Improving the food chain

[Mega]

Guys, I was thinkig about that stuff.

To make 1 kg of goat meat, you need 10 kg wheat. If a wolve eats the
goat, you need again 10 kg for 1 kg.
Same game if a lion eats the wolve.


wheat->meat goat->meat wolve -> meat lion
1000 -> 100 -> 10 -> 1
So to make 1kg of lion meat you'd need 1000kg of wheat.

(Now imagine a human eating the lion -> 10'000kg or 10 tons!!)


Are there alternatives? Why not eat photosynthesing bacteria, that
would be the most effcient (besides 'eating' sunlight).
Is it possible to grow bacteria, make a pellet by centrifuging,
heating them up to kill them and eat the pellet?
(Remember: 10t of equals or 1 kg human)

Or, another approach:
Why not make plants produce proteins that meat is made of?
so you would infact have meat, but it was grown in a plant.

Maybe the body of the plant shall consist of meat or it could make
fruits (immagine a water melon filled with meat).


So there would be drastically more food. You could possibly feed 100
bio of people with that!?

What do you think about that?

[Cathal Garvey]

It would be fun, but you don't ned stuff to resemble meat to feed the world. You can already feed more people a fully nutritious diet with just plants. Soy, for example, fulfills all of one's protein needs, but tends to have healthier fats, more antioxidants, and a dose of anticancer "angiogenesis inhibitors" to boot.

Meat is a wasteful use of fertile farmland. You don't need synbio to fix the problem, though you can still use it to improve the nutritive value of crops. Look up "golden rice", you'll like it!

Mega <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Cathal Garvey]

It would be fun, but you don't ned stuff to resemble meat to feed the world. You can already feed more people a fully nutritious diet with just plants. Soy, for example, fulfills all of one's protein needs, but tends to have healthier fats, more antioxidants, and a dose of anticancer "angiogenesis inhibitors" to boot.

Meat is a wasteful use of fertile farmland. You don't need synbio to fix the problem, though you can still use it to improve the nutritive value of crops. Look up "golden rice", you'll like it!

Mega <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Tristan Eversole]

There has been significant consideration of this subject, actually. It's one of the rationales behind the work on in vitro meat, and likewise an impetus towards the development of mycoprotein meat substitutes. The suggestion that people shift to eating insects instead of cattle is based on similar reasoning. Food produced directly from bacteria already exists, in the form of "single cell protein", although it is mainly used as a feedstock rather than for direct human consumption.

(IMHO, it gets interesting when one considers fish. The net primary productivity (net rate of fixation of carbon by primary producers to create energy available for growth and reproduction, defined as gross primary productivity minus maintenance energy-- the energy needed for basic survival as an organism) of the oceans is quite low by terrestrial standards; in these terms, the oceans are like deserts covering 3/4 the surface of the earth. I think it is unclear whether the oceans can sustain a harvest of fish for nine billion people; certainly our existing fisheries are not sustainable, according to our best estimates. Crashes of fish stocks have already occurred-- I recall hearing that we've passed "peak fish". Oddly, oceanic trophic levels don't look like terrestrial ones in one other very weird way-- the base of the trophic pyramid, the producers, is outweighed by the next trophic level, the primary consumers. The reasons for this are, to the best of my recollection, complicated.)

Cathal is right, though. You can indeed feed the world with plants. Even so, the agricultural requirements we are likely to face in the future are sobering, and imply that we must make substantial gains in yield-per-acre, which is why I am somewhat skeptical regarding the notion that organic farming can become our main source of food.

...And, one presumes, somewhere around the intersection of environmentalism and synthetic biology lies the strange Portland saga of the Meat Tube. Perhaps the Meat Tube qualifies as a piece of synthetic biology design fiction. I can't resist mentioning it, in the context of meat watermelons.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jensteele/117120710/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hive/365387134/
http://www.ilovemeattube.com/index.html
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=meat%20tube

--T.E.

