Byron: Food... it's something we all need to survive.
I'm going to put crickets on everything.
This is so good.
But with the population growing,
we need to eat smarter.
I never been to a plant library before.
I'm Kari Byron.
I travel around the world...
Wow. There's a whale right there.
...seeking out stories of inspiring people...
This is a bug farm in the middle of a city.
...who are working on solutions
to some of the biggest challenges of our time.
Wow, this is cool.
There are around 8 billion people on the planet,
and by 2050,
that number's expected to grow by 2 billion more.
In order to feed everyone,
we need to change the way that we eat.
Raising livestock can deplete natural resources,
and growing only a few kinds of crops is weakening ecosystems.
So my question is,
how do we better feed our ever-growing world?
♪♪
Raising cows, chickens, and pigs generates
about as much greenhouse gas
as all the cars and trucks on the road.
Companies like just are making it easier for us
to enjoy the foods that we love
but with less of environmental impact.
Just is a groundbreaking high-tech food company
that's creating animal products without the animals.
Welcome to the just plant library.
I've never been to a plant library before.
Right now, our food system is really dependent
on just a handful of plants to feed animals, to feed people.
What are the basic plants that we're using now?
They're mostly corn, sugar, wheat, soy.
So you're traveling the globe to feed the world in a new way.
Yeah, that's right.
And we have thousands of different plant materials
that I've sourced from all over the world,
things like this Maya seed.
These are harvested by the Mayan people from the forest floor,
and they grind them up
and they make all sorts of different things
and it's very protein-rich.
So we're looking at it for all sorts of different ways
that we can use it in the food system.
So that's just one of the plants that we use.
What else you got?
These are mung beans. These are the star of the show.
These are grown all over the world.
It's a staple of Asian cuisine, but we've actually figured out
how to take the protein out of it.
And when you do that, it actually scrambles like an egg.
I can't believe this looks like scrambled eggs.
That make scrambled eggs,
but you have to take the green skin off.
- Oh. - So these are also mung beans.
They're fairly, like, light yellow.
It makes for a really great egg-like product.
And that's kind of the secret to this whole research program
that we have... Taking plants like this
and making really cool,
much more sustainable foods that people love.
Byron: The team at just has also figured out a way to grow meat
without slaughtering animals.
It starts with a blood sample.
From a very small amount of cells,
you have enough to start the process.
How do you take the cells from collection and then grow it?
We feed the cells with a solution of nutrients
that contains proteins, sugars, vitamins,
pretty much everything the cells need to survive
and that makes them multiply.
Yes, we also have to provide the environments,
the temperature, the agitation.
So to grow the meat from the cells,
you feed the cells, it grows into the meat
by keeping it just like an animal's temperature
and movement. Exactly.
And then is that what's in here? - Yes.
It's kind of hard to imagine that meat is coming from this...
What looks like pink water. - Yes.
People expect to see meat growing in a petri dish.
Yeah, like a chunk of meat
that is expanding into the size of a nugget.
That's what I would think.
Exactly. And a lot of that has to do with the fact
that the cells are invisible.
So that's why we use the microscope.
Oh, wow. So it's almost like spider webs.
Yes. So those webs are, essentially, the muscle fibers
and then they'll just turn into chicken meat.
- Exactly. - Wow.
Theoretically, from one single animal,
you have enough cells
to make chicken to feed the world.
Byron: This science is so new,
there's only enough for me to try one piece.
So is this the famous chicken nugget I've been hearing about?
- Yeah. You ready to try it? - Absolutely.
Just like we would any other chicken bite...
Going to deep fry it, take about a minute
to cook all the way through. - This is chicken.
So it cooks just like chicken, right?
That's correct.
G.B.D... Golden brown and delicious.
Looks like a nugget.
That's crazy.
[ Chuckles ] Tastes like chicken.
Look at that. Pulls just like chicken.
I keep thinking it's like chicken,
but it's actually chicken.
There's a chicken running around alive right now,
and I'm still eating its meat.
- Recognize these? - Yeah, I was looking
at this downstairs with Udi. These are mung beans.
This is what makes up our egg.
I'm actually really excited about this
'cause my kid won't eat eggs.
She's a vegetarian, and I've been looking for
a protein source. - Very cool.
Cooks just like scrambled eggs so far.
Kind of break it up a little bit.
You can see the curds. They build up nicely.
I guess the real test is, does it taste like an egg?
♪♪
That's an egg.
