Nano icecream and Salamander cocktail. Interview with Natalie Jeremijenko

We have to redefine our relationship with food by starting to regard our food and ourselves as part of the ecosystem, says environmental artist and scientist Natalie Jeremijenko. In future, healthy will not just mean what’s good for us, but also what’s good for the animals we eat and the space in which we all live.

Natalie, what should the menu of the future look like?

I have no prescription for what people should eat in the future. But I am convinced that whatever we eat, it must be based on a new relationship to food. In the last few decades we saw a shift towards more healthy and sustainable eating. However, simply reducing the amount of unhealthy ingredients and cutting down our meat consumption is not enough. As a matter of fact, it is the exact opposite of change.

Can you explain?

People are generally quite unadventurous when it comes to food. They are aware of the negative consequences of too much fat and sugar or condemn the exploitation of natural resources. But they do not approach these problems in a way that allows real change. Let’s take the trend towards sustainability: If a girlfriend tells me she is in a sustainable relationship, I tell her to get out of it. Sustainable simply means to make things last, even if they are bad. That also applies to our food. We shouldn’t just try to reduce our consumption but redefine our relationship to food. To me, that means taking into consideration the huge complexity of the food system and seeing it as an important part of our ecological system.

How can we do that?

As a matter of fact, food is our most immediate daily relationship to our ecosystem. We have to profit from that. To eat healthily should mean that the food is not only good for our body, but also for the body of the animals we eat as well as for the space we all live in. Once we have replaced our focus on individual health by one on the entire ecosystem, we are ready to think about the future of food. With our “Cross (x) Species Adventure Club” we are trying to take a step in that direction.

What exactly is that project about?

It is a supper club for humans and non-humans in which we explore the possibilities of our food of the future. In every event there are five courses of food delicious and nutritious to both humans and nonhumans as well as beneficial for the environment they live in. For example there is the cocktail called “Lures”. It consists of fishing lures eatable for fish and men made of an algae derivative called gellan, which binds to mercury accidentally ingested by fish living in polluted waters. Eating the gellan based lures allows them to pass the mercury out of their bodies. Because the mercury forms a new, harmless compound with the algae, it not only keeps the fish healthy but also cleans the water.

It’s just that it’s bound to be difficult to tempt people’s appetites with algae-based fish bait.

I admit that wasn’t the best example for flavor. But there’s also the “nano water buffalo ice cream”, one of my favorites, as it is incredibly delicious, light and nourishing at the same time. Liquid nitrogen and buffalo milk give your scoop a very creamy flavor. Water buffalo milk also has higher protein, lower fat and more nutrients than cow’s milk. Buffalos also have a smaller land area requirement, which would allow us to reclaim wetlands that have been taken for pasture. And that, in turn, could help to redress the greatest species extinction crisis the earth has witnessed since the disappearance of dinosaurs the current loss of amphibians. If we had marshmallows again, which are known to contain a highly effective substance against the dangerous fungal disease Chytridiomycosis, we would have amphibians again. So if we kiss a frog just after eating a marshmallow, we can save it from death because our lips are “inoculated” with the chemical from the flower. This is another example that shows how complex are the interactions in our nutrition – and how wonderful.

But nano ice cream and algae-derived lures sound pretty technical: will most of our food of the future be engineered?

Not at all. The food examples mentioned are not as complicated or as technical as they may sound. They are just new to us. Much of the food served at our club comes from DIY recipes, partly or even entirely produced by the participants. One reason why these parties are so much fun is because people can spill things, mess it up. It is an enjoyable, playful way to try out new food experiences. Personally, I find it very boring to go to a bar and pay someone to make you a drink you could also make yourself.

And how about artificial meat?

There is no reason to grow animal protein in the lab. It is incredibly expensive and makes no energetic sense. I don’t believe anyway that we should stop eating real meat of real animals. I am against the vegetarian or vegan diet – as they are both diets. They ignore important sources of nutrition and are a rather negative approach to food. I truly believe that we are capable of designing new and better ways of feeding ourselves without giving up meat. The first thing we should do is to let the animals lead a good life. Meaning: they can live as long as nature allows them, they choose their own mate and have sex whenever they want to and can move freely in their environment – i.e. they can manage their own territories without interference from man. This way of cultivating animals improves environmental health because it increases biodiversity. It is the exact opposite of organic farms in which everything is controlled, what they eat, which animal they mate with etc. We have to head towards a more natural approach to food. We should eat the animals after they have had a long and good life. And live off the excesses of nature. A good example of this is amphibians, whose biomass in comparison to that of all mammals is twice the size. Also one species of salamander can drop their tails, a model of producing meat that does not sacrifice the organism but uses the natural excess for food.

But salamanders are quite hard to come by.

That’s why we have to make our cities more liveable for many animals we could eat. Invest more in the wetlands, as mentioned, and you would have salamanders. Or instead of poisoning the snails, make the urban environment pleasant for them. Not only can you eat them, but you can milk snails – without harming them – by shaking them around a bit so that they shed snail slime, an ingredient very valuable for cosmetics, wound healing and anti-aging products. There are very high end products coming from snails but still we fight a war against them. We have to change that.

But how do you get people to eat snails instead of beef tartare?

I believe there is a will to explore in everyone. Look at children: they put everything in their mouths. We adults should relearn that. And I am sure we could. When we served the salamander cocktails, everybody had them and loved them – and they were seriously disappointed when I told them it wasn’t real salamander but tails that I had carved out of gellan.

So there will be no genuine salamander tails on our plates of tomorrow?

Well, as mentioned before, we first have to create new living space for salamanders. Currently they are in an extinction crisis and it would look pretty bad to serve one of the last survivors of that species. What really mattered to me about the project, though, was to show that people were totally willing to try the cocktail.

If we break all this down: can you name three simple ways to make people rethink their food?

Actually, I do not think this is about making things simple – it is about inviting us all back into the complexity of our food systems and socio-ecological systems. The main question is: How do we engage as many people as possible to help solve our food problems? It requires all of us. So it certainly won’t be easy. But we can help ourselves to start the journey by making food interesting and encouraging others to experiment.

What is your top food of the future?

Flowers. Not just on a salad or a cake, but as a main source of nutrition. They are very nourishing and contain antioxidants that the urban body urgently needs. And we could grow them easily in urban contexts. I am against industrial urban farming, partly because it is competing with the rural context. But I would like to see little gardens with edible flowers on each balcony, roof top, window sill. They are healthy, they clean the air and they give our cities a most beautiful look.

NATALIE JEREMIJENKO is a food expert, an artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Art of New York University, where she also teaches computer science and environmental studies. Following an education in biochemistry, physics and neurosciences, she became increasingly interested in the interaction of society, the environment and technology. She regularly creates sensations with spectacular art campaigns that heighten awareness of the interdependency of man and the environment. She likes to describe her work as experimental design and herself as a “thingker”.