While searching for an appropriate photo to illustrate this column — a photo of the tiny flowering plant known as ‘duck weed’ — I came upon this cute picture of a frog. I’ve always had a soft place in my heart for frogs, ever since taking biology in high school.
Our biology teacher had each of us do an autopsy on a frog, and then do a drawing of what we found. First, he showed us how to kill the frog by plunging a needle into the back of its skull. He said this was the most humane way to kill a frog.
I felt sick about killing my frog, but I wanted to get a good grade on the assignment, and this seemed to be a necessary step in that direction.
Knowing what I know now, that grade wasn’t really very important, over the long run. Given another chance, I would gladly take an “F” on that assignment.
I think this was the same year my mother cooked frog legs for dinner, as an experiment. I was not impressed by the flavor or texture, and as I recall, she never served frog legs again.
All of which is suitable preparation for a story about ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase.
And duck weed.
As it turns out, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase — known more casually as “rubisco” — makes the world go round.
I know. We all thought ‘love’ made the world go round. Or maybe, we thought ‘money’ made the world go round.
Wrong.
The enzyme, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, is actually the main reason why plants and animals (including people) continue to exist on Planet Earth.
Burn that name into your memory. Or else, the nickname: rubisco.
It’s very possible the ‘food of the future’ will be made out of rubisco.
Rubisco is a busy little protein that lives inside green plants, working as an essential catalyst in photosynthesis — the process by which plants use solar energy to produce carbohydrates (sugars, starches, cellulose, etc.) from atmospheric CO2 and water.
Here’s an imaginative drawing of rubsico by artist Eric Lin… as it might be found in a spinach leaf.
You would hardly think that a tiny protein resembling birthday party confetti was responsible for keeping us all alive.
According to reporter Michael Coren, writing for the Washington Post in a article titled, “The plant protein that could push meat off your plate”…
Rubisco is arguably the most abundant protein on the planet. Every green leaf has it. But this tireless molecule is locked inside plants’ cells, spoiling almost as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world. At the moment, eating salads is the only way to consume much of it.
Humans could theoretically get all their protein from rubisco, if it didn’t spoil so easily. Unlike the plant protein in soy, wheat and peas, rubisco is non-allergenic, easily digestible, and contains the complete set of all nine essential amino acids our body can’t produce on its own.
But we have this little problem, at the moment. We prefer hamburgers to salad.
We love meat. All around the world, as incomes rise, meat consumption rises in lockstep. Beef, chicken, pig, goat, buffalo. Frog legs.
Daily Post editor Bill Hudson explored this issue a couple of years ago, from the perspective of water use in Colorado.
And I wrote about it from the perspective of Lisa Simpson.
For his Washington Post story, reporter Michael Coren visited a company in San Marcos, California, called Plantible Foods.
Plantible Foods has this crazy idea that we can extract enough rubisco protein from duck week to get the world off the meat-eating treadmill. A treadmill that, incidentally, appears to be helping to drive global warming.
Duck weed — known less casually as Lemnoideae by people who got good grades in biology — grows quite happily in ponds and lakes, when the water is stagnant. It has a 35-42% protein content.
Here’s that cautious frog again, on the lookout for high school students.
From Mr. Coren’s article:
Duckweed, or lemna, doesn’t get much respect in most of the world. While eaten in parts of Southeast Asia, the pond vegetation is regarded as a nuisance elsewhere. That reputation belies the plant’s remarkable biology.
The family’s 35 or so species thrive on nearly every continent, surviving at near-freezing temperatures in water conditions lethal to many others. As the world’s smallest known flowering plant, it consists of a single floating leaf, an oval not much larger than the tip of a pen. Its delicate roots dangle millimeters below the surface. In ideal conditions, it grows at a ferocious rate, doubling in mass every two or three days.
That ferocious growth is one of the best things about duck weed.
And also, the worst thing. Because not everyone appreciates duck weed. While researching this column, I can across plenty of websites offering ways to kill duck weed.
Plantible would like to change the way we treat duck weed. If they succeed, duckweed could become a major crop, that allows rubisco to replace animal protein… on an unprecedented scale.
Rubisco is, apparently, an amazingly versatile protein, and can be processed to resemble egg whites, meat, milk, gluten… or even steak..
From Mr. Coren’s article:
The world grows more than enough food to feed everyone on Earth. Much of it goes to livestock. About half of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States are fed to cows, pigs and chickens to support meat-rich diets.
This is not changing anytime soon. Even as protein alternatives proliferate, global meat consumption reached a record high in 2021, roughly doubling since 1990. The typical American consumed about 260 pounds of meat and 670 pounds of dairy last year, according to government statistics.
In some places in the world, people eat to survive. But as the standard of living rises around the world (along with the temperatures?) people shift gears, and eat for the pure enjoyment of eating. We humans like to eat. And we want to eat things that taste good.
Hamburgers taste good. Duck weed doesn’t.
Can Plantible… and companies like Plantible… solve that problem?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.