A lot of proposed synthetic biology applications can seem pretty out there, but some are really out there. NASA is currently advertising open postdoctoral positions in synthetic biology, with particular emphasis on food production in space. Engineered organisms have the potential to do lots of things that would be useful for space colonists, from producing food and fuel to treating wastewater. Because organisms replicate themselves, future astronauts would only have to bring some spores and seeds and empty bioreactors, the organisms would do the rest of the work.

Matt Mansell--Synthetic Biology in Space

I am fascinated by these proposals, and other proposals large and small for how biological engineering might someday impact the way that we produce, process, and prepare our food. The way we eat and the way we imagine the food of the future is really complicated, and has a long and interesting history tied not only to our culinary cultures and the science of nutrition, but often to the hot new science and technology of the day.

In the 1890s, that technology was synthetic chemistry, making it possible to generate organic chemicals from inorganic starting materials. New industries were springing up that replaced old agricultural methods with chemical ones, in particular the production of synthetic dyes and flavors. This led some chemists to speculate on how this technology would be used a hundred years in the future, extrapolating the current industrial transformations into nearly every organic arena. This speculative application of synthetic chemistry to food production is detailed in an 1894 article in McClures Magazine by Henry J.W. Dam titled Foods in the Year 2000: Professor Berthelots Theory that Chemistry Will Displace Agriculture. By 2000, Marcellin Berthelot, considered to be one of the greatest chemists of all time, believed that we would no longer have agriculture, that instead:

The epicure of the future is to dine upon artificial meat, artificial flour, and artificial vegetablesWheat fields and corn fields are to disappear from the face of the earth, because flour and meal will no longer be grown, but madeCoal will no longer be dug, except perhaps with the object of transforming it into bread or meat. The engines of the great food factories will be driven, not by artificial combustion, but by the underlying heat of the globe.

What would this food synthesized from coal with geothermal power look like? What would it taste like?

We shall give you the same identical food, however, chemically, digestively, and nutritively speaking. Its form will differ, because it will probably be a tablet. But it will be a tablet of any color and shape that is desired, and will, I think, entirely satisfy the epicurean senses of the future.

Food pills are a common theme in science fiction, especially for space travel where astronauts have to travel light, and its interesting to see how that has transformed, with NASA now thinking beyond synthetic chemistry to synthetic biology. But its the scientific language of Professor Berthelot thats particularly interesting to me:

In order to clearly conceive these impending changes, it must be remembered that milk, eggs, flour, meat, and indeed, all edibles, consist almost entirely (the percentage of other elements is very small) of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogenThese four elements, universally existing, are destined to furnish all the food now grown by nature, through the rapid and steady advance of synthetic chemistry.

Synthetic chemistry is the special science which takes the elements of a given compound, and induces them to combine and form that compound. It is the reverse of analytic chemistry, which takes a given compound, and dissociates and isolates its elements. Analytic chemistry would separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, and synthetic chemistry would take oxygen and hydrogen, mix them, put a match to the mixture, and thus form water. For many years past synthetic chemistry has had an eager eye upon food-making.

See original here:
Foods in the Year 2000