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Researchers from the University of Illinois are proposing to turn plastic into edible vanilla-flavored protein cookies using genetically engineered (GE) yeast.
They say their product, nutritionally enhanced 3D-printed “µBites,” could address two major global issues: food scarcity and plastic pollution. The research started as part of the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge — but now the researchers argue it could have broader implications than just creating food in deep space.
To make the cookies, they take used plastic bottles sourced from a supermarket and discarded sweetcorn plant stalks and leaves and use heat, water, pressure and oxygen in a 32-part process to break them down into components digestible by microbes, the American Chemical Society reported.
Then they feed that product into a bioreactor, where yeast — produced using CRISPR gene-editing technology — turns it into the fats, proteins and other components they need to make the cookies.
They engineered the microbes to produce vanillin, which gives the cookies their vanilla flavor and scent. They also engineered a yeast to produce beta-carotene to give the cookies a golden color and some vitamin A.
They mix the ingredients into a dough and put it into a 3D printer, which prints the cookies. They microwave them, and the final cookie should be ready to eat, according to the researchers.
The researchers haven’t been able to taste the cookies yet — they’re waiting for university approval, according to NewScientist.
“I think it has a pleasant, appealing aroma,” Lahiru Jayakody, Ph.D., a microbiologist who led the research, told NewScientist. “And it will taste good, too. We’ve not tasted it, but it smells good — that’s for sure — like a real cookie.”
They are waiting on university approval to taste their cookies.
GE yeast and bacteria can ‘unexpectedly produce toxins or allergens’
Jayakody and several other researchers have a patent application pending for their µBites production system.
The researchers also said that realistically, it will take many more years of research before plastic can be removed from landfills and turned into food, but they hope their research will inspire others to develop similar solutions.
Food and environmental safety experts are more skeptical.
“This is just the latest in a long line of bad ideas that industry and their allied scientists have come up with to turn lab-produced goop into ‘edible foodlike substances’ that the unsuspecting public are meant to eat,” according to Claire Robinson, GMO food expert and founder of GMWatch.
She said that when evaluating the safety of GE food, she looks for in-depth data and molecular profiling, followed by long-term animal feeding studies.
“Such tests are especially important for ‘foodlike substances’ made from genetically engineered GE yeast and bacteria, because these microorganisms can unexpectedly produce toxins or allergens,” Robinson said.
For example, in 1989, 37 Americans were killed, and over 1,500 were sickened when they consumed GE tryptophan made by Showa Denko, a Japanese company.
“However, in the case of these plastic cookies, I wouldn’t dignify the product by expecting lab animals to eat it, let alone humans,” Robinson said.
The scientists haven’t even done the taste testing, she added, “That’s quite apart from the ‘yuck factor’ of eating plastic-derived food and the profound cultural inappropriateness of assuming that food is just an amalgamation of ‘useful ingredients’ such as proteins and fats.”
She added that the environmental claims the researchers made were highly questionable. The environmental footprint of lab-grown bioreactor food is massive — it’s extremely energy- and resource-hungry and difficult to scale up to commercially useful levels.
“Certainly plastic cookies couldn’t make more than a minor dent in the plastic pollution problem,” Robinson said. She conceded that plastic pollution is a “serious problem,” but said the solution is to phase out plastic production worldwide and recycle what we can’t avoid using, with the help of money-back deposits on all plastic containers.
“The plastic cookie venture makes me wonder why scientists aren’t put to work on something genuinely useful for humanity,” Robinson said.
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