[Daniel C.]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 7:25 PM, Tristan Eversole
<custome...@trioptimum.com> wrote:
> ...And, one presumes, somewhere around the intersection of environmentalism and synthetic biology lies the strange Portland saga of the Meat Tube. Perhaps the Meat Tube qualifies as a piece of synthetic biology design fiction. I can't resist mentioning it, in the context of meat watermelons.

Does someone, somewhere really believe that Monsanto is working on a Meat Tube?

[Russell Durrett]

> So to make 1kg of lion meat you'd need 1000kg of wheat.
>
> (Now imagine a human eating the lion -> 10'000kg or 10 tons!!)
>
> Are there alternatives?

Alternatives to eating lion meat... I could think of a few.

There's been some work with in vitro meat, but culturing cells
requires so many chemicals and plastic disposables - it seems like it
would be much harder on the earth than just raising some cows.

Plants are really the way to go though. It would be interesting to see
the adoption of agricultural species with augmented vitamin production
pathways - like the vitamin-a producing golden rice, but unfortunately
out in the real world it seems that if it isn't engineered with
advantage to the grower (like Bt strains) or the seller (like the
Flavr Savr tomato) then it tends not to penetrate the market very
well.

[cameron]

In fact, Craig Venter, mentioned at his talk last week in San
Francisco that his lab was working on modifying plant genomes to
express meat proteins.

On Feb 25, 5:07 pm, "Daniel C." <dcrooks...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 7:25 PM, Tristan Eversole
>

[Pieter]

Just a few weeks ago there was a national conference in Holland on how
to accelerate bringing protein innovations to the market. There are a
couple of initiatives that caught my attention:

- Jagran BV is working on a project JAMO that utilizes organic waste
streams to grow insects to feed fish, jummy :)
- In The Hague, where I live, we have a "vegetarian butcher" that
sells all kind of really good looking products that look and taste the
same as meat, but does not contain any. They have a web shop, so maybe
they also send stuff abroad: http://www.devegetarischeslager.nl/
- An increase in local soy production, because most soy is now
imported from all over the world, which is not that environmentally
friendly in terms of energy consumption.
- The founding of a new business consortium called "The Planet" which
brings together all producers of ingredients, intermediate and
consumer end products http://www.hetplaneet.nl/
- Together these parties lobby for the foundation of a new Protein
Competence Center that focusses soley on research on innovative
protein production
- The Dutch department of agriculture has made some nice movies about
protein issues http://www.nieuwvers.nu/menu/vlees-en-zuivel.php

For any Dutch people interested, the conference was organized by The
Bridge Business Innovators, final report (in Dutch) can be found here:
http://www.thebridge.nl/files/documenten/rapportage-versnellingsagenda-eiwitinnovaties-8-februari-2012.pdf

Sorry for all the Dutch links. Hopefully it inspires others around the
world to start working on a more sustainable future

[Meredith L. Patterson]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 11:02:38PM +0000, Cathal Garvey wrote:
> It would be fun, but you don't ned stuff to resemble meat to feed the world. You can already feed more people a fully nutritious diet with just plants. Soy, for example, fulfills all of one's protein needs, but tends to have healthier fats, more antioxidants, and a dose of anticancer "angiogenesis inhibitors" to boot.

...and it's missing something -- I'm not sure what -- that my metabolism requires in order to keep me healthy. All plants do. I've tried. Systematically. It turns out that if I don't get a significant amount of red meat in my diet, I get stupid. It also turns out that I can eat all the bean, nut, soy, &c protein I want, to the point of being physically unable to fit another bite down my throat, and still feel ravagingly hungry, which is an incredibly unpleasant sensation.

If I could figure out what it is from meat that I need to be functional, and come up with a plant or bacterial or fungal substitute, that would be pretty awesome, but until then, I definitely won't be shitting on ideas about lower-impact muscle tissue culture.