That tastes like eggs.
I'm really excited about this.
This is mung bean? - Yeah.
- This is wild. - We really need to find a way
to make food more affordable for everyone,
make it more available for everyone
and find better ways of doing it.
And this, I think, is by far one of the best ways to do it.
I mean, this is definitely the future of food.
That is crazy. - It's exciting.
♪♪
We have a line of edible-insect snacks.
Mmm.
How many crickets do you grow at one time?
- We're hosting like 30,000. - That's crazy.
♪♪
With the ever-growing population,
the world just needs to find more food options.
Well, there's over 2,000 different kinds of bugs
around the world that are edible.
These tiny herds might just be the solution
to sustainable protein.
- Monica? - Hey.
- Hi. - How's it going? Come on in.
Monica Martinez is the owner of Don Bugito
and has been experimenting with entomophagy,
the practice of eating insects.
We have a line of edible-insect snacks,
and this is where we raise and breed
and farm crickets and mealworms.
- Crickets and mealworms. - Yes.
This is a bug farm in the middle of a city.
In the middle of Oakland, we have an edible-insect farm.
What got you into farming insects?
[ Laughs ] That's the million-dollar question.
80% of the world eats insects.
I grew up in Mexico.
In Mexico, we have over 500 varieties of insects.
So we eat insects,
but I realized that I had to introduce Americans
to the culture of eating insects.
And what better way to introduce Americans
than using my culture, which was cooking Mexican food?
Byron: Monica raises crickets and mealworms,
which are not actually worms at all.
They're beetle larvae.
Let's see. These guys, they look pretty big.
So we just going to dump them, and then...
Whoa? Can I touch them?
Yeah.
Weird. Oh, my gosh. They're so smooth.
Yeah.
What do you make with these?
So these guys come to be the toffee...
The brittle Bugitos.
So these guys in flavor are very close to nuts.
So they taste really good with sweet stuff.
You can make a pecan pie with them.
- Mmm. - Yeah.
Ooh.
Is this the bug mansion? - Cricket mansion.
What's up with all the egg cartons?
So the egg cartons act as the condominiums.
So this is like a five-star residence...
[ Both laugh ]
...for crickets.
You can see down here. - Whoa!
So they like to hop up and down.
They get into the little holes, all the egg cartons.
Oh, you see the carrots, how they're eating?
So they are drinking water from the carrots
and also eating the carrots. - Yeah.
But they don't need much water.
They're very, very resourceful.
Byron: These crickets get a majority of their water from vegetables.
Compare that to the nearly 2,000 gallons of water
it takes to raise and feed a single cow.
How many crickets do you grow at one time?
So right here, we're hosting like 30,000.
Isn't that crazy? - What?
And we can feed more in here.
How old before they are made into food?
Five, six months you get already an adult,
and you can harvest it.
That's crazy.
Also we eat the whole insect as opposed as a cow,
we only eat 40% of a cow,
60% of the cow gets disposed.
- Gets wasted. - Yeah.
With the population growing as fast as it is,
this really is a very sustainable way
of making protein.
Okay, I'm dying to try this.
So, these are like chocolate clusters.
Inside is like one or two crickets, whole crickets.
Mmm. It's good.
I mean, this is only one way that you can eat them,
but I actually cook a lot of meals with insects,
and I would love to cook one meal for you.
Byron: Monica cooks at a place called Kitchentown,
a shared space where local businesses
can work together and grow.
We're going to make some tostadas,
and then this is the Chile-lime crickets.
So these guys, now, they're tangy,
spicy, crunchy.
That is so good.
I want to put these on top of, like, a salad or something.
So how much protein is in this cricket I'm eating?
For 100 grams of beef, you get 23% to 27% protein.
For 100 grams of crickets, you get like 37% of protein.
So that's higher.
- So this is a health food. - It's way healthy.
Doesn't have cholesterol, doesn't have saturated fats.
I mean, when you talk to people 10 years ago
about eating insects, it was a completely weird idea
in the United States, right, but it's catching up.
We usually use the Sushi example.
Like 15 years ago, Sushi, raw fish,
it was such a weird thing for Americans...
- And now it's everywhere. - ...And now it's everywhere.
So does using foods that people already love and eat
all the time make it easier to introduce bugs into a diet?
Yes, I think so.
Tacos, tostadas, this type of Mexican food,
they already know it.
Instead of putting chicken, you can use crickets.
