Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Finlay.

Today, we're going to look at new technologies in food.

And before we start, as always, make sure today, that you have some paper and a pen, and that you're somewhere quiet, where you can take part in the lesson, and hear my voice clearly.

Keywords, we've got two main keywords for today.

The first one is artificial proteins.

Now, artificial means that it's not natural.

So it might be something that's produced by human beings, rather than occurs naturally.

So protein, now we know what we mean by proteins.

Proteins are used to replenish cells in our body.

They can be found in foods such as pulses, and beans, and meats, and fish.

So artificial proteins.

Now, these are meat-based substitutes that are grown in factories or laboratories.

Let's look at our second keyword for today, ethical choice.

Now this is a decision which places greater wealth or greater weight sorry, on respect and responsibility for others and other things.

So it's about making the right choice that is better for people and animals, than it is a choice that might be based on other factors, such as money.

What we're going to do now is I'm going to set out for you how our work's going to look today.

So I've got my line paper, which is fine.

You can use blank paper if you want to.

And the first thing I'm going to do is write my title, new technologies in food production.

Now, I would normally put the dating or encourage my students to do that as well, please.

So if you can pop the date down, that's great.

Now you can do this alongside me, or you can watch it and then do it afterwards, totally up to you.

So if you want to pause the video and do this at the same time, that's fine.

Now we're going to draw a diagram, and drawing a diagram is always massively easier if you have got a pencil handy.

So that's what I'm going to be using.

So I've got some tape here because I'm not very good at drawing circles.

So the first thing we'll do is draw around the inside.

And then I'm going to draw around the outside.

Now I want to make sure that my sort of circle I'm doing is sort of in that first half of the page.

Okay, there it is.

I told you I wasn't fantastic at doing that.

So I am now going to divide my circles that I've drawn into three areas, okay? So I'm going to divide them into three.

I'm also going to do a little circle, just slightly like that.

Told you my circles weren't very good.

Okay, so I'm going to do a little one there, little one there, and little one there.

I'm going to use my ruler, try and get this nice and neat.

So do two little lines where it started out a little bit.

I always would suggest that you do your diagrams in pencil because if you go wrong, you can always work them out.

Fantastic.

So in our diagrams, what we're now going to put is we are going to write off three topics that we're going to look at.

And I'm going to do this using a pen so it shows up.

So first of all, we're going to look at farming.

We are then going to look at science of food.

And finally, the environment.

And in the middle here, I'm going to pop that title as well.

So just keep my focus ready.

So if I can get the word technologies in there.

Oh, just.

There we go.

Okay, so this is how I want you to set it out.

So you can pause the video now and have a little go at that.

Or you might have done it as I was doing it at the same time Here's our diagram done on the computer.

And it looks so much smarter, doesn't it? But I'm sure your diagram's beautiful.

We're now going to look at the actual new technologies and how they fit into these three areas that we've divided up.

So firstly, farming.

Under farming, we're going to look at super crops and we're going to look at drones.

So can you make sure you write those in in that little, the outside ring? So super crops and drones.

You might want to pause the video to do that.

Under science of food, we're going to look at artificial proteins.

Now, remember those are the not natural proteins and one of our key words, and we're going to look at 3D printing.

And then under environment, we're going to look at food waste, a really hot topic.

Maybe take some time now to make sure you've got those written down on our diagrams. 3D printed food, what do you understand by the term 3D printed food? Do you know what 3D printing is? 3D printing uses traditionally a plastic filament.

This is a long, like almost like a wire of plastic.

It's melted and then it spits out the other end.

As it's being moved around by coordinates, it cools and builds your product.

So for example, this has been 3D printed.

And you can see that all the sides have been built in just about see those little lines going up.

So if you imagine your toothpaste tube been squirted around, nozzle pulls up.

Another layer is squirted around, nozzle pulls up, another layer is squirted round.

Now imagine this plastic filament, it's actually chocolate and it's high.

So maybe we could put caramel inside or marshmallow.

Or maybe the outside has been built of biscuit maybe, or something like that.

And then something else can go inside of it.

So 3D printing food is massively exciting.

But it needs to be.

The technology used needs to be changed slightly differently.

The actual mechanics is the same, but how we treat the material is very different.

3D printing actually uses a liquid food and as the food is printed through it cools and sets together.

What it means is though in that liquid, you can create ingredients that have balanced nutrients.

It means that you can make personalised dishes.

So you could have the same product mass produced.

So I could mass produce it, all of these.

But it might be that some are high in calcium or some might be rich in vitamin C.

And you can really start to see how this might be an advantage in the society in which we live in.

Okay, first little task.

On your diagrams that you have drawn, I would like you to under the part that says 3D printing, write what 3D printing is.

So the fact that uses liquid food to make a item or food.

Okay, so quickly pop that down now.

