The Last Thaw
food space race, laser spiders, and frozen sandwiches
Aaaaaand we are BACK folks. The holidays are over and it’s time to get back in the kitchen. We’ve got a shitload of fresh new recipes planned for y’all starting this week with our Butternut Squash and Red Lentil Stew. Perfect for these harsh winter evenings. If you want the recipe, join our Recipe Club just click the button. We’d love to have you.
Lots has happened since we chatted. Let’s take a look at some news we’ve missed since the holiday break:
A new study explores environmental pressures on global food production. Scientists wanted to know which foods have the greatest impact on the environment. There’s eight fucking billion people on the planet and growing more every day. That’s a lot of mouths to feed without totally destroying our planet. So it makes sense that someone (thankfully a shitload of scientists) wanted to look at the logistics of our global kitchen.
The data revealed some interesting stuff like the link between land and sea agriculture. Like, did you know anchovies and sardines are fed to livestock like pigs and chickens? Or how seafood production accounts for 1% of food but 10% of pollution. Or how Brazil’s beef production has a higher environmental impact than the US, even though the US produces 10% more.
Top food manufacturers are banking on the future of food being thaw-to-eat. During the pandemic there was a spike in frozen foods sales. Producers are betting big on frozen foods that can be consumed by simply thawing without heat. Sounds like one of those futuristic predictions from the space race and a promising impact in food accessibility, if the food wasn’t heavily processed crap. Maybe people should learn to cook and stop letting corporations decide their diet?
Speaking of crappy food, astronauts are working on turning human waste into food for deep space missions. As uhmm, disgusting as that sounds, it’s not entirely crazy. They’re already drinking recycled pee on the International Space Station so this seems like the next logical step. The product researchers used fake poo (lol what) to create a smear of “microbial goo” that’s 52% protein and 36% fat. That is akin to something like Marmite or Vegemite, which honestly already looks like shit. How the fuck are we eating our own poo before getting jetpacks? The future continues to disappoint.
And since we’re talking about space, WHY DID NO ONE TELL US JUMPING SPIDERS CAN SEE THE MOON?! It started as a Twitter thread with a scientist trying out if the spiders would be responsive to different laser pointers. Red lasers kinda interested the spiders but apparently they FUCKING LOVE green lasers. Of course Twitter being Twitter, other scientists chimed in to note that jumping spiders can not only see the moon but possibly craters. WHAT?!
get this lil guy over to NASA
That’s all for this week. If your new year’s resolution was to cook more, BOY HAVE WE GOT SOME RECIPES FOR Y’ALL. Till next week.
Matt / Michelle
Uhhhm, glad I’m not an astronaut ! 🤢