I eat tacos all the time,
and I think that using something that I eat all the time anyway
is the perfect introduction to trying something new.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. - That's a good one.
Messy but delicious.
That is good.
I wouldn't know that these were bugs.
They're crunchy, they're really flavorful,
and this guacamole is amazing.
Before we finish, I have something else for you.
Really?
Please say dessert. Please say dessert.
- Dessert. - Yes!
♪♪
Vanilla ice cream with some caramelized toffee mealworms.
[ Gasps ]
Mmm.
This is incredibly delicious.
That is really good, right? [ Chuckles ]
I'm taking this with me.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
Is this my beekeeping suit right here?
If we didn't have those beautiful bees
to cross-pollinate squash, cucumbers, tomatoes,
we wouldn't have those things.
1/3 of the food that we eat every day
relies on pollination, and mainly by bees.
But bee populations are rapidly dying out.
That's why the team behind Detroit hives
are creating urban bee farms
to help preserve their role in our delicate ecosystem.
Hi. - Hey, how's it going?
Come check out why Detroit is the place to be to be.
To bee. [ Laughs ]
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Is this my beekeeping suit right here?
Yep.
I always wanted to try on one of these.
Byron: Detroit has a lot of vacant lots,
and while they're no longer being used by people,
they are filled with native flowers,
the perfect spot for honeybees to thrive.
These vacant lots have tons of wildflowers.
And here at Detroit hives...
Both: We believe bees is the bee's knees.
[ Laughter ]
No one's spraying any chemicals in these vacant lots.
That is actually boosting the native population.
So I imagine not having the pesticides is really important,
and that's why bees thrive in urban areas versus rural areas.
- Absolutely. Absolutely. - Absolutely. Yeah.
Byron: Wildflowers provide a source of nectar and pollen
for bees to survive off of.
In turn, as they move from plant to plant,
they spread the pollen and help our crop supplies reproduce.
Bee conservation is a really hot issue right now.
I mean, why are saving bees important?
So just imagine walking into a grocery store
and not having any fresh produce.
Squash, cucumbers, tomatoes.
If we didn't have those beautiful bees
to cross-pollinate, we wouldn't have those things.
They also pollinate clover, right?
- Yes. - Absolutely.
So that means that it also impacts
the dairy-and-cattle industry.
- Definitely. - Absolutely.
Byron: It's clear that bees play a huge part
in keeping up with feeding the world's population.
So Timothy and Nicole are doing
all they can to educate their local community.
Now, before we perform our hive inspections,
we like to season our smoker.
And today, we season with some cedarwood.
We have some dry herbs and spices, but we love
to top off our smoker with a little bit of lavender.
Oh, I love lavender.
Byron: Lavender helps calm the bees down,
and by blowing smoke into the hive,
the bees think it's on fire, so they start eating up
all the honey, thinking they have to move.
So they're less likely to sting us
when their bellies are extremely full with honey.
I'm less cranky when my belly is full, too.
Yeah. [ Laughs ]
So we're going to go inside
and see what the bees are doing in here.
I like being this close. I've always wanted to do this.
Byron: You can tell apart the different types of bees
by what they're doing.
The queen bee is the largest of the bunch
and the only one who can reproduce.
And so she'll go out and the drones
will actually race to get to her.
That's why they have these large eyes,
so she's easy to spot.
The rest are female worker bees.
Wow, this is cool.
Each worker bee has a specific job from nurse bees,
builder bees, or even undertaker bees.
The undertaker bee is responsible for cleaning out
all the bees inside the hive.
- Wow. - Yeah.
They pick them up and fly them away.
Honeybees are so efficient
very efficient and very organized.
Byron: The most impressive are the forager bees
who use the position of the sun to form a sense of direction
so they know where they've been
and how to get back to their hive.
So when these foragers are going out and collecting
all that nectar and pollen, they come back to the hive
and tell the other worker bees, "hey, I found a good source,"
and they do this by the waggle dance.
- What's the waggle dance? - So the waggle dance is
when they're waggling their body.
That's how the girls know to go out to that space
and bring it back in.
I had no idea how sophisticated honeybees are.
That is so cool.
Byron: Beyond all they do to keep crops growing,
bees also continually provide a sustainable source of food...
Honey.
Ah. - Oh, yeah.
- And it just oozes right out. - Yeah.
Paule: Try it.
- Mmm. - There you go.
It's almost fruity and floral.
