Comprehension

FUTURE FOOD

What sort of food are we likely to be eating in the year 2030? Most people, when you ask them a question like that, either say: "There won't be any left," or: "Whatever it is, there won't be much taste in it". Of course there are good reasons for being pessimistic about the world's food supplies in the future. Nevertheless, not all the experts share the general despondency. For one thing, although the world's population is rising fast, food production is keeping pace with it, even in developing countries.

It is therefore argued that the main reason why people are hungry is not that there is a world food shortage but that methods of cultivation are not sufficiently advanced in some areas and the food is not fairly distributed to all those that need it.
This doesn't mean, however, that our diet will go on being the same, even if new techniques are introduced and social revolution ensures a more equal distribution of wealth and resources. In most industrialised countries, one important cause of the trouble is our conservative preference for meat. It is going to be increasingly difficult to satisfy this particular taste. After all, we are already in a situation where we feed animals with grain to produce high-quality beef, even though the grain would feed the human population, and use fishmeal to fatten pigs to improve the quality of bacon. While not many of us would relish fishmeal for lunch, its nutritional value is high and the unattractive fish it is made from can be presented to the public in colourful packets of Fish Fingers.
By the time our grandchildren have grown up and are feeding their own families, it seems likely that many of these problems will have been resolved. Scientists are already capable of constructing steaks from vegetable ingredients like soya beans. However sceptical we may be about their claim that they can reproduce the substance, taste and colour of meat by these means, the fact is that the most common complaint about such "steaks", apparently, is that the "meat" is too tender. This leads to the conclusion that in the year 2030 there will still be enough to eat, provided we are not too particular about where the food comes from and what it is made of. Besides, there will probably be a few expensive restaurants where nostalgic gourmets can satisfy their yearning for old-fashioned meat-dishes in the same way as they titillate their palates today with vintage wines.