i work i pharma so yes i have a good take on this.

          • fukhueson@lemmy.worldOP
            11·
            10 months ago

            When you’re working with coproducts like algae-derived pharmaceuticals (see Lumen biotech in Seattle) that sell for 6 figures/kg you’re correct, much more stringent pharma-like ideas do get implemented because the down time is costly. This is seen in indoor reactor setups where you can grow under artificial light year round. Outdoors, the cost to implement more sophisticated systems doesn’t translate in your TEA especially when growing things like protein which is cheap in comparison.

            • TDCN@feddit.dk
              1·
              10 months ago

              Yeah you are probably right that cost will be the biggest issue when comparing between the two fields of production. Getting a good stable production that is also cheap enough to be viable is always the hurdle

          • Francisco@lemmy.world
            12·
            10 months ago

            What you said on the 1st sentence is okay. After that, is clueless. …in the context of discussing the difficulties - technical and economical - of growing specific algae for food.

            After sterilising everything and sigeling out the alge you want you should in theory be able to run more or less indefinitely.

            This is like saying that if there’s sun and no clouds, in theory, the sky should be blue. In practice there’s no useful information added to the discussion on the…

            And if a contamination of found it just a matter of sterilizing everything with steam and reboot the system.

            Like in all that is microbiology, kind of. Except steam is not sterilising. Unless under autoclave pressures. Inside an autoclave. Even in those conditions, which are agreed to be sterilising, even then not all microbes are killed and contamination is still considered as an issue in some cases. Again, in practice there’s no useful information added to the discussion on the…

            Your non-expert overconfidence is not unique. It’s an epidemic. And that’s why I’m triggered to comment on it.

            • TDCN@feddit.dk
              1·
              10 months ago

              Again, in practice there’s no useful information added to the discussion on the

              And by that logic neither have you added anything useful so far with two long posts in this thread. So I guess we are even now? :)

  • VonCesaw@lemmy.world
    211·
    10 months ago

    Unironically (within reason) I do not care where my proteins come from if they taste good enough and are renewable

  • TDCN@feddit.dk
    17·
    10 months ago

    Algae just have a pretty strong flavor and might be off-putting for some so for it to take off i would love to have different flavours and species to pick from. Would be interning. So far I’ve only tried spirulina which has a quite strong taste in my smoothies and is deafening the taste of almost everything else.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    14·
    10 months ago

    Is that surprising? I feel like that’s the least surprising option. Cricket flour was surprising.

  • Omnificer@lemmy.world
    142·
    10 months ago

    I’m not against algae as a food source, but the similarity of this research to Soylent Green’s cover source in the movie being plankton is hilariously on the nose.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    103·
    10 months ago

    Algae and kelp can be really damn yummy, too. Takes work, but I remember having my first non-meat burger back in my teenage years and loving the hell out of it. It was this blend of kelp and algae and it was so damn good. It didn’t taste like meat, and it was miles better than any of the usual “veggie” burgers I’ve had since.