Episode 3 Tomorrow's Food

Hello and welcome to Tomorrow's Food.

Tonight, we're in Yorkshire, at the only place in the world

to make one of our most futuristic foods.

This is a nation in love with its food, but it's changing all the time.

So, what treats are in store?

What's just around the corner?

What'll be on your plate tomorrow? MACHINE BUZZES

This series will change the way we think about the food we eat for ever.

I'll be joined by a team of experts to show you how

what we eat might soon look very different indeed.

Tonight...

Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett is heading to New York to see if

a supercomputer can cook up better flavours than she can.

Peach fettuccine - I think it sounds disgusting, but there you go.

Award-winning greengrocer Chris Bavin is in the States

to taste vegetables that grow without sunlight.

I've been to hundreds of horizontal farms,

but this is my first vertical farm.

Technology expert Dr Shini Somara

gets a cooking lesson from a piece of furniture.

So, essentially,

this table is building up a recipe.

And I meet some very special animals that could save lives.

Goats delivering human breast milk?

Even I find that slightly strange.

This is Tomorrow's Food.

First up tonight,

our expert greengrocer Chris Bavin is looking into one of the most

fundamental questions there is for the future of food -

could we give up solid food completely?

There's a new movement of people trying to survive without eating,

trying to live on liquid alone.

I'm not talking about milkshakes for losing weight,

or protein shakes for bulking up, or even specialist diets.

I'm talking about three square meals a day, out of a bag.

-# Do the shake

-Do the shake

-# Do the shake

-Do the shake... #

These are a new breed of meal replacement shakes

designed for people who don't have time to eat.

-# Do the shake

-Do the shake... #

But could we ever be satisfied living on just liquid?

-# When they come home

-When they come home... #

'To find out, I'm joining a group of volunteers

'who struggle to find time to cook - or even eat -

'in their daily lives.'

Us, we're doing, like, 90 hours a week.

'We have a pub manager, a student, a computer gamer...'

I take a break every hour,

but it's not really enough time to eat or have a proper meal.

'..a beautician and a butcher.'

Thank you very much for coming.

I appreciate you're all very busy people.

'We're having one last meal before we all start a food-free experiment.

'Running it is dietician Linia Patel.'

Over the next seven days, all you're allowed to drink or eat

is this meal replacement shake, and then have some water as well.

To whip up one of these shakes, it only takes 40 seconds,

so across the week, we're saving potentially 14 hours,

and for you busy people, that should be great news.

'The manufacturers of these shakes don't suggest that they be

'used to replace food entirely,

'but across the world, some people are using them to do just that.

'So, would you ever choose to live without eating?

'Our volunteers are looking nervous.

'No food for seven days.'

So, we're just having the shake and water, no other beverages?

-No tea, no coffee? Beer?

-LAUGHTER

No beer, sadly.

It's only seven days.

'The shakes are a mixture of oats, soy and flaxseed,

'with added vitamins and minerals.

'In theory, we should get all the nutrition we need,

'but living of nothing but liquid doesn't sound easy.'

Good luck, guys,

and I look forward to seeing how we all get on.

So, I just got home.

Already pretty starving, so I thought, I'll try my first shake.

This is the vanilla flavour one,

so...

let's see what it tastes like.

HE COUGHS

That's not nice.

It feels kind of like a smooth, runny banana porridge.

So far, it's taken me two and a half hours

to not even finish my first shake.

And the taste isn't all we've got to content with.

After just a few days, some serious hunger is kicking in.

This stuff...

..is just not enough to keep you going.

I'm constantly hungry.

Just the hunger pains.

I'm not really getting the sensation of being full,

the sensation of eating or just enjoying food.

I want a burger. I want pizza. I want...

Chicken, or some beef, or just something.

Just some kind of something.

Yeah...

I think seven days is going to be tough.

We'll be back later in the programme

to see how the food-free experiment

is going.

Now, we've travelled all over the planet,

visiting places devoted to finding the foods of the future.

This week, however, I'm in Yorkshire,

at the only factory of its kind in the world.

If I told you that there's a particle that would sit on my fingertip,

but it in just four weeks, it could grow to thousands of tonnes of food,

you'd presume that was science fiction, but it's not.

It's happening right now in these towers behind me.

The food they're creating is called Quorn,

and it packs the nutritional punch of meat, but is a meat alternative.

It can be turned into everything,

from burgers to crispy nuggets to sausages,

and there's not a cow, a pig or a chicken in sight.

This is all about edible fungus -

you know, like a mushroom, or yeast, or truffles.

We've all eaten that before,

but this is it on an industrial scale.

Welcome to the fungus factory.

Tim Finnigan is the research director here

and he has with him the tiny specks of fungus that begin the process.

Let me show you. I've got some here,

-which we, if we carefully unwrap... you can see there.

-I see it.

It literally is like little grains of sand in there.

-Honestly, I think there's nothing in that piece of paper. Just that?

-Yeah.

'These little dots are freeze-dried pieces of fungus

'that kick-start the entire operation.'

What we would do is, is we would bring that back to life,

-a bit like when you're making bread with yeast or...

-Yeah.

You know, we just... we'd put it in a sugar solution

and bring it back to life.

The exact mixture of sugar, water and fungus

that goes into the tanks is a strictly guarded secret,

but once inside, more sugar and nutrients are added,

and the fungus starts to feed on it,

growing at an astonishing rate,

until it fills all ten storeys of these towers in under a week.

