23 Food & Climate Successes in 2023, Tempeh Quinoa Burger & The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life
23 reasons to be more climate optimistic, the mind-blowing Noma-inspired burger, and finding purpose by tapping into our inner wilderness (#48).
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of information to inspire climate action.
Each Wednesday, you can expect💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate in your inbox.
💥 23 Food & Climate Successes in 2023
I hope you are spending lovely holidays with loved ones.
Thank you for reading and being part of this community of climate optimists. You inspire my work.
2023 has been challenging on many fronts. I believe that to remain optimistic, we need to cherish every win.
Before 2023 comes to a close, here are 23 food & climate successes worth celebrating:
Biodiversity & Agriculture
🌳 Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon drops to a 5-year low, 20% lower than the previous year. A landmark ruling also protects indigenous lands and recognizes 6 new reserves where commercial farming and mining are banned.
🐐 The Scimitar-horned oryx is making a comeback, reclassified from ‘Extinct in the Wild’ to ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN list.
🌊 The High Seas Treaty is ratified to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, up from the 1% protected beforehand.
🐞 US regulation is successful to discontinue three insecticides (lindane, alpha-HCH & endosulfan), no longer quantifiable in the Great Lakes atmosphere.
🌱 Carbon Robotics scales its AI-powered laser-zapping robot to 17 US States and 3 Canadian provinces to eliminate herbicides.
Food Innovation
🍗 GOOD Meat and Upside Foods obtain regulatory approvals for cultivated meat from the FDA and USDA.
🥚 EVERY debuts the world’s first egg without the hen at Eleven Madison.
🐛 Meat giants catch the bug for insect proteins. Tyson invests in Dutch start-up Protix and ADM partners with InnovaFeed to co-build large production facilities.
🫒 Zero Acre Farms pilots their cultivated cooking oil from franchises like Shake Shack to fine dining restaurants like Blue Hill and SingleThread.
🍄 Meati produces mycelium steaks from their ‘Mega Ranch’ in Boulder, scaling distribution across Meijer, Sprouts, and Whole Foods in the US.
Biomanufacturing
🌎 Liberation Labs breaks ground on their $115M fit-for-purpose facility for precision fermentation in North America. The plant will produce molecules for food, cosmetics, and chemical applications.
🧬 The Department of Defense releases its Biotechnology Strategy to deploy $1.2 billion for bioindustrial infrastructure in the US. This comes shortly after the Biden Administration’s Bold Goals for biotechnology.
📊 Synonym launches two tools to democratize expensive biomanufacturing efforts: Capacitor to find a scale-up partners and Scaler to build techno-economic analyses (TEAs) & conduct life-cycle analyses (LCAs).
Government & Regulatory
⛽️ ‘Fossil fuels’ language is agreed upon at COP28, with the first-ever Global Stocktake accepted without objections. A fund for climate-related loss & damage is also finally established.
🚘 The EU requires that all cars be zero-emission by 2035 and further demands that EV batteries be recycled.
Education & Society
👩🎓 Tufts University announces the first undergraduate degree for cellular agriculture at the Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA). Early workforce development is key for biomanufacturing to succeed.
🍽️ The 50by25 campaign is launched in the UK to make 50% of restaurant menus plant-based by 2025.
Biomaterials & Cosmetics
🍄 MycoWorks starts up their first commercial-scale facility to make Reishi™️, a mycelium-based leather.
🌴 C16 biosciences launches their biodesigned palm oil replacement made from yeast, not trees, with their Save the F#$%ing Rainforest nourishing oil.
Energy & Emissions
☢️ Federal scientists at the LLNL reproduce 3 times a nuclear fusion breakthrough: greater energy output than energy input.
📉Emissions in the US are in a downward trend since peaking in 2007 and remain lower than pre-COVID levels.
✈️ Google pilots their new AI with American Airlines to reduce contrails with by 54%. Contrails account for 57% of aviation’s warming impact.
🌬️ The Biden administration approves Empire Wind, the 6th commercial-scale offshore wind energy project to produce 30 GW capacity by 2030.
I am excited to see what positive climate developments 2024 has in store. What other positive climate news did I miss?
🥘 Recipe: Tempeh Quinoa Burger
When Copenhagen’s 3-Michelin restaurant Noma opened a beer garden during COVID, the customer favorite wasn’t their beef burger.
It was their tempeh quinoa burger. Many who tried it said it was the best burgers of their lives.
I got curious and had to recreate it myself.
I fermented red quinoa with tempeh starter for 1.5 days, after which mycelium had fully colonized the quinoa and turned it into a solid patty.
I prepare it with a bit of oil and soy sauce, then assemble the sandwich with a gochujang mayo. The patty absorbs juices and holds together well.
After the first bite, I pause and have somewhat of an existential moment. Because it is surprisingly… the best burger I’ve had.
It does not taste how it looks. The aromas are mushroom-forward, deeply savory, and addictively umami. Not what I expected from quinoa but what I hoped for from fermentation.
I will be playing around with more fermentation recipes and keep you posted here. Would you try it?
📚 Book: The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life
Many people ask me some version of the same question: how do I find my purpose? There’s a lot of wisdom in this book that can help.
In The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life, Boyd Varty describes the few days he spends with expert lion trackers in the northeastern South African wilderness.
Tracking demands intense sense of presence: to notice every detail, tune into the senses, and remain mindful of danger. It is a doorway into a flow state.
The human body is not used to the modern contexts we are living in. We are ‘in our lives.’ But how often do we feel ‘alive’?
There is a wilderness in each of us waiting to be listened to, nurtured, and expressed. We cannot find our calling through thinking. We find it when connecting with our internal instincts, feelings, and languages. When we find a wilder place within ourselves.
If you read it, what did you think?
My favorite quotes as teasers:
“Through the eyes of a tracker I saw a wilderness in each person waiting to be brought back to life.”
“To track is to discover that nature is alive and speaks a language all its own… It is an art that lives inside us, a way of being in union with the natural world.”
“Nature doesn’t see status or wealth or social position. It cares only about presence, one’s ability to read the signs, navigate the terrain, and translate the language of the wilderness. Nature is the great equalizer.”
“ ‘The restoration of the planet will come out of a profound shift in human consciousness,’ she said. ‘And that journey begins in the healing of individuals. Nothing is more healing than the realization and expression of your gifts.’ ”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m a climate optimist, food enthusiast, and avid reader.
My mission is to make it fun, easy, and delicious to make more sustainable decisions.
I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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