--mlp

[Alex Hoekstra]

I'm not sold on the notion that soy protein can totally replace animal
protein from a nutritional standpoint. Soy is a phytoestrogen, and
regular consumption on the scale of animal-protein consumption might
have endocrine effects (I know of a few gents who swear by keeping
away from soy). Still, soy is interesting in its uniqueness as a
complete protein (containing all 10 essential amino acids), which
(without the aid of synthetic biology), other plants cannot fulfill.
It would be a very interesting project indeed to explore the protein
synthesis pathways for the essential amino acids and to see if one
might be able to introduce those pathways into something fast-growing,
robust, cheap and tasty.

The fact that Venter is into this idea is beyond encouraging. If
nothing else, that raises my expectations.

[Cathal Garvey]

Actually it lowers my expectations, because he's a patent seeker. The golden rice team have a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for amino-fortified rice: that encourages me more.

As to the phytoestrogen thing, it's true that soy contains these but it's unclear whether they matter at all.There are many potential receptors that don't react, and those that do may be gender neutral, remembering that estrogen is an important male hormone, too (albeit in smaller amounts!).

Personally the fact that billions of people easy soy as a staple and not only don't suffer from "gender bending" but have generally improved lifelong health sells me on its safety.

Meredith: assuming you've ruled out Iron deficiency as a cause, there's an interesting chance to do some "quantified self" nutrition studies here? Get some hella-intense blood tests done for different nutrients and then do checkpoints from onset of vegan diet.
It's possible, to pull one item out of the hat, that you have reduced B12 recycling, which appears to be familial in my own family, and means I take sublingual b12 powder weekly.

[Cathal Garvey]

Actually it lowers my expectations, because he's a patent seeker. The golden rice team have a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for amino-fortified rice: that encourages me more.

As to the phytoestrogen thing, it's true that soy contains these but it's unclear whether they matter at all.There are many potential receptors that don't react, and those that do may be gender neutral, remembering that estrogen is an important male hormone, too (albeit in smaller amounts!).

Personally the fact that billions of people easy soy as a staple and not only don't suffer from "gender bending" but have generally improved lifelong health sells me on its safety.

Meredith: assuming you've ruled out Iron deficiency as a cause, there's an interesting chance to do some "quantified self" nutrition studies here? Get some hella-intense blood tests done for different nutrients and then do checkpoints from onset of vegan diet.
It's possible, to pull one item out of the hat, that you have reduced B12 recycling, which appears to be familial in my own family, and means I take sublingual b12 powder weekly.

[John Griessen]

On 02/26/2012 12:36 AM, cameron wrote:
> Craig Venter, mentioned at his talk last week in San
> Francisco that his lab was working on modifying plant genomes to
> express meat proteins.

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 11:02:38PM +0000, Cathal Garvey wrote:
> > Soy, for example, fulfills all of one's protein needs, but tends to have healthier fats, more antioxidants, and a dose of
anticancer "angiogenesis inhibitors" to boot.

On 02/26/2012 05:17 AM, Meredith L. Patterson wrote: (about veg protein, etc.)

> ...and it's missing something -- I'm not sure what -- that my metabolism requires in order to keep me healthy.

The "meat potato"? Future potato that incorporates vit B12 and broils nicely when fileted?

[Cathal Garvey]

I looked up B12 biosynthesis ages back.. Turns out there's a reason eukaryotes don't bother making their own, so only bacteria synthesize it. Something like 20 distinct steps..

John Griessen <jo...@industromatic.com> wrote:

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[CodonAUG]

Humans are caught up on the whole 'natural' > unnatural thing.  Its a
logical fallacy and I can't get other people to stop using it.  I have
heard biology students and general people all react negatively to the
idea of GM crops and even when I explain that less people will starve
and we'll be healthier with it they insist its wrong.

A proper marketing campaign is one of the more important things we
need.  Humans are not rational and so they need to be convinced
through marketing.