But from those few little specks of fungi in your hand,

we can produce, in theory, 45,000 tonnes of protein.

Wow. From that small speck of...?

-That small amount.

-And in terms of the amount of

effort and energy that goes into growing a steak, for example,

the amount of warmth, or the amount of time and land, and all that,

how much more efficient is what you're making?

There's ten times less land and water use. It's amazingly efficient.

Inside the sealed tank, the fungus is a bubbling, fermenting liquid,

but after just four days,

a nutritious - if not very attractive -

paste called mycoprotein

can be pumped out from the base at a rate of 25 tonnes every hour.

Once it's made into Quorn mince,

it has less than half of the calories or fat of beef mince,

and around 78 times less cholesterol.

It doesn't look much like a sausage or a burger patty yet,

but we'll be finding out the secret to turning this gloop-like paste

into something edible,

later in the programme.

MUSIC: Robot Rock by Daft Punk

# Rock robot rock

# Rock robot rock... #

When it comes to the kitchen of the future,

you might think it's going to be packed with robot helpers.

Something like this Chinese noodle robot, perhaps?

Or PancakeBot, turning your breakfast into everything

from an astronaut to the Eiffel Tower.

Or how about eating a fried-egg muffin made by this guy?

But are they really the answer?

Shini's in the lab, where designer Geraint Edwards has come up with

a very different way to help us in the kitchen.

OK, basic wooden table.

Forgive me for saying this, but it doesn't feel very techy.

No, exactly.

We wanted it to feel quite liveable and warm and with natural materials.

-So where is the tech?

-So, for example,

-say if you grab the tomatoes and take them to the kitchen table.

-OK.

I'm not convinced.

Oh...

-Yeah.

-Oh, wow.

By placing the tomatoes,

I've activated a projection that shines onto the table.

So, it's actually recognising that I'm putting

the tomatoes on the table.

Exactly, and it's giving you ingredients

that go well with tomatoes.

Avocado, mozzarella, oregano...

And how did it do that?

It's quite simple technology.

If you like, we've called it the Ingredient Recognition Software.

Above the table, the camera and computer system identify the food,

compare it to a database, and suggest tasty accompaniments -

all in a split second.

-So, one of the ingredients here has been rice.

-Yeah.

If you put these two ingredients right close together now,

it will recommend a recipe and how to cook it.

Oh, so now it's actually suggesting a dish.

Every time you put a new

ingredients next to the others,

the table suggests a recipe that could use them all.

So, I could actually make an arancini with marinara sauce.

Hopefully, it will help you explore new types of food

and new recipes that you can cook.

'This is a prototype, but for me, it works,

'because it's improving something that I already use every day.

'Maybe this could spell the end of cookbooks as we know them.'

We all have a few embarrassing gadgets at the back of the cupboard

that we thought would change our lives.

Do you remember that ice cream maker you got,

or how you were always going to make bread with the bread-maker,

or the fondue set or the chocolate fountain?

But occasionally, a new gadget comes along that could genuinely

change the way we eat and drink.

Meet the 3D printer.

They've already made the headlines,

printing everything from prosthetics to handguns...

..but 3D printers can also print food.

The idea is that one day you'll be able to click a button

and print almost any meal you like, tailored to your own tastes,

and even your dietary needs.

So, will these machines soon become commonplace in our kitchens?

Our Michelin-starred chef Angela has gone to the Netherlands,

home to some of the world leaders in 3D printing,

to find out if their claim

that they can print the world's favourite food is true.

So what have we got going on here?

-This is a pasta printer.

-Good afternoon.

-Please take a seat.

-Oh, thank you.

'These guys reckon they can create perfect pasta

'with a computer and a printer,

'and what's more, they say it can be made in any shape you want.'

-So, choose a shape. Choose a spiral or a penne shape or...

-OK.

Well, let's go new. Let's go spiral.

'I never thought you would be able to personalise pasta like this.'

Then it says, "next step is height".

Height-wise, let's go in the middle.

What does the rotation do?

-Oh, fancy.

-As you can see, it can be more open or closed.

-Yeah.

And then I say "order".

'The computer sends your design to the printer

'while you sit back and wait.'

My pasta chef can't even do a service for 100 covers.

I need a couple of machines like that.

-Great.

-Boom, boom, boom, boom.

'3D printers work a bit like an office printer,

'but instead of ink, this printer is full of tubes

'containing a mixture of water and semolina flour,'

'but to most Northern Italians,

'there is one crucial ingredient missing.'

So, you're really throwing the book away?

You know, Italians are very traditional.

'There's no egg.'

I don't know what my grandmother would say about this, Giancarlo.

-She would be mad about this, I'm sure.

-Yeah, she would be very mad.

It looks pretty incredible, actually.

OK, so that's it done. Do I take this out?

Yes, of course.

I think the shape's beautiful. I mean, it really is pretty.

It looks lovely, and it feels like fresh pasta,

which it is, fresh pasta.

Let's go and cook it.

'The idea of printing food is amazing,

'but will it taste any good?'

So, we've seen the pasta,

and I'm just whipping up a quick tomato sauce.

I'm a bit nervous, cooking for a couple of Italian scientists,

that they'll all criticise

and tell me it's not like their mother made it,

which is very Italian, but, anyway...

