Protein and the roles it plays in nutrition and future food systems with Michelle Colgrave CSIRO
Description
This episode of Ash Cloud is brought to you in partnership with CSIRO.
Proteins play many critical roles in our bodies, and in the plants, animals, fungi and microbes that are our source of food and nutrition. Disease, brain function, appetite, movement, allergies, and thousands of other metabolic process all require proteins. This is in addition to the need for protein to build and maintain muscle. Growing global populations are dramatically increasing protein demand and this demand is putting ever greater pressure on our climate and environment. Meeting this demand sustainably requires new thinking on how we produce and consume protein.
Michelle Colgrave is the Deputy Director (Impact) at CSIRO Agriculture and Food where she uses her scientific background in the study of proteins across agriculture and food science to benefit human health and food sustainability. Together with her CSIRO team and partner organizations she is working to deliver more sustainable, productive, and resilient agricultural and food systems.
Balancing the roles of plant protein, animal protein, and novel non meat proteins is an opportunity to enhance the amount of protein we can produce sustainably. Michelle and her team prefer the term complimentary protein to describe the suite of new and emerging protein technologies including fermentation, algae, fungi, insect, and cell cultures that can improve productivity, nutrient composition, bioavailability, and the flavour of novels foods.
I recently caught up with Michelle to discuss opportunities to improve the sustainability of protein production, the important research her team is doing to alleviate the negative affects that allergy causing anti-nutritional proteins have on the lives of thousand of people globally, opportunities to enhance hybrid foods by incorporating legumes, and the work she is doing with New Mexico University to improve reproductive efficiency in livestock.
You can listen to our conversation here.
Additional information on the work of CSIRO Agriculture and Food that we discussed in this episode can be found at these links:
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2022/january/whats-brewing-precision-fermentation
United States
