If humanity is going to be a thing for long enough, perhaps it should question the way it plans to obtain its food in the long run. Finding food is a time consuming, energy greedy process that occupies a lot of our time and money, and is also one of the major source of energy consumption. Even in our everyday life, choosing, buying and consuming food is often considered a costly and time consuming activity, even when it is perceived as a pleasant activity. In that context, having access to a source of food that would be simple, easy to produce in any setting, nutritious and easily available would go a long way toward eating better.
I argue that the basis for such a food might lie in algae. In and by itself, algae is already pretty nutritious. With the proper technique, algae can be grown inside a bioreactor, something that is already being undertaken in the process of making biofuels. The biggest advantage of bioreactors is that you can pretty much put them in any place that is exposed to light and the algae, in our case, food, is going to grow. Since algae are so tiny, most of their energy is used in producing biomass, once again in our case, our food, which would make it the most energy efficient way to produce our food.
Add to this the fact that bioreactors are closed environments and this leads us to the crucial point of this point: It would then become possible to genetically modify them to make them as nutritious as possible. One of the most controversial aspects of genetically modified organisms is the fact that it can contaminate the environment and cause an ecological collapse as it starts competing with the indigenous beings of an ecosystem. If proper containment measures are taken with the bioreactors, this risk would drop significantly. Furthermore, the bioreactor environment would be very controlled in and by itself, which means that the genetically engineered algae could be tailored made to it so that it would in all likelihood become unable to compete with wildlife outside of tank.
By combining different types of algae with different genetic modifications, it might then become possible to make the equivalent of a complete source of food available anywhere that has light. This would give another meaning to urban food and certainly do a lot for food security. Further than that, it would make it a lot easier to eat healthy by simply ingesting the algae, with other types of food being used mostly for recreational purposes. Of course, we might become bored of always eating the same food, but even integrating this way of eating as a small part of our diet could make a big difference in the way we interact with food and everything that comes around it. If we were to effectively switch our food production to bioreactors instead of fields, it would mean that we could let hundreds of acres of fertile grounds go back to wildlife while simultaneously allowing us to turn dry land and unused city spaces for growing food. This would be a lifestyle, economic and ecological revolution.
Sources
About getting all your nutrition from one food
http://aeon.co/magazine/health/would-we-opt-out-of-food-if-given-the-chance/
Algae and bioreactors
Hankamer, B., Lehr, F., Rupprecht, J., Mussgnug, J. H., Posten, C., & Kruse, O. (2007). Photosynthetic biomass and H2 production by green algae: from bioengineering to bioreactor scale‐up. Physiologia Plantarum, 131(1), 10-21.
Burtin, P. (2003). Nutritional value of seaweeds. EJEAFChe, 2(4), 498-503
GMO
Uzogara, S. G. (2000). The impact of genetic modification of human foods in the 21st century: A review. Biotechnology Advances, 18(3), 179-206.
the transhumanist chick 
What a fascinating idea – never heard of it before but it makes sense. Will read more!
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An interesting idea.
Raising algae in controlled conditions, without competition, for maximum nutrition/biomass would quickly select for organisms that were unable to compete in the outside world, even without genetic tinkering.
My main concern would be our imperfect understanding of nutrition, and the likelihood of removing important nutrients from our diet out of ignorance. My next concern would be the commercial drive to produce higher fat, salt, and sugar content, until we’re eating McAlgae.
There is a cost issue too. As with biofuel, it’s cheaper to spray poison on vast areas and collect a crop than to build a bioreactor, which would have to cover a large area, even if very efficient, to collect enough sunlight. But think of the future. We’re heading for 10 billion people on earth, conservatively, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we hit 20 billion, with no major agricultural improvements. And if we have super-efficient algae farms, maybe we’ll reach 100 billion. Yay.
Ian
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I think the nutrition issue is one of the main concern for anyone who wishes to gain their nutrients from one source. However, I believe that our knowledge of nutrients is getting progressively better. Also, there will be the possibility to combine more than one species or variety of algae, which should make things easier in the long run. There is also the fact that I don’t believe other varieties of food will completely disappear: It will simply become one option. One that should become more and more popular as the understanding of its ethical standards become more widespread.
The costs are definitely going to be a limiting factor, but as population increase, I believe the value of land is gonna go higher and higher while the cost for the technology is going to get cheaper and cheaper as it gets more and more popular. There is going to be a tipping point where it’s going to be cheaper to buy a few bioreactor than having a big plot of land. That’s when such technology is going to become mainstream.
On the issue of “McAlgae”, I’m pretty sure it IS going to happen, but people will at least have a choice and the healthy varieties won’t stop being available just because a tastier junk food one is out.
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