It's a typical bloke thing,

that they've buggered off and I'm the one stuck in the kitchen!

-Now it looks like pasta.

-Yum.

SHE LAUGHS

'So, what do the Italians say?'

Wow.

Looks great.

Very nice.

Buon appetito.

Buon appetito.

Very good. Delicious.

Actually, the texture's there, as the pasta, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Interesting.

MACHINE BUZZES

It's very early days for 3D food printing,

and the technology I've seen here is just a taste of things to come.

I think there's still a long way to go,

but I do genuinely believe, next 20 years,

they're definitely going to be part of our future kitchens.

While Angela's been looking at what's around the corner,

here's a fun thing that people are already doing with 3D printers,

although you'd need another piece of kit.

This is an infrared scanner,

and if you point this at yourself,

you can build up a really good 3D image.

You can then use this to 3D print a mould,

and with the mould, you can make this -

a little chocolate lolly of your face.

How accurate is this?

I'm told it's very accurate, but there's only one way to test it.

Mmm...

It tastes like me.

Weirdly.

When you think of farming,

you probably imagine big, open spaces...

..but tomorrow's farms are springing up in places

where you'd least expect them.

Chris Bavin has gone to America to see for himself.

Our cities are like concrete jungles -

full of people, traffic, houses and big buildings.

Land is at a premium and space is really scarce.

So, the idea of growing vegetables in the city seems crazy,

but that's what's starting to happen

in towns and cities across the globe.

Father-and-son team Milan and Dan Klukow

run their farm from a disused Michigan factory.

-Hey, Marlin.

-How are you?

-I'm very well, yeah. You?

-Good to meet you, Chris. My son, Dan.

-Hello, Dan.

-Hi, Chris. Nice to meet you.

-Yeah, nice to meet you.

Their vegetables are grown from the floor to the ceiling,

in water rather than soil,

and without ever seeing daylight.

I've been to hundreds of horizontal farms,

but this is my first vertical farm. So, questions.

The first one, though, is obviously the lack of natural light.

We've got some lettuce here. How do they respond to that?

Yeah, well, we use LED lights, that are primarily blue,

and in the red spectrum.

I mean, that's what the plants are going to take from the sun outside.

Plants like these lettuces

don't need all the light they receive from the sun,

so these coloured LEDs emit only certain wavelengths.

There's a lot of science behind it,

but the basics are, you know, you need red light,

you need blue light, and you need a little bit of green,

and that's what they'd use outside.

We've just mimicked it to do it indoors.

But it's not as simple as stringing up your fairy lights at Christmas.

They've worked out the perfect light recipe for every plant they grow.

It has to be a certain ratio, you know?

If you have too much blue, your plants will be really stout

-but they won't have a lot of leaf expansion.

-Yeah.

If you have too much red, you'll have really long,

stretchy plants with huge leaves.

So, you really have to find a proper balance. It's all about balance.

The other big advantage of growing indoors instead of outside

is the sheer number of plants you can squeeze in.

Because of the verticality,

we can grow ten times more plants than the traditional farmers.

We can grow 45 plants per square foot.

As opposed to four plants per square foot outside.

Farming in cities also means the vegetables reach

the supermarket shelves faster and fresher,

but what I really want to know is whether they taste as good.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm quite excited to try this, actually.

I mean, even for me, working in the fresh produce business,

this is the first time I've ever knowingly eaten

a lettuce grown completely indoors that's never seen natural daylight.

I think you'll enjoy it.

That's lovely. Crisp, fresh, delicious, yeah.

Guys, thank you very much for showing me around today.

-It's been fascinating.

-Thank you.

-It's been a real pleasure.

-Nice to meet you. Thank you.

-Cheers.

'So, one day soon,

'perhaps your fruit and veg could be grown inside towering skyscrapers,

'right in the city centre.'

Now, how tricky do you find it to choose what you want

when you're eating out?

Well, what if your subconscious could do it for you?

Of course, we all know the saying, "first you eat with your eyes",

and one restaurant in London is trying to test

whether they can use that to perform some hi-tech mind reading,

but does it work?

Hiya, I've got your menu here for you.

-Oh, wow, thank you. OK.

-No worries.

All right.

Well, this is unusual.

'This pizza restaurant is trialling a prototype menu that

'lets your subconscious choose your meal.'

So, I'm calibrating it, apparently, now, by giving me a dot to follow.

'It does it by following your eye movements,

'using an invisible infrared light.'

And now you can actually see where it's tracking your eyes,

so I can go round and count it off, one, two, three...

'Next, the menu shows you pictures of different toppings.

'In just a few seconds, it will choose me

'a pizza based on which ones I look at.

'But it's not about the toppings you think you want -

'it's all about the little glances you don't realise you're making.'

Right, so, it's those little darting movements,

and that will give away what you secretly want.

So, you know, I could be telling myself that

I should look at this healthy ingredient here,

but actually, my eyes are secretly darting over to the chorizo.

Then I'm looking at this, but really I want the pepperoni,

over here. I'm looking at things I don't like.

No, this is wrong. I'm looking at things I don't like.

I want to look at things I like, don't I?

OK, it's chosen a pizza for me.

It's chosen Hawaiian.

I hate Hawaiian.

Hot and sweet? Who likes hot, sweet things? You know what I mean?