I would suggest removing most of the imitation meat products from
stores on the basis that they taste nothing like what they are
imitating and give omnivores and negative impression vegetarianism.

[Mega]

>I'm not sold on the notion that soy protein can totally replace animal
>protein from a nutritional standpoint.

But what one can do (probably easy):

A bit less meat and more vegetables.

>Humans are caught up on the whole 'natural' > unnatural thing. Its a
>logical fallacy and I can't get other people to stop using it. I have
>heard biology students and general people all react negatively to the
>idea of GM crops and even when I explain that less people will starve
>and we'll be healthier with it they insist its wrong.

Yes sometimes there are articles that suggest genes are an illness.
And once spread it can't get back.

To me it seems like kind of conspirancy. Most people think there is a
special gene that makes humans ill and crazy scientists put it into
our food.
They don't even notice there are different genes - it's only 'gene-
food'.

( In my country there are marketing campaigns that say ''gene free''
food. ANYTHING THAT LIVES HAS GENES, PEOPLE, READ A SCIENCE BOOK!!
If they ate something without genes, they may eat rocks or carbon)

[Mega]

Forgot to mention:

The strongest poisons humans know are natural.

So not necessarily nature is better than unnatturally.


And I have read in the newspaper of some studies that suggest: "Gene
food causes infertility". Completely wrong. There is no 'gene' in the
food. There are many different plants that got many differnt genes
implanted. So one of them may cause infertility, but it's not because
it is genetically modified.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Mega <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys, I was thinkig about that stuff.
>
> To make 1 kg of goat meat, you need 10 kg wheat. If a wolve eats the
> goat, you need again 10 kg for 1 kg.
> Same game if a lion eats the wolve.
>
>
> wheat->meat goat->meat wolve -> meat lion
> 1000   ->       100 -> 10             -> 1
> So to make 1kg of lion meat you'd need 1000kg of wheat.
>
> (Now imagine a human eating the lion -> 10'000kg or 10 tons!!)

Your math is correct, but its also not likely to happen unless you're
some tribal group in Africa.

I know from living on a ranch for a while that you can easily go from
10kg seed -> 1kg chicken which you can then eat. Chickens are
relatively genetically distant as compared with mammals that people
eat, and as I've killed a living chicken, grilled, and eaten it within
the course of an hour before... chickens are much less 'friendly' or
'cute' in my opinion than say a cow or goat even.

That said, just like cows and goats giving milk while alive, keeping
chickens alive produces value as well in the form of eggs. With even
an acre or 2 of land you can easily keep chickens, which I think would
be enough protein/meat supplement for a family. This obviously won't
work for the millions/billions of people living in high-rise
apartments though.

--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Cathal Garvey <cathal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It would be fun, but you don't ned stuff to resemble meat to feed the world. You can already feed more people a fully nutritious diet with just plants. Soy, for example, fulfills all of one's protein needs, but tends to have healthier fats, more antioxidants, and a dose of anticancer "angiogenesis inhibitors" to boot.
>

Why not knock-out the phytoestrogen pathway? A quick google didn't
turn up any prior art on this... I wonder if it would screw other
things up in the plant (protein/nutrient loss, lethal to plant so it
won't even grow).

> Meat is a wasteful use of fertile farmland. You don't need synbio to fix the problem, though you can still use it to improve the nutritive value of crops. Look up "golden rice", you'll like it!
>

Hasn't Golden Rice been 'done' for years now? I thought impoverished
nations didn't want any part of it, because it was GMO. If I could buy
Golden Rice, and it tasted decent, I'd eat it (as I eat rice often).

[Mega]

Youn know, rice produces a lot of methane. And methane is a very
effecticve greenhouse gas, 25-times mor effective than carbon
dioxide!!

Althought ther was a study, when you flood the rice later than usual,
it makes much less methane.

