BRB w/ Nathan P - Mycelium Steaks, Orange Chicken & The Sixth Extinction
The tech behind the mycoprotein wave, the recipe that'll ruin Panda Express, and an extinction caused by "one weedy species" (#16).
Hi all,
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P - a weekly newsletter featuring 💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate.
Before we get started, here are some highlights of food & climate in the news this week:
Nature Lawyers Up (NYT). As ecosystems are threatened, the personhood of a river is called into question.
If everyone were vegan, only a quarter of current farmland would be needed (The Economist). From last year, though has insightful visualizations.
💥 Breakthrough: Mycelium Steaks
Mushrooms are all the rage right now. Adaptogens, mushroom coffee, psychedelics, medicinal supplements - the list goes on.
Mushrooms are also transforming our food system with next-generation alternative proteins. An exciting one arriving to a supermarket near you: mycelium steaks.
Mushrooms are notoriously “meaty” in flavor. And so are their filamentous roots, which are called mycelium. Mycelium is mush easier to produce at scale (pun intended), which is why it makes a great protein replacement.
Ever heard someone say soy or peas taste “meaty”? Me neither.
Mycelium can be produced at large volumes using a method called biomass fermentation*.
An edible wild fungi is first selected. The fungi is given the right nutrients, fuel, and temperature to grow in stainless steel tanks, developing long filaments typical of mycelium. It can double in size in a few hours and be harvested in a day or two.
With minimal processing, the mycelium becomes an ingredient sometimes referred to as “mycoprotein.” It is a complete protein - meaning it contains all 9 essential amino acids - and is rich in fiber, B vitamins, and zinc.
Add a dash of salt, fruit juice for color, and herbs, and voilà. A mycelium steak, with 95% fewer GHGs and using 95% less water than beef.
There are a few mycelium products already in market. I love the breakfast patties from Nature’s Fynd 🍄 and the bacon from MyForest Foods 🥓. I want to try Meati next (pictured above) - they are sold in Sprouts on the West Coast and at the PopUp Grocer Soho in NYC.
Any other favorite mushroom products I should try? Let me know in the comments.
[*For context, there are 3 main types of fermentation: traditional fermentation, precision fermentation, and biomass fermentation. Traditional fermentation produces fermented foods like beer, yogurt, and kimchi. Precision fermentation turns microorganisms into “cellular factories” to make a specific product.]
🥘 Recipe: Orange Chicken
A crispy and citrusy fried chicken. No soggy nuggets here. Watch out, Panda Express, we’re coming for you.
Recipe down below.
If you make it, please send pictures :)
📚 Book: The Sixth Extinction
The concept of extinction is understandable by a toddler. Even the slow potty trainers understand that their plastic dinosaur toys represent large animals that no longer exist.
But let’s take a step back. The concept that an animal could go extinct wasn’t always obvious. How do we know if an extinction is happening? Or has happened? Or if the animal evolved into a different form?
Elizabeth Kolbert explains in The Sixth Extinction the stories of past extinction events and the current one mankind enables. Her writing is lucid and approachable. It’s a must read for lovers of history, ecology, and science who curious about the context of today’s biodiversity crisis.
There have been 5 events in the history of life on Earth that have caused profound and irreversible biodiversity loss. Mankind is now leading the sixth.
There are 3 main drivers for this:
🌳 Humans deliberately cut trees and wiped habitats to feed and house ourselves.
🐜 Humans (often less deliberately) move organisms across continents and rearranged the biosphere.
🔥 Humans burn hydrocarbons and changed the composition of the atmosphere.
This is why our current era in the historical record is called the Anthropocene - the era dictated by mankind.
In the absence of rare and massive events, one species goes extinct every 700 years. This is called the background extinction rate. Now, the current extinction rate is up to 45,000X that rate.
Some quotes as teasers & food for thought:
The current extinction has its own novel cause: not an asteroid or a massive volcanic eruption but “one weedy species.”
Right now, in the amazing moment that to us counts as the present, we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed. No other creature has ever managed this, and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy.
If warming were held to a minimum, the team estimated that between 22 and 31 percent of the species would be “committed to extinction” by 2050. If warming were to reach what was at that point considered a likely maximum—a figure that now looks too low—by the middle of this century, between 38 and 52 percent of the species would be fated to disappear.
Thank you for reading - BRB next week ✌️
🥘 Recipe: Orange Chicken
Adapted from Joshua Weissman
Ingredients (4-5 servings)
Sauce:
3/4 cup (170g) sugar
3/4 cup (180ml) white vinegar
1/3 cup (90ml) soy sauce
1/4 cup (60ml) water
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 Tbsp (10g) flour
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 inch knob ginger, grated
1 fresno chilies, finely minced
Chicken:
4 chicken thighs
1 cup buttermilk
Thyme, paprika, garlic powder, salt
Instructions (30mins)
For the sauce:
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, white vinegar, soy sauce, water, and zest and juice of an orange. Whisk together and bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce to medium heat once boiling and let simmer while optionally adding saixing wine and chinkian vinegar. Simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Separately mix together cornstarch and water then whisk into the hot sauce for an additional minute or thickened.
Immediately add grated garlic and ginger, and finely minced fresno chilies. Whisk and let steep.
For the chicken:
Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and lightly season with salt. Marinate in buttermilk with thyme, paprika, and garlic powder for a few hours or overnight.
In a medium size bowl, add a cup of all-purpose flour.
Toss the chicken pieces into the flour mixture until fully coated. Place to the side and repeat.
Fill a heavy bottom pot with frying oil 2-3” high and heat to 375F.
Fry chicken in batches for 3-5 minutes and cool on a wire rack.
Toss chicken and the sauce in a bowl until fully coated.
Serve topped with green onions and sliced fresh fresno chilis.
While we’re at it - why not turn this into an orange chicken fried chicken sandwich? :)
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier - I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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