Could most of our food, medication, and clothing come from...bacteria?

Tiny Matters

You might be familiar with plant-based alternatives to animal products — things like the Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat. And maybe you’ve heard of places trying to grow fish or meat cells in a dish to make sushi or steak without a fish or cow. But in today’s episode we’ll cover an old technology that’s bringing us some new foods: precision fermentation. With precision fermentation, many everyday products including dairy-free milk, insulin, and the collagen in lotions are now being made by microbes. How did we turn microbes into teeny tiny production factories for so many different products, and where’s the limit when it comes to what we can use them to create?
In this episode we’ll demystify the science behind this technology and its history. We’ll also dive into how public perception influences the success of new food technologies and how framing can change minds and reduce both misinformation and skepticism.
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Capitole

1. Could most of our food, medication, and clothing come from...bacteria? (00:00:00)

2. A day not too far in the future... (00:00:02)

3. What is precision fermentation? And what are its limits? (00:01:39)

4. Consumer buy in: Will people embrace these microbe-created products? (00:11:48)

5. Tiny show and tell: Oxygen in the deep sea and virus DNA in a parasite's genome (00:18:24)