On 26 Feb., 20:13, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Cathal Garvey]

It's still "being done": The first revision had too little Vit.A, the
second revision had plenty, and the third revision is planned to be far
more ambitious, by the sound of things. More supplementation, modified
amino acid profile.. I'd like it if they could get some DHA oils in
there, too: not only would it be, you know, DHA, but it would improve
the bioavailability of the Vitamin A that made the rice famous.

--
www.indiebiotech.com
twitter.com/onetruecathal
joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey

[Cathal Garvey]

There's always upland rice, which doesn't need flooding by the look of
it (not sure though, maybe it does at some point?).

[Matt Conway]

On Feb 25, 7:25 pm, Tristan Eversole <customerserv...@trioptimum.com>
wrote:

> There has been significant consideration of this subject, actually. It's one of the rationales behind the work on in vitro meat, and likewise an impetus towards the development of mycoprotein meat substitutes. The suggestion that people shift to eating insects instead of cattle is based on similar reasoning. Food produced directly from bacteria already exists, in the form of "single cell protein", although it is mainly used as a feedstock rather than for direct human consumption.

The single cell protein saga is interesting. It's how Germany planned
to feed it's population toward the end of World War I, with yeast
grown on metabolism. In the 60's, oil was so cheap that plans were
made to feed bacteria oil, and then sell that bacteria as food.
Ultimately people couldn't stomach the idea of eating processed oil.
(Although according to Michael Pollan, that's all industrial
agriculture boils down) And like Tristan has said, it was used for a
feed stock. The other interesting problem with SCP is that it has an
incredibly high nucleic acid content. Meat consists of a lot of
extracellular protein stuctures, where as the single cell protein is
just a lot of cells. Consuming high amounts of nucleic acids causes
gout and kidney stones, as the purines are converted directly to urea,
and our bodies were not designed to process that much of it.

[mad_casual]

On Feb 25, 2:10 pm, Mega <masterstorm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So there would be drastically more food. You could possibly feed 100
> bio of people with that!?
>
> What do you think about that?

Why not engineer photosynthetic (and other requisite) proteins
directly into humans? Part of my work in grad school involved
transforming mammalian mitochondria with bacteriorhodopsin. I wanted
to inject the transfection reagents sub-dermally as a tattoo. I got as
far as growing purple cells and logistically, things fell apart.

Our biology and our food production/consumption network is far more
complex than what's taught about the food web in HS biology classes.
First, the development of intelligence pretty obviously, tends to run
up the food chain. Not saying that eating strictly plants makes us
dumber, just that the consumption of meat was pretty obviously
associated with it's development. Second, we produce more than enough
food to feed the world's population, currently the parts of the world
that go hungry do so of their own volition or at the behest of their
rulers.

Personally, for several years, the majority of my diet has consisted
of purified dairy proteins and essential fatty acids. I point out to
friends and co-workers that it's healthy and takes < 10 min. to
prepare. I'm still regarded as eccentric. Even if you invented the
'food pill' tomorrow, it will be generations before it replaces food
to any appreciable degree.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 8:49 PM, mad_casual <ademl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 25, 2:10 pm, Mega <masterstorm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So there would be drastically more food. You could possibly feed 100
>> bio of people with that!?
>>
>> What do you think about that?
>
> Why not engineer photosynthetic (and other requisite) proteins
> directly into humans? Part of my work in grad school involved
> transforming mammalian mitochondria with bacteriorhodopsin. I wanted
> to inject the transfection reagents sub-dermally as a tattoo. I got as
> far as growing purple cells and logistically, things fell apart.
>
> Our biology and our food production/consumption network is far more
> complex than what's taught about the food web in HS biology classes.
> First, the development of intelligence pretty obviously, tends to run
> up the food chain. Not saying that eating strictly plants makes us
> dumber, just that the consumption of meat was pretty obviously
> associated with it's development. Second, we produce more than enough
> food to feed the world's population, currently the parts of the world
> that go hungry do so of their own volition or at the behest of their
> rulers.

The world is fed today by oil though, as Matt pointed out. I think the
population will crash if we don't replace as our power source somehow.

