once in awhile technical progress allows people to solve many difficult problems
all at once and with the latest on artificial intelligence a whole new
concept of food may soon radically change what we eat
and at the same time according to the people behind it it could reduce global
warming no longer based on animal ingredients
this is a food entirely based on plants yes even though it looks like feels like
and tastes like the classic food based on ingredients derived from animals
there was no such ingredient here actually this is not a new idea that's
been around for about 10 years but the breakthrough has been delayed perhaps
the one important reason many consumers still prefer locally produced food they
want to trust supply chain not simply depend on big manufacturers and that is
changing with teams like this one here in Santiago Chile here is Matthias
Muchnick and cutting Beach ala two of the founders of the local startup
company called the North company joined by Isadora seal their biochemist they
are determined to develop this new food and bring the two people in their local
market and they are doing it all by themselves with the necessary scientific
knowledge labs and artificial intelligence that required will tell you
what all this year's and what it means is this team creating a new type of food
talks to Al Jazeera
it may seem far removed from the glossy and polished world of corporate
production and marketing and that is sort of the point this is the lab and
the food producers that just may take the place of the local animal farmers
what is all this so these are plans that were you saying we're exploring the
world of plans this to create this whole new model that would make the current
model that's based on animals
absolutely because we used this land less water and less resources for them
to make sense aural experience is incredible but just using plants by TSA
is an entrepreneur who majored in commercial engineering in Santiago Chile
KTM a computer scientist is a research associate at Harvard interested in data
mining and machine learning and it is not a silver is a biochemist between
them they say they have all the knowledge and resources necessary to
translate science into locally produced plant-based food that can replace
animal-based ingredients each other or just studying abroad in the us- for me
myself and Pablo which is the other partner and we started talking and we
got some pretty interesting insights from every single scientific perspective
you know in terms of biotech economics and astrophysics and mixed together we
were explained the whole new way to make food part of what motivates the team
here in Chile is what they considered to be the biggest drawback of classic
animal farming
it requires massive amount of land and effects global warming according to the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation livestock contributes both
directly and indirectly to climate change to the emissions of greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide methane and nitrous oxide carbon dioxide comes from
the use of fossil fuel burning during the production of fertilizers which is
used to grow animal feed
it's also part of food processing and things like the transportation of
refrigerated food as if that weren't enough livestock is also a major driver
of deforestation desertification as well as the release of carbon from cultivated
soils overall the livestock sector is contributing 2.7 billion tons of co2
emissions according to the UN when you get behind the scenes of the food
industry
you don't like what you see actually there's a lot of things that we should
be knowing in terms of consumers but actually blindsided by a whole new
industry that's making it really hard for us to see what we're really eating
if we were to start from scratch and we wanted to figure out the best way or the
most efficient way to deliver nutrition to the 7.1 billion people in this planet
the answer would be on Apple's science would tell you to do something different
I think we are discovering a whole new model will make the other companies
replicate the exact same model so if you ask me if we could base our whole food
system and plans my answer to that would have to be why not but how does it
really taste we will perform a taste test later in the program but first
there is another part of the story
main scientists of the team is a computer with artificial intelligence
the software they developed its called Giuseppe named after Italian artist
Duceppe Archambault who lived in the fifteen hundred's he was known for
creating these types of portraits we being building our data said with
molecular formulas of plants normal food products and lab experience results from
formulas or its results from picture of perception human human perception of
labor and with this dataset with being trained in an algorithm whose name is
your server and just maybe some other reason my machine learning algorithm
that is trained to learn patterns
happening in this molecular components that create the perception special
perception of flavor and texture on every different product so it is
learning how to how to build traditional food only getting together different
kind of plants using a computer decides how to make all this
yeah yeah surprisingly the computer is being finding very impressive powerless
and after we produce this formless you realize that computer what's right
many times to flavor and texture is very similar to the real pro just happy the
computer software is an artificial intelligence algorithm program to become
the smartest food scientist in the world it uses deep learning parameters to
understand food at a molecular level helping the team to deliver tasty and
affordable nutrition while using less water this land less energy and without
the need to cultivate harmful Biosystems like animals we are facing a broken foot
system and why sad growth can well because we are basing our diet and meat
consumption consumption by racing and breeding livestock which had the same
time it's the single largest contributor to every major environmental field known
to humankind I'm talking about deforestation land use water scarcity
even world hunger and the list goes on and on so that being said we are in
search of this whole new model based on plans to actually make the korean model
based in animals obsolete
so you're saying you can replicate beef chicken pork for sure yeah when would
tend to think that the molecular structure of meet its exclusive to me
and that's not true you said you suggesting that their waste to
reconstruct the exact same molecular structure
but just you think land-based to read which are sustainable and which are
really know between environment as well so we have to explore the world of proud
of plant-based proteins just to replicate the same exact structure which
will give us the same texture and at the same time it will give us the same
flavor it would replicate the same behavior in your you know when you're
trying to do a BBQ you say this meat would have to believe without blood it's
a complicated process but it's designed to understand human perception of taste
and texture which allows it to suggest clever recipes for tasty foods and even
more astonishing it understands the availability and use of resources for
every single plant in the company's database this computational model can
come up with results in a matter of days making it a cost effective tool creates
tasty nutritious and affordable food says the team but not companies have
