This year’s Food Future Summit in its third year was held at Asia Society – one of my favourite architectural spaces in Hong Kong. A former British military compound used in the production and storage of artillery and ammunition.
The future of food looks bright full of animal-free possibilities at Friday’s talks and innovative pop-ups. Chefs, investors, innovators and scientists weighed in on our current climate crisis and how feeding a growing global population will look like in 2030.
Food Tech
Tackling diabetes has been a priority for the Singapore health care system and much funding has gone into finding solutions to this epidemic, I was so pleased to discover Alchemy Food Tech Startup that has discovered ways with their technology 5ibreplus to lower glycemic index of starch staples in our Asia diet of rice and noodles, without altering taste or texture.
Then we learn about fascinating alternatives where microbes can be used to grow food with natural gas and oxygen with Calysta, Hako Bakko professional fermenting chamber, China’s answer to Impossible Meats with Vince Lu’s Zhenrou (real meat 真肉）and James Chang of Deb Impact Technologies with micro-tech algae cultivation creating possibilities from bio-fuel to bio-plastics and nutritional proteins.
Chefs Weigh In On Food Futures
Getting
While pastry chef-proprietor Belinda Leong of b. Patisserie in San Francisco and now Seoul doesn’t have plans to replace butter for vegan options – that is the whole point of indulgence, right? Processed vegetable oil isn’t necessarily the healthier option and definitely cannot replace the flavours and quality of full-fat dairy. However, her granola has been a hit and she has worked out a winning vegan granola recipe that she’s happy with.
I’m still in the camp of eating wholefoods and plants rather than
Similar to Quorn and Impossible Meats, the vegan chicken alternative by Spanish
I’ve made lasagne and Bolognaise with Impossible Meats and Quorn and there’s the lingering salty amino acids flavours that doesn’t fit my palate, so I’m better off just making a vegetarian pasta without trying so hard to replacate the taste of meat.
I am aware all the invention of meat tasting vegan alternatives is to plug the middle gap of moving carnivores away from their eating habits, so it may not be for everyone and if you find the right recipes or restaurant, you might actually like the wholefoods vegan diet better than these alternatives. I love the Love and Lemons vegetarian cookbook.
It’s simple for myself as my diet is mostly plantbased from real plants, and I have little to no desire to have meat. I’ve had the Impossible and Beyond burgers from Beef and Liberty as well as Confusion Kitchen (one of my favourite Vegan places to go) in Hong Kong and they were both delish.