In fact, if you ask the people of Hawaii,

they probably don't like it either. Let's just try it again.

OK, I'm now actually looking at things I like. I'm staring at that.

I'm staring at that.

Maybe it'll give me some sort of giant meat feast thing.

Oh, I looked at the pineapple again.

Boom.

Hot dog slices and at least three types of meat in there.

-Are you ready to order?

-Apparently, I am, secretly, yeah.

-Beautiful.

-So that's the Texas Meat Meltdown for you?

-Apparently...

-The heart wants what the heart wants, as they say.

-Brilliant.

Clearly, me and the Texas Meat Meltdown

are destined to be together.

You've no way of knowing whether this is actually what you want,

because even if you said, "It's not what I wanted,"

they'll go, "No, it's what you subconsciously wanted."

-There we go.

-Oh, my God.

-Enjoy.

'I mean, there's no real downside to this.

'Even if you don't get exactly the pizza you want,

'you still get a pizza.'

Now, we're a nation of chocolate lovers,

even though we know it's bad for us...

# I want a little sugar in my bowl... #

..but what if there is a way to make it healthier?

Dr Shini Somara has travelled to Colorado to discover the new science

that could make that dream a reality.

Eating chocolate comes with a massive spoonful of guilt.

Up to half a bar of chocolate can be just pure sugar,

but in the future,

we might be able to eat chocolate that's far less sugary,

and amazingly, it's all down to some of these.

-Hi, Alan.

-Hi, Shini. Welcome.

'It may sound bizarre, but food developer Alan Hahn

'is harnessing the power of mushrooms

'to take the bitterness out of chocolate,

'so that it needs far less sugar to be tasty.'

This is a cacao bean,

and what's inside, you'll find, are chocolate nibs.

So, is this the fundamental ingredient of chocolate, then?

It is.

Mmm, that's really bitter.

Feels like I've just eaten some car tyre. That's really strange.

And you wonder how our ancestors thought that this would make

something good to eat.

The nibs are ground up to make chocolate.

Normally, we have lots of sugar to overcome the bitterness,

but not with Alan's mushrooms.

They contain a secret weapon.

If you look at a mushroom...

and this is what people think of, a long stem and a cap.

But what we're working with is not this part,

but the whole root system.

This is called mycelium,

and it's found at the base of most mushrooms,

forming as long, spindly threads.

To make his chocolate, Alan sprays mycelium solution onto the beans,

and over two weeks, it grows, sucking the bitterness out of them.

He's taking advantage of the way mushrooms work in the natural world.

In nature, things that are toxic tend to be bitter,

so in the forest, mushrooms are the clean-up crew.

They remove toxins from the soil, and they give back

nutrients to the root systems of trees, so that's how they work.

Gosh, I never knew mushrooms were so clever.

Alan claims that if treated with the mushroom mycelium,

the chocolate needs less than half the sugar to make it tasty,

but does it work?

'To find out, I'm blind-tasting two raw chocolate samples -

'one that's been treated, and one that hasn't.'

Really bitter.

Really, horribly bitter.

Now try this one.

It's bitter, but it's nice. It's smooth.

This is definitely your chocolate.

-Yes.

-Yeah, the taste is significantly different.

But don't take my word for it.

# You're sweet like chocolate, boy

# Sweet like chocolate... #

'Chris Bavin is hitting the streets

'to find out what the great British public think.'

# You're sweet like chocolate, boy... #

So, this bar of chocolate is one of the first to be made with

the treated beans, and I'm going to be pitting it against this

normal, readily available chocolate.

In the red bowl is our mushroom-treated chocolate,

and in the green bowl is a standard chocolate bar,

with two and a half times more sugar.

'So, let's see how it goes down.'

Would you like to try these two chocolates?

Which one would you say was sweeter?

The red one's a little bit sweeter.

That one's sweeter. That was more bitter.

Green one is more bitter. OK.

There doesn't seem to be much difference.

Not very different.

'So, opinion is split on which tastes the sweetest.

'Many people couldn't tell the difference,

'and while the normal chocolate in the green bowl came out ahead,'

'it does have a lot more sugar.'

# Sweet like chocolate... #

The one with the red napkin has half the sugar.

Oh, it does?

I wouldn't say that's reduced sugar or anything like that.

It's quite surprising, yeah, and it's quite nice as well.

'Mushroom-treated chocolate is due to hit the shelves in Britain

'in the next few months.'

# Sweet like chocolate, boy. #

Every day in this country, we eat over 8,500 tonnes of meat.

That's the equivalent of 45,000 cows or 5 million chickens.

And worldwide demand for meat is growing faster than we can

produce it, so how can we stop meat running out, and keep it on the menu?

Angela is back in the Netherlands to find out.

So, I'm here to see how the farmers are really tackling this problem

of the shortage of beef, and one of the things

they're doing is producing cows that give us more meat.

-COWS MOO

-Oh, hello.

These Arnold-Schwarzenegger-like cows

are reared in many parts of Europe.

They're called Belgian Blues,

and they've been specially bred over many years

to have 20% more muscle than the average cow.

COWS MOO

He really doesn't like me, does he?

-COW MOOS ANGRILY

-Yeah, go on.

That extra muscle equates to around 900 more quarter pounders.

They look like bodybuilders.

I mean, look at the size of them.