- Absolutely. Absolutely. - Yeah.
- It's good. - This is so good.
Yeah. [ Laughs ]
If honeybees disappeared, what would happen?
We'd start to see high costs
in a lot of our local groceries.
Also, you'll start to see a lot of the vegetation
that wouldn't be able to grow.
Decline in the supply of food that we have.
So how can people help conserve bees?
Plant-pollinator habitats,
planting native wildflowers in your region.
Also say no to chemicals, no pesticides, no insecticides.
Let your lawn grow naturally.
It's okay to have some clovers, some dandelions.
Well, I think I might have to do some beekeeping of my own.
I'm fascinated by this process.
♪♪
So, it's all sourced locally, and you're eating locally,
what's on your plate is representative
of what's happening here in the ocean.
- Ooh, you got a fish? - Yep.
Oh, yeah. Oh.
♪♪
I love seafood, but overfishing the world's oceans
has brought many species to the brink of extinction.
Thankfully, there are dedicated fishing operations
that are doing their part to keep our ecosystem healthy.
Hey, guys.
- Hey. - Hey, Kari.
Byron: Real good fish is a community-supported fishery
that provides fresh, local fish directly to people in the area.
We like to say is you're eating with the ecosystem.
What's on your plate is representative
of what's happening here in the ocean.
So it's all sourced locally. You're eating locally.
Exactly. And also it's something that's seasonal.
Why is it important to eat seasonally?
A lot of people don't realize a lot of their seafood
is traveling all over the world to get here.
Even in these coastal communities in California,
some of the seafood's caught here
shipped on a shipping container to China,
processed there, and then shipped back because...
- Oh, wow. - ...The processing labor
is so much less expensive over there.
Byron: So eating locally and eating seasonally creates
less of a carbon footprint. - Absolutely.
So when do we get to go fishing hungry?
Because all this fish talk, I'm thinking I'm hungry.
I want a fish taco.
Let's go.
Monterey bay has a diverse ecosystem
with a wide variety of sea life.
There's a whale right there.
Oh, wow.
With over 500 species in the bay,
real good fish works to broaden people's horizons
when it comes to eating seafood.
What kind of fish do you catch out here?
Jenn: We're going to try to catch some Halibut today,
some rockfish, some lingcod.
Alan: Yes.
The average American eats 15 pounds of seafood a year,
but it's mostly the same four species...
Salmon, tuna, pollock, and shrimp.
So imagine a lot of people just only targeting those species
and not really celebrating the rest.
It's not sustainable. It's not regenerative.
It's not kind of giving back.
So if you eat just one kind of fish,
you're going to put too much pressure on it
and they might be driven to extinction.
Exactly. Eating a lot of different things
is going to kind of spread out the pressure.
Real good fish practices hook-and-line fishing,
but most commercial operations use nets,
which end up trapping all kinds of things.
This is what's called bycatch,
and that extends to more than just fish.
It's other species like turtles and dolphins
and, you know, other things
that can get in the nets, as well.
And then what do you do with the fish that you don't want?
I think, generally, if there's no market for it,
then they just kick it over the side or...
- Like trash. - Yep,
just sort of throw it away.
Jenn: And so many cases,
it's really great fish still, but it's just
it might be a species
that people have never seen before,
so they don't know how to cook it.
So we'll pay the fishermen to keep it
and we'll sell it to our members.
You know, and I think a really important part of feeding
a growing population is understanding that we need
to increase the diversity of foods that we're eating.
So it's not just about what we eat,
it's about how we eat. - Exactly.
Byron: We catch something?
You've got a fish? - Yep.
You want to reel it in? - Yeah.
[ Jenn chuckles ]
Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, yeah.
- Oh, he's a little guy. - Beautiful.
There we go. Caught a rockfish.
- Yeah, look. - Nice job.
Alan: Oh, nice. A little gopher rockfish.
- We got a fish. - Yeah.
- Yeah, we can eat that, right? - Yeah, absolutely.
Put that on your plate for dinner tonight.
Yes. Saw a whale.
Caught a fish. Best day ever.
[ Jenn laughs ]
If we want to keep feeding the world's population,
we have to be smart about how we do it.
I don't think it's about producing more food.
I really think it's about using the plants and proteins
that we already have.
Whether it's doing our part
to save the bees that help pollinate our food
or coming up with inventive dishes to satisfy our cravings,
embracing these creative and sustainable ideas
is certainly food for thought.