Transcriber: Paula Motter Reviewer: Mujtaba Abdelwhab
I’m a designer.
I’ve always, always loved making and fixing things.
No wonder I’m the one doing the DIY at home.
My grandfather was a carpenter.
He was a brilliant craftsman,
and I used to spend hours observing him
and helping him in his craft.
So I think that’s why I became a designer. That’s one of the main reasons.
And after I graduated 20 years ago,
I went to work for glass and ceramic industries,
and designing furniture.
And it was all very exciting, until one day I asked myself,
“Does the world need another face, another share?
How can I use my design skills in a more meaningful way?“.
So I shifted the focus of design
from making finite goods that would end up in landfills
to combined design and scientific research,
to ask questions,
to engage the public in challenging topics
to frame alternative realities and futures
that could help to mitigate the current environmental crisis.
Now, if you want to make a stamp on sustainability,
you need to look into food production and consumption systems.
And why?
Because they account for one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions.
That is significant.
So I’m going to take you on a journey,
on a journey about reimagining future food systems
through design and science.
One that talks about alternative protein,
and designing crops
for extreme weather conditions.
So the picture you see on the screen is mealworms and crickets.
And my question for you is,
Would you eat insects?
So hands up for yes.
OK, thank you.
So second question,
and now you’re asking where I’m going to go with this.
So who’s a coffee lover? Who’s a frequent coffee drinker?
OK, so that’s significantly more.
So what if I told you
that with your morning coffee
you can have up to 300 fragments of insects in it?
That’s right, you’re already eating insects,
so I’m sorry to spoil it for you.
The same goes for chocolates and cereals.
Insects are a byproduct of that, of the production of those food items.
So why eating insects?
Insects are reach in proteins, minerals, vitamins, fats
that are crucial to our diets.
But more importantly, they have a lower ecological footprint,
so they use less water and less land than traditional proteins.
Now, if you look at the feed conversion, which is the numbers you have on screen,
for 1 kg of beef,
to produce 1 kg of beef, you have to have 10 kilos of feed.
How wasteful is that?
Does that make sense?
But to produce 1 kg of crickets,
you only need 1.7 kilos of feed.
Moreover, 80 % of the insects is edible and digestible,
and you might disagree with me on this one,
compared to 40 % for cattle.
So despite the evidence,
why aren’t we adding insects to our diets?
In fact, eating insects is not new.
It’s been part of some cultures’ diets for centuries,
but in Western societies,
we are still repulsed by the idea of eating insects.
Why?
So one of the aspects that deter us from eating insects is the sensory one.
It’s the way they look.
But it might be also the lack of information
about their environmental benefit.
It might be our cultural background.
So that’s where “Insects au gratin” started.
The question was, “How can I use my skills to raise the awareness
to the nutritional and environmental benefits
of adding insects to our diets?“
So I started to collaborate with food technologists
and other designers,
and we started by roasting and grinding insects into a flour,
and then we mixed that flour with other food products,
such as cream cheese and icing butter and chocolate.
And then we created a paste
that can be extruded by a 3-D printer
and created all sorts of different shapes, food shapes.
So why 3D printing?
Well, because with a simple and very common design software,
I could create various shapes that had insects.
I could change insects’ initial appearance.
I could render them invisible.
Also, 3D printing technologies
outperform traditional manufacturing processes
in their ecological footprint.
So it uses less energy.
It wastes less food: up to 40 to 60 %.
So I’m combining a potential sustainable protein
with a potential sustainable food production system.
Now, the aesthetics of these insect cookies per se
came from the insects’ very own textures and movements,
just to catch people’s attention to the project.
And with “Insects au Gratin”
we successfully combine 3D food-printing technologies
to raise awareness of the nutritional and environmental benefits
of adding insects to our diets.
We also increased the likelihood
of people eating insects by 30 %
compared to other studies.
And the participants in the project said
that we made insects become more palatable,
and they also understood the environmental value of them.
One of the aspects that was crucial for us, for me, for the team,
was the engagement with other audiences,
and asking, “What do you think?
Is it tasty? What new change here?”
And although I recognize that insects are not the silver bullet,
that they do not solve by themselves the problem,
they provide a great opportunity
for us to rethink about our food choices.
And sustainability and resilience
is what we want our food systems to be.
So those are the words, sustainability and resilience,
that take me to the next project.
Extreme weather conditions
are becoming more frequent and more severe.
Take, for example, the heatwave in Canada,
the floods in Germany this summer.
They will be the new normal due to climate change,
and they are not going to go away anytime soon.
So how do you think those extreme weather events affect food security?
Well, they decrease crop production,
they increase food prices,
and they increase the social and economic stability.
So what kind of what possibilities can we provide?
Can we redesign crops to become more resilient to these conditions?
So I became interested in the research done by the plant science team
at the University of Sheffield in UK.
So these scientists were looking at plants’ genetic blueprint,
at their composition and structure.
And they found out that by making small tweaks
they could make the plants and the crops more efficient under certain conditions,
and more resilient.
So by that collaboration, I developed the project upfront.
It comprises four plant archetype illustrations
that have specific features
that make them more resilient to certain conditions.
So the first one, the one that looks like a cactus,
has unique sponge features that absorb water.
The white flower reflects sunlight, regulating warmer temperatures around it.
The leaf lace is inspired by duckweed,
which thrives on water.
And the last one is a crop
that was designed and modified
to be more resilient in higher CO2 levels.
So, eventually, we also did and generated a digital tool
in which people could learn more
about the science and the project in detail.
And this takes me to my very first question.
How can I use my design skills
to mitigate the environmental crisis?
What if I provide a new eating experience
about eating insects?
What if I redesign crops that are more resilient to extreme weather conditions,
balancing out social and economic stability?
I’m going to finalize my talk wih a quote
about my and other designers approach to design,
which is called “speculative design”.
So this approach to design has the opportunity
to imagine and explore possibilities that contribute to scientific knowledge,
that raise awareness for challenging topics,
and that, ultimately, motivate people into action.
So I would like to go back to my first picture.
So after this talk, after learning about the potential environmental benefits,
would you consider adding insects to your diets?
Hands up for yes.
Thank you. Tthat’s the spirit.
So, a question to you.
How can you use your skills
to make an impact, a positive impact in the world?
Over to you.
Thank you.
And thank you very much to everyone that contributed to my project.
(Applause)