Look at the size of the muscle,

and they can be reared up to a tonne in weight.

That's about the same as a small car.

If you look at their cuts of meat,

where the sirloin is at the top,

where you've got the rump at the back on its hind leg,

they look slightly freakish,

and they look like they're about to attack me.

I was attacked by a pig once, who bit my hand,

and now I feel the cows are getting their revenge.

COWS MOO

But Belgian Blues are controversial and difficult to farm.

Most are unable to give birth naturally,

and their calves can have joint and heart problems.

This, to me, doesn't feel like the right way forward.

COW MOOS

So, if beefier cows aren't the answer,

how else can we produce enough meat for everyone's plates?

Well, just 20 miles down the road, scientists have got in on the act.

# They did the mash

-# They did the monster mash

-The monster mash... #

It's a burger but not as we know it.

It was made in a laboratory and cost more than £200,000.

-# They did the mash

-They did the monster mash... #

It's the world's most expensive burger

because it doesn't come from a cow,

but has been grown in the lab by Professor Mark Post.

It's incredible to meet you, Mark.

-You are the man behind the £200,000 burger.

-Yes.

Can I get cheese and bacon on mine?

-For that money, you can, yes.

-HE LAUGHS

This pricey burger is made by taking a tiny piece of meat

from a real cow and extracting stem cells.

These microscopic cells then multiply millions of times

in the lab to make new muscle tissue.

-This is a cell.

-Right.

So, how many of these cells would make a quarter pounder burger?

-30 billion.

-30 billion?

-Yeah.

-Incredible.

'To encourage the stem cells to reproduce,

'they're kept in an incubator at body temperature.'

And there, they are comfortable, and they will start to multiply.

-Wow, I'm growing my own meat.

-Yes.

-It takes about eight weeks, which is much faster than a cow.

-OK.

Sure.

'The average beef cow takes around two years to rear.'

Can we see the final result?

Yeah, yeah, we have a mini burger here.

-Mini burger?

-A mini burger.

-OK. A slider, as we call it in business.

Well, this is a little slider, I guess.

That's not just a mini burger.

That's, like, barely bigger than my thumb.

How much is that worth?

-20,000 euros.

-20,000 euros?

-Yeah.

So, how will that eventually go into our shops?

What we need to do is to scale up production,

to use very large tanks, the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

There's part of me that does want to go, "£20,000?!"

-I can imagine, yes.

-SHE LAUGHS

From a chef's point, you know,

but I won't, I won't upset you, Mark.

I thought I'd ask.

Those who have tasted the lamb burger thought it was close to meat,

but the texture needed some work.

So, could this be the answer to our global meat shortage?

Mark thinks his meat will be cheap enough to get

onto our supermarket shelves in less than ten years.

So, perhaps your burger and chips will soon come to you

straight from the lab.

Back in Yorkshire, it's not about the future of meat,

but meat alternatives.

From specks of fungus, the Quorn dough is now being shaped

and cooked, to become the meat-free equivalent of chicken nuggets.

'But how do they give it the flavour and texture of meat?

'Tim Finnigan has taken me to the freezer to find out.'

Now, it's the freezing which is really, really important.

It's the freezing that transforms the texture from something which is

kind of a bit dough-like to something which is really meat-like.

Now, that's unusual, because if you freeze meat for too long,

it'll break down the texture.

so why does it have the opposite effect here?

What happens is, the ice crystals grow, and they push together

the tiny, sort of, like, tree branches, the fibres

together to form fibrous bundles, and it's those fibrous bundles

that will give you that meat-like texture.

MUSIC: Cold As Ice by Foreigner

# You're as cold as ice... #

Freezing may give it the texture of meat,

but does it taste like meat?

To find out, I'm going to see Carol Jarrett.

-Carol, how are you?

-Fine, thank you.

-You're the food technologist here.

-Yes. Welcome.

-So, your job, essentially, is to take this on

-the final part of its journey.

-Yes.

Cos when we first saw this, it was a tiny granule.

-Yes.

-And we've seen it go through the fermentation process,

and the shaping process,

and we've seen it go through the freezing process.

These, by the way, I presume these are the nuggets that we saw.

Now, that's... When I open them up, that does look fibrous and chickeny.

And you get the good texture as well.

No, but I can feel the texture of it, actually, yeah.

'By changing the ingredients mixed in with the fungus before it's frozen,

'they can mimic the flavour and textures of different types of meat.'

-So, we've got hot dogs.

-Hot dogs, yeah.

And we've got our pasty.

We've got pies,

we've got a Brazilian curry, a chilli,

we've got a Thai,

chipolata sausages...

'The products can also be tailored to different countries.'

-We've got a bratwurst sausage.

-Cos that's a very smooth German sausage,

as opposed to the sausage that we'd be more used to here.

Used to - which is a very open texture.

This one, particularly, is for the American market,

-which is the hot and spicy.

-OK.

-That is quite spicy, yeah.

-Yeah.

Man, you can... That is quite spicy.

OK, you could put anything in there with that amount of spice.

-Well, our brief was America, really.

-They actually like the spice.

Yes, they like the hot and spicy.

Around a third of UK households already buying meat alternatives,

and with real meat becoming ever more expensive, the market is on the rise.

Now, back to our food-free experiment.

For seven days, our volunteers have

been living without eating, getting

all the nutrients they need from

a futuristic food replacement shake,

but it hasn't been easy.