>
> Personally, for several years, the majority of my diet has consisted
> of purified dairy proteins and essential fatty acids. I point out to
> friends and co-workers that it's healthy and takes < 10 min. to
> prepare. I'm still regarded as eccentric. Even if you invented the
> 'food pill' tomorrow, it will be generations before it replaces food
> to any appreciable degree.

Care to elaborate a bit more? Do you eat the same meal everyday, a la
Warren Buffett (who is said to eat the same thing every day)?

[CodonAUG]

Interesting mock-up.

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2012/02/farming-the-unconscious.php

[mad_casual]

On Feb 26, 7:57 pm, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Care to elaborate a bit more? Do you eat the same meal everyday, a la
> Warren Buffett (who is said to eat the same thing every day)?

Sure, breakfast and lunch are relatively fixed. I'm not a machine, I
eat "normal" dinners and I make a fair number of "exceptions" for
vacations, holidays, charitable breakfasts, etc. I'd conservatively
guess 75-90% of my breakfasts start as a powder and probably 90-95% of
my lunches. It's pretty easy to get a custom-made nutrient-saturated
meal for less than $1-2 that takes < 10 min. to prepare today. Many
people, instead, choose to eat $6-7+ meals and drink $4+ coffee drinks
that are void of nutrition if not 'anti-nutritious'.

If you wanted me to elaborate about protein choices; Dairy and egg
proteins tend to produce better nitrogen retention (Biological Value)
and have better utilization (PER/PDCAA). I don't abundantly monitor
myself personally for these traits (yet) and the personal data I do
have is sparse, highly variable, and obviously anecdotal. Soy isn't a
bad protein, but there are non-essential amino acids (taurine,
creatine, carnitine) that are found in other sources that support
higher mental function and better nutrient allocation/metabolic
function. Again, not saying soy is bad by any means; 'soy protein' is
a vague term ranging from soy flour to soy protein isolate and 'a diet
composed of' vs. 'a diet supplemented with' make it hard to generate
'good' vs. 'bad' labels. Personally, I value soy as a cheap source of
the essential amino acids and lecithin, the protein in-and-of itself
is rather worthless, IMO.

[Nathan McCorkle]

Wait, how can you say you 'value soy as a cheap source of the
essential amino acids', but think 'the protein in-and-of itself is
rather worthless'... the 'worthless' protein is composed of the amino
acids you 'value'.

To me that's like saying gold necklaces are worthless, but I value
melting them to make gold wire traces for circuit boards.

>
> --
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[mad_casual]

On Feb 27, 8:37 am, CodonAUG <elsbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting mock-up.
>
> http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2012/02/farming-the-unc...

"I think it is time we stopped using the term 'animal' when referring
to the precursor of the meat that ends up on our plates. Animals are
things we keep in our homes and watch on David Attenborough programs.
'Animals' bred for consumption are crops and agricultural products
like any other. We do not, and cannot, provide adequate welfare for
these agricultural products and therefore welfare should be removed
entirely."

Kinda illustrates what I've been saying. For more than 100 yrs. the
term 'livestock' has been used by rural agriculturalists to describe
'animals bred for consumption' and to contrast them with wild animals
and pets, but apparently this guy, and the people/culture around him,
have no clue.

[mad_casual]

On Feb 27, 10:57 am, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wait, how can you say you 'value soy as a cheap source of the
> essential amino acids', but think 'the protein in-and-of itself is
> rather worthless'... the 'worthless' protein is composed of the amino
> acids you 'value'.
>
> To me that's like saying gold necklaces are worthless, but I value
> melting them to make gold wire traces for circuit boards.