with tech startup that uses machine learning technology to develop
sustainable tasty and affordable plant-based foods we use far less water
far less land of far less energy to produce the exact same nutritional value
so let the end you know we are creating the exact same extensive experience with
the use of resources that are being used today the software's ability to create
plant-based recipes that reconstruct a given molecular structure has no
registered match they were invited to Harvard and Berkeley to showcase their
designs we won't have a better future play by the same rules let's make your
rules but the first step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one of
the day will go on we're told that we must have milk mother's milk and then
every other kind of milk so what's this
so this is actually not so what is this milk made out of its a bunch of plans
mixed together that actually genuinely replicates the nutritional value and
they're gonna let the experience of dairy milk and that's amazing as we were
able to create a better since surreal experience but you know including the
exact same nutrition facts and that makes it a sustainable and it's not
genetically modified
know this is diary free non non GMO products and the first product that just
using plans replay gave them molecular structure of the actual dairy milk so
this milk gathers mushroom species couple of seats over here you gotta see
eg you're going to see in seed you gonna see sesame seeds as well their
high-value in calcium which it's really hard to find in plans really special
kind of plan they actually don't actually use their own water but they
use their water from another planet right so they're really really
sustainable and really noble with the environment as well so tell us about
this not mayonnaise that we see here that different trials that we are making
some of them well they have different flavors this for example has garlic this
is something one spicy and we are trying to friend
proteins because we want to make an email with an attritional Bell who we
are searching for a new party is coming from plants that can match daily
requirements of prodding trees anything but the bark of trees we have recipes
different types or parts of the planned as for example flowers he leaves or
maybe this team everything so we have a lot of seats and different parts of the
plans to create this new US nutritional value is really important we want our
products to match your daily requirement of nutrients and improve them so there's
a lot of science behind Aldis a lot of physics and chem X chemistry and we just
want you to get a product that it's healthy for you
new types of alternative foods already exists of course but they are often hard
to come by and in many cases that are expensive so even if an average consumer
wants to switch to a more healthy diet can be a goal that's out of reach right
to tell me tell me about all these unusual looking products ok so what we
have here is actually being
replicates being yeah that's part of the beam its being ground before like
oatmeal it does look like oatmeal this is a been actually gets out from flowers
right we we get him from flowers and what's interesting about it is it really
cool it replicates closely
functionality of animal protein in different mixes so did you come up with
this order the computer did you set me tell you will actually suggested to
bring this to the table to our products as these are flowers that we're
exploring to include you know
sure inner products as well they contain a high amount of replicative we wanted
to get you know
texture of this is a very strong pressure but this is actually an
interesting in terms of flavor right so you have to manage flavor texture and
smile at the same time which is not easy thing to do right with with with
products that we are so used to you know we we want people to eat better without
even knowing that's the main objective of the night company I mean but are
these products expensive for example in Chilean leader of almond milk 'cause
about $3.50 how much would this not no cost if you wanna buy
alternative milk say almond milk or soy milk you'd have to spend a lot of money
that's when we come up with this plans that are actually available and will be
affordable for everyone we need to make better products better nutrition but
also affordable to everyone everywhere but for example Chile
almond milk is about $5.50 for a leader how much would your milk milk not made
will cost have of wide alternative melts cost right now in the supermarket but
what's the result of all this doesn't work so Lucia will now
blindfold you and you will have to figure out if the food they were giving
you either animal-based or plant-based whether it's the real deal rather not
deal ok so the first thing we're going to give you is actually chocolate go
ahead
like 70% cocoa that's actually plan based partly in
the percentage of chocolate actually he's around the 20 percent so it's
really really good
you cannot have a chocolate and not have a glass of milk towards right so there
you go right in front of me I can't spell it but i know im having alkaisi
job you want to you know it tastes like dairy milk but sweeter sweeter it's
exactly the same question it's exactly the same so let's take a few more things
now I'm leaving now I'm curious ok success the milk is like dairy milk but
sweeter and richer so this could be either Nutella or not tell us right so
yeah you'll have to guess that too much joy
actually from the plant itself and the oils come from the fruits and nuts that
are present in the same not extracted this is kind of the same things
chocolate mousse yeah yeah yeah so this is this
yeah yeah this is actually one of the latest that we got these actually would
you be surprised if I tell you that's based in avocado yes a bit surprised so
it does that kind of chocolate mousse and it's not bad different I'm just
being picky because everything else is for sure exactly the same this is
again this is not but I mean this is my chicken liver pate is that ok what's the
supposed to be cheese straightforward job is to use that i'm gonna this is
very interesting because a lot of people are allergic to dairy products and we
can eat cheese totally began even if we're trying to build a company that's
not necessarily beacon right we don't use animals because it's well we care
for them as well but not geez
you know one of the most tasty things for me is this one right here we tried
to replay to reconstruct Philadelphia Cream Cheese Gees classic
still a lot of work remains and the clock is ticking the authorities have
already approved some of the products you have seen to sail in the local
markets here in Santiago Chile how do you see the world and food production in
the world it's a twenty-five thirty years from now what will we be eating
not what would you like us to eat but would you really think we'll be eating
that's an awesome question at least 50% of the world will be eating a
plant-based products and why
well because it's a win-win situation I mean we'll have a better will will will
you know improved climate change in climate change will determine our lives
from here to thirty years from now if we keep doing the same things that we're
doing and that involves the production and breeding livestock so I mean the
answer he's just there its plans and I think I really think that will change
but in the end whether this idea of a brand new type of food is really going
to take off will be decided not by scientists or computer software but by
the taste of the average consumer