Last night, I was having dreams that I was eating biscuits,

and just handfuls of cheese from all around the kitchen.

Yeah, I've been fairly hungry all day,

and it's a fairly unenjoyable experience.

This is my husband's dinner and this is my shake.

It's becoming increasingly difficult

now to stick to this diet,

with sausages being waved in my face.

By day five, the allure of real food had become too much for some.

It's just a cheese sandwich,

but it's probably the best cheese sandwich I've ever had.

But there are also signs that some of us

are actually getting used to the diet.

And for the last couple of days,

I've actually been feeling perfectly full. I haven't felt that tired.

I've had enough energy, which, considering how rubbish

I felt at the start, really wasn't something I was expecting.

So, what about everyone else?

After seven days, the challenge is over,

and we're back at the restaurant

to see how we all got on,

and finally have some real food.

So, I'm interested to know how your weeks have all been.

Mine's been horrible. How about you? How did you get on?

Yeah, I had no energy.

Nothing. I was... I had such a bad headache.

By Thursday, Friday, I was pretty much running on fumes.

In terms of time-saving, I think I probably saved in the region of

seven to ten hours, maybe even more.

I did actually think the time-saving was pretty good for me, actually.

'Overall, our volunteers saved an average of six hours each

'over the week,

'and computer gamer Tim, who's joined us remotely,

'found there were other benefits.'

Once my body got used to it, almost like a detox,

I found it much easier, but the morning and the lunchtime shakes

were actually really enjoyable, because I found them...

Like, you know, it gave me energy.

I think this is something I'm going to take into my real life now.

'So, Tim is a convert and plans to continue using the shakes

'for at least some of his meals,

'but I have a feeling he'll be on his own.'

Right, well, thankfully that's all over.

-I bet you're all delighted, aren't you?

-Yes.

-Yes, we are.

Thank you very much for doing it. It was terrible, wasn't it?

-Oh, it was, yeah.

-Horrible.

'Well, that week was nothing short of horrendous.'

You might save time, but as far as I'm concerned, it's not worth it.

So, can the future be food-free?

Well, I certainly hope not, and certainly not for me.

It's not just our food that's changing

but also the way we pay for it.

We can already pay with a tap, a mobile phone - even a watch.

MUSIC: A Face Like That by Pet Shop Boys

And Shini's in China, where they may have the next big thing.

Here at the supermarket in Shanghai,

they've got a checkout payment system that has cutting-edge

technology, where you actually pay for your food with your face.

# With a face like that. #

Do you want cash, credit card, or FacePay?

-FacePay, please.

-OK, got it.

'The system uses thermal imaging to scan the network of capillaries

'and veins under the skin of my face and hand,

'and matches them to a stored image.'

So, instead of using a normal bank card,

I just present my face instead.

Seems really straightforward.

'The pattern of blood vessels it scans is unique,

'even in identical twins.

'Cash, credit cards and fingerprints can all be stolen and copied,

'but there's no way anyone

'can replicate my face.'

-Thank you. Have a good day.

-Thank you.

-See you.

If you want to check this out for yourself,

you'll need to come to China.

'So far, this is the only one in the world.'

Throughout this series,

we're going to be meeting the world's greatest experts

to discuss the big issues about what we eat,

and one of the things that could change it

more than anything else would be GM.

But genetically modified food is controversial.

Is it dangerous and to be avoided,

or could it be the answer to better food for all of us?

I've come to Norwich,

where they're using GM to change the genes in tomatoes,

creating a new kind of super-tomato

that could help make us all healthier.

You always visit one of these places, wondering,

"Is it going to look like some sort of futuristic

"super laboratory from the future?"

When in fact, it looks like the back of a university building,

which is how they always look.

But inside here is interesting. What's going to be in here?

Is there going to be eight-foot tall fruit and vegetables?

Is it going to be behind a series of airlocks and doors?

I'd imagine the truth is a little bit more mundane than that.

'In these greenhouses are a crop of purple GM tomatoes.

'Their creator, Professor Cathie Martin,

'believes they could make us much healthier.'

You may have heard of super-fruits and...

Yes, that's a term I've heard a lot.

And there are beneficial compounds in super-fruits

that help in your diet.

These compounds are naturally occurring.

They're called anthocyanins,

and they're what gives everything from blackberries

to aubergines their distinctive purple colour.

They're thought to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke

and even cancer,

and now they've being genetically added to Cathie's tomatoes.

OK, grand. Let me open one of these up, so we get to see how this looks.

-Yeah, that is just a tomato. but purple.

-Yes.

'And there's a good reason why Cathie chose tomatoes for the job.'

-Tomato is the biggest consumed fruit in the world.

-Yeah.

People eat tomato in ketchup.

They eat it in pizza sauce and they eat it even in a Big Mac.

So we can actually get something that might be accessible to

people who are on low incomes and who have rather bad diets

that we can enhance using this tomato.

How did you create this new type of tomato?

So, we took genes from a snapdragon,

and then we moved them into the tomatoes.

Are we doing a thing that couldn't happen naturally?

Yes, we are doing something that wouldn't happen naturally.

-But do you think that makes it unsafe?

-No, I don't think so.

We do an awful lot of testing of whether it is safe.