Yes, I don't value necklaces. The fact that the gold is in the form of
a necklace rather than a film, tape, or wire detracts from its value.
I apologize, there is ambiguity in my/the vocabulary and gold wouldn't
be my first choice for the analogy. I value milk and egg proteins like
I value an MCU or an arduino, I value soy like I value jumper wires.
Soy has some non-essential BCAAs in an abundance but the protein and
food as a whole aren't that fantastic. IMO, soy's big claim to fame is
that it's a more complete protein than other modern grains that have
had the amino acids bred out of them. Soy is 'good' not because it's
the pinnacle of nutrition but because it's more nutritious than wheat,
rice, and potatoes.

[mad_casual]

On Feb 26, 10:42 am, CodonAUG <elsbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Humans are caught up on the whole 'natural' > unnatural thing.  Its a
> logical fallacy and I can't get other people to stop using it.  I have
> heard biology students and general people all react negatively to the
> idea of GM crops and even when I explain that less people will starve
> and we'll be healthier with it they insist its wrong.

There are a lot of myths/misunderstandings that I'd like to see
cleared up too;
1. The food chain isn't as cut and dry as Mega portrays it. People
tend to eat primary consumers (cows, pigs, and chickens) rather than
secondary consumers (lions and tigers and bears) and while 1 kg of cow
needing 100 kg of wheat seems exorbitantly expensive, you're talking
about 25-50 kg of wheat/kg of cow a year, depending on how quickly you
'harvest' the cow. It varies widely, but one cow per acre is a pretty
good rule of thumb. Moreover, long before fermentation and IC engines,
farmers were using livestock to convert the 'inedible' parts of wheat
and soybeans into mechanical energy and usable goods, pushing down the
'cost' of consuming the cow and raising the 'cost' of producing wheat
and soybeans without a cow. I wouldn't pretend that beef can be
reliably produced en masse as cheaply as soy, but saying it takes 10
tons of wheat for humans to survive on 1 kg of lion is biased to the
point of being disingenuous.
2. Soy isn't "uniquely complete". Buckwheat, Oats, Quinoa, Spirulina
and several other algaes are all 'complete' vegetable-source proteins.
Beans and rice make a complete protein even if consumed in separate
meals. Oats aren't touted as a 'complete protein' next to soy because
you'd have to ~1.2 g of oats to get the same amount of lysine as 1 g
of soy (big deal). See the next point.
3. 'Complete protein' is a loose description of an niche idea. There
are few absolutely incomplete protein sources and the term 'complete'
doesn't address other nutrients or energy transduction as a whole.
That is, if you picked a random fertile 25 acres of land and gave one
farmer 15 acres and said he could only grow/consume soy and gave
another 10 and said grow anything he liked, the soy-only farmer will
die while the farmer with 10 acres is going to have a cow, orange
trees or strawberries, a wife, maybe some kids, and a silo full of
grain or a barn full of cane. The "open" farmer will be trading his
strawberries with the soy farmer so that he can get soy oil to run his
tractor and the soy farmer can avoid getting scurvy. Soy is about 1/3
the efficiency of other crops at collecting energy and, depending on
the part of the world, just as much if not more troublesome to grow.
Lots of technology and energy is expended keeping soybean fields free
of grasses like wheat and corn that would naturally overrun them. On
top of that, soy contains about 3X the amount of water as other rice
or wheat so you expend more energy to either dry or ship and store
water when you consider soy as a nutrient source.
4. Meat and grain-based diets generate diseases that reflect excessive
consumption (it should be noted that this can only result from
excessive production). Replacing processed meats and grain with
processed soy and algae doesn't fix the consumption (or production)
problem. A twinkie made with soy flour, 'raw sugar', battered with
rice flour and fried in olive oil is no more healthy (is efficiency
even relevant?) than one made of wheat flour, sweetened with corn
syrup, battered with wheat flour, and fried in animal fat.

Again, not saying soy is a bad food. It's just not phenomenally more
efficient or nutritious than rice, wheat, or corn and switching/basing
our industrial food chain to it would have a minimal impact in health,
efficiency, or productivity.

[Alex Hoekstra]

A bit of nutri-news about soy from NIH:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_122324.html