Could eating microalgae be the next big thing?
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 976 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sheila Dillon enters the murky green and bright blue world of microalgae and cynobacteria to meet the people who believe humble pond scum could be the secret to securing food for the world's growing population. She visits YeoTown Kitchen in West London where Mercedes Sieff serves up a platter of brightly coloured delights and then meets Andrew Spicer, CEO of Algenuity, who is exploring how microalgae could be an egg replacement of the future. Somehow, their conversation leads Sheila to make a green Victoria sponge. Away from the kitchen, Sheila tells the story of Saumil Shah who is growing spirulina on rooftops in Bangkok and Simon Perez who has been inventing hot dogs, crisps and salad dressings from spirulina in Copenhagen. She hears from one of the world's leading algae scientists, Professor Alison Smith, Head of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert before finding out from Dr Gisela Detrell how microalgae could feed astronauts on missions to Mars.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Tom Bonnett Photograph: Space10
Transcript
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| 0:44.0 | I'm in my kitchen trying to make a victorious sponge and it's all this man's fault. I made a green |
| 0:55.6 | Victoria sponge. I'm not using eggs as in Mary Berry's recipe I'm substituting a green algae powder. |
| 1:05.0 | Why, you sensibly ask, because I do odd things for the food program and it's that time of year anyway, |
| 1:11.0 | health regimes and all that. 113, 113, that'll do. |
| 1:14.0 | So for your benefit and possibly for mine, |
| 1:17.0 | I'm trying out algae. |
| 1:19.0 | I've taken it as a supplement, but I've never tried to cook with it. But algae is having a moment, perhaps a long |
| 1:26.7 | moment into the future of food as we debate how to eat better for the future of the planet. Some populations already eat a lot of algae. The Japanese, for instance, seaweed is an algae. |
| 1:40.0 | But right now, we're interested in the micro algae, chlorella and a |
| 1:45.5 | sinobacteria called spirulina substances that some people not entirely |
| 1:51.3 | unfairly called Ponds Come. |
| 1:54.0 | The original Alga came from my pond in my back garden, |
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