We're not adding anything that wouldn't normally be in the diet,

we're just putting it in a package that is a little bit more enriched.

Tomatoes packed full of extra health benefits seems like a no-brainer.

So, we're making these things

-which could have enormous public health benefits...

-Mm-hmm.

..but I, for example, can't take this off the stalk

-and walk out through those doors?

-No.

They're so controversial that tight regulations mean

they can't even leave this building for fear of the genes

getting into the wild and breeding with our food crops.

'Anti-GM campaigner Liz O'Neill has many concerns,

'from whether GM works to its safety.'

So, what is the difference for you, for GM,

as opposed to the kind of crossbreeding by which we've

been doing our agriculture for 3,000 years?

Well, GM is essentially an artificial manipulation of DNA.

I mean, one could argue that,

I suppose, any breeding has a level of artificiality, but they're

actually going into the lab and they are adding something into the plant.

It's presented as...

I think the phrase "cut and paste" gets used a lot, whereas actually,

it's not just the DNA that is for the trait that they have to put in.

There's a whole load of other stuff that comes with it.

There's an awful lot that can go wrong.

The fear is that unintended genetic traits, that could be

damaging to the ecosystem or us, could also end up in our food.

But after several decades of testing,

no genetically modified products have ever been found to be harmful,

and some - from imported chocolate bars to animal feed -

are already part of our food chain.

'The advances offered by GM don't stop with the veg.

'I've come to California to meet a man who has genetically engineered

'goats to produce a key ingredient of human breast milk.'

A tomato that's purple -

we can kind of get our heads around that,

but goats delivering human breast milk?

Even I find that slightly strange.

'Professor Jim Murray believes that his goats' milk

'could save a million children a year.'

And these are the genetically-engineered goats.

To the untrained eye, they do not look

any different to any other goats.

They look like ordinary goats and they act like ordinary goats

because they are ordinary goats. The only difference is,

they contain one small piece of DNA that normally comes from humans.

GOAT BLEATS Thank you very much.

In human milk, there's two main proteins which are antimicrobial,

-so they kill bacteria.

-Right. Yeah.

And they're very, very abundant in human milk.

And this is a protein that can fight diarrhoea, for example?

So, this protein helps prevent the growth of bacteria

that are bad for you, like E coli, that can cause diarrhoea.

GOAT BLEATS One goat at a time.

It's a strictly one-goat policy.

Oh, hello.

There are parts of the world where diarrhoea kills more children

than AIDS, malaria and measles combined,

but Jim's goat milk isn't helping those children yet.

It's a regulatory issue. It's not a science issue.

I think the science would be very clear that these animals are safe,

but in fact, without regulatory approval, they don't get used,

and so that's where were at.

Is this as far as these goats will ever get?

I would like to think not, but so far, yes.

There was a time where a report like this about GM foods would have been

about the triumph of science, but to be more balanced now,

you have to say part of it is about the failure of science to

allay people's fears -

to reduce their nervousness about something new.

But there are parts of the world where these kind of things

could save lives.

GOAT BLEATS

When it comes to cooking, most of us are creatures of habit.

On average, we cook just the same nine recipes over and over.

So, Angela's in New York, to try out a new piece of technology

that claims to be able to help us all become

more adventurous in the kitchen.

When I'm coming up with new dishes,

I've got a pretty good idea of what ingredients work well together.

That's delicious.

And that's due to years of cooking trial and error

with lots of different flavours.

'But I'm about to take on a chef who hasn't spent late nights

'experimenting with ingredients.

'In fact, he's never even been in a kitchen.

'His name is Chef Watson, and he's a supercomputer.'

Can a computer ever come up with better recipes

and flavour combinations than a person? I don't think so.

Watson is an artificial intelligence system designed to think

and learn like a human brain, only much faster.

The inventors at IBM programmed in thousands of recipes

and lots of science -

everything from flavour compounds to human taste preferences.

MUSIC: Peaches by The Stranglers

'The theory is that Chef Watson will spot connections we might miss

'and create extraordinary flavour combinations...

'..so I'm going to see what it can do with a bag of peaches.

'My sous-chef for the day is my friend

'and New York food writer Ed Schneider.'

-Ed, how are you doing, my love?

-Angela.

-Are you good?

-Yeah, not bad.

-I got some lovely peaches at the market.

-And a beautiful day for it.

'All you do is type your ingredients into the app,

'then Chef Watson starts coming up with flavour combinations

'it thinks will work.'

Here are some ideas.

Would I put chives with peaches? I'm not so sure.

There is garlic and ginger.

-Ketchup?

-Peach, ketchup, bay leaf and tomato juice.

I don't think it knows that much about cooking.

What's this one with bourbon? Peach fettuccine.

I would never put peach with bourbon

but it's saying that these sort of things could work.

'We've opted to cook a peach pasta,

'with Cheddar cheese, asparagus and whisky.'

I think it sounds disgusting, but there you go.

'We two traditionalists might be a bit sniffy about it

'but we're following Chef Watson's recipe to the letter.'

I mean, to be honest, I could see peaches and asparagus together.

I'm not sure if I would see the bourbon with it

and I definitely wouldn't put the Cheddar cheese.

So, we're really going to go with 4oz of this stuff?

-We're going with 4oz, Ed.

-OK.

It's quite a lot of bourbon, isn't it?

It's quite a lot of Cheddar cheese.

Ed, come on, this is supper. It's going to be great.

Chef Watson said so.

-Oh, crikey.

-Here we go.

-Ooh-la-la, that was a bit of a flame.

Well, that looks quite pretty.

I'm not sure it's going to taste great.

'To test my suspicions, we're going to try it out on Ed's wife Jackie.

Do you think she's going to like it, Ed?

I doubt it.

I think a toast to Chef Watson, now.

Absolutely. Better do the toast before we taste the dish.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this. It's too sweet, I think.

I actually have to say, Angela,

it's not as bad as I thought or feared.

-I don't actually think the peaches work, in a funny way.

-Really?

-But it's edible. You see, I'm eating it, so you know...

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

'The Chef Watson app didn't work very well for us

'but perhaps I'm missing something.'

I've come to meet James Briscione,

a chef at the Institute of Culinary Education.

He's using Chef Watson's brain in a different way.

He's taking Watson's ideas as inspiration,

but then coming up with new recipes of his own.

-James, good to meet you.

-All right. Hello, how are you?

-How are you doing? Good, thank you.

-Nice to see you. Thank you.

-What have we got here?

-This is one of my favourites.

I absolutely love it.

'First up, a beef burrito, with chocolate, apricot and vanilla.'

-Everybody loves this one.

-It does actually work together.

'Next, apple, infused with olive oil, sage, red wine and cherry.'

Mmm, the olive oil's lovely. That's delicious.

Apples and olive oil is one of my most favourite new combinations.

-Yeah.

-I mean, it's always apples and butter, right?

-Everywhere we go, apples and butter.

-Yeah, of course.

Apples share more flavour compounds with olive oil

than they do with butter.

'The more flavour compounds the ingredients share,

'the more likely they are to complement each other.'

-They really work together, actually.

-Isn't it?

This really goes against my whole ethos as a chef.

If you'd sent me a list of those ingredients,

I would have just gone with a marker pen -

-scratch, scratch, scratch.

-Get rid of that, get rid of that.

OK, so, two so far. Let's go for the...

-OK, so we're two for two.

-Two for two.

-All right.

'And finally, deep-fried Brussels sprouts, with cardamom,

'ginger and sweet potato.'

They work in your mouth, don't they?

-I mean...

-Cardamom and Brussels sprouts.

You can see it's really killing me to say it all.

Ugh...

'So, James and Chef Watson have won me over,

'but should I be worried about my job prospects?'

Don't you think it's going to take away from

the talent of us as chefs a bit?

I mean, aren't you going to make us slightly redundant?

That we've got this computer that can then go blah-blah...

and we're like, this isn't the creative joy of us, in a way.

And this is why the chef is still someone important in this process.

-Yeah.

-Even though the ingredients are being decided,

we've got to find the right way to combine them.

-Yeah.

-So, it becomes this ultimate collaboration

between man and machine.

Well, I have to say, James, I came very sceptical

and I didn't think it was going to work, but, you know...

And I do think the burrito won.

I think, you know, that, you know, really was really good.

-We won't tell them.

-Yeah, we won't tell them.

-Brilliant.

-Keep it our little secret.

I may be a convert to the supercomputer's wild flavour combos

but what about the British public?

What will they make of a beef and chocolate burrito,

apple with olive oil, cherry and sage,

and those cardamom Brussels sprouts?

-Smells like Terry's Chocolate Orange.

-Is that a marshmallow?

I don't know what it is.

That's actually quite nice.

That's nice. I quite like that.

Is it beef?

It's definitely an interesting flavour.

What do you think?

-I'm intrigued to know what that is.

-No idea.

It kind of tastes like something that you'd put on a bit of toast.

At first bite into it, I was a bit not sure about this, but...

-But then after that it worked?

-Yeah, but after that it does work, yes.

Yeah, I think the flavour combination is quite nice.

-Oh, yeah.

-Oh, yeah.

Beef, cheese, chocolate...

It's a weird combination.

-That's a Brussels sprout!

-Completely wrong, wasn't I?

-I don't like Brussels sprouts. Look what they've done to me.

-Cool.

Lots of people seem to like them

but will they be surprised when they find out what created the flavours?

A computer? Really?

-I think it was good. I would say...

-Yeah, that was really good.

-Yeah.

Very amazed and surprised.

Well, if they can come up with flavours like that,

that I wasn't expecting at all, yeah, it's done very well.

I don't think I'd ever have even thought to put those

combinations together if a computer hadn't have done it for us,

so it's interesting, yeah.

I think the computer did well.

MUSIC: Theme from Mission: Impossible by Lalo Schifrin

OK, yeah, I'll be with you in a second.

I'm just ordering some coffee.

If you're in an office block in Amsterdam,

this is how you order your coffee.

Send.

That'll be along in a minute.

Revealing the jaw-dropping world of Tomorrow's Food has been

a strange and incredible journey.

We've learnt how sour can become sweet...

Mmm, that's lovely.

We've seen that chefs are becoming robotic...

Hello!

-..and we've seen how the seemingly unthinkable...

-Ugh!

..has become the edible.

Delicious?

So, in our farms, on our supermarket shelves,

and piling onto our plates,

the future of our food is almost here,

as, indeed, is my coffee.

That's a very nice delivery system.

Let's get that coffee out. Lovely.

From all of us on Tomorrow's Food, cheers.