So you've got some little notes on what 3D printing might be.

You might want to pause the video.

Well done, okay.

So I've got sort of a little thinking task for you now.

How could 3D printed food help people in the future? Think about health, diet, and lifestyle.

What could be the advantages of it? Well, many years ago, the thought of being able to 3D print my own parts to make or fix something seemed totally you know, beyond us.

But is it so far to think that maybe in 10 years time, everyone will have a 3D printer at home, and you'll come home and go, what do I actually want? Actually I want this, and you press a button and it prints out your dinner for you.

Maybe we could do that.

What benefits might there be? Maybe we won't need packaging for food and waste so much food.

Maybe if I was trying to reduce the amount of fat intake in my diet, it might help me do that and have more vitamins and minerals in my diet.

Maybe if we've got growing babies and children at home, and we want to increase their calcium intake or something like that, we'd be able to design and make our own calcium rich based foods.

What about hospitals? Maybe in hospitals, you could have 3D printers next to people who were ill, and it would be able to print dishes that were rich in the types of foods that they would need in their diet.

So it's very interesting how we could do this.

And also areas where people are hungry, and the social deprivation, and they need support, that might be ways in which 3D printers could work.

You know, maybe if there's a natural disaster, we could ship them in along with other resources via the Red Cross or something like that.

And once we think to ourselves this technology is it's mad, it won't be here in a few years, technology evolves really quickly.

You can buy 3D printers relatively cheap.

And so now, it's about looking at how we get that liquid food produced and made.

Artificial proteins.

For me, this is one of the most difficult new technologies to explain, but I'm going to have a go at it because it's so exciting.

Protein in the body helps repair cells and it helps build our muscles.

But protein actually has a relatively short lifespan, which is problematic.

And therefore we have to make sure that we include protein every day in our diet.

The ability to artificially say manmade proteins means that we can strengthen up our proteins and we can allow them to do things that they couldn't do before.

Now this might be something like making them the effects of the protein last longer in our body so we wouldn't have to eat them as often.

It might be something whereby actually, it helps strengthen our muscles more.

Or and this might be really great for people who have conditions where their muscles wasting away on their bodies.

And this is the point which I think is so exciting, that we can use artificial proteins to help support and supplement our bodies to help fight against life limiting diseases, such as cancers.

But there's more to artificial proteins in that.

By creating these, we are also not contributing to food waste.

The requirement to create and use so much meat and fish or grow our beans and pulses and things like that is also going to be reduced.

Now, artificial proteins is a relatively new product on the market, and there's a lot of development in 1970 and the 1990s and across the world, people were sharing their research to get this to our plates and to use this more in circulation.

So at the moment, it is quite expensive and it does use a lot of energy.

Let's look at some of the notes that I have made.

So artificial proteins use a lot of water and energy to be made.

Seven tonnes of water for 450 grammes of beef.

That's quite expensive.

But these costs will reduce as we have more of these artificial proteins in circulation.

And for some people, it's a moral and ethical choice.

They would prefer to have an artificial protein, a manmade protein than they would to have meat, for example, or beef from a slaughtered animal.

That was quite a lot, wasn't it? The main point here is that we're able to supplement our diet.

And what's really interesting for me is that if we think about our 3D printing that we just looked at, absolutely we could 3D print these artificial proteins.

There is a very fine ethical line there though, isn't there, in terms of how much modification are we going to go through, and where will this lead next in our science? Okay, let's have a little look at writing some notes down, just some very quick notes.

What I would like you to do is to explain maybe just in a sentence, what an artificial protein is.

Okay, so think about that word, artificial.

It means manmade.

So an artificial protein is a protein that is manmade.

So you've put that down on your diagram for me.

Fantastic, I've got a little extension task if you would like to do this.

If you have a little, if you have a camera three at home or maybe you want to sketch it out on paper, I would like you to write an argument for or against using an artificial protein.

So it might be that you do a quick 15 second or 20 second skit about why you think artificial proteins are going to be amazing and really help people in society, or it might be that you think they are unnatural and we shouldn't be fiddling with nature, and there might be repercussions from this.

You might want to do a poster instead saying why they are so amazing, or you might want to put your feelings across on the other side and do a little skit or little drawing.

You might want to do a cartoon strip as well.

So if you'd like to do that extension task, you can do that now.

And if not, you can continue playing the lesson.

Let's do a little knowledge check.

Artificial proteins use a great deal of water.

Do you think that's true or false? Yeah, it's true, certainly at the moment.

Seven tonnes of water's used for the what would be 450 grammes of beef.

Wow, okay, let's try another one.

3D printing can help people get the right amount of nutrients.

What do you think, true or false? True, yes, fantastic.

And in the future, think of the possibilities, especially things like hospitals when people need specific nutritional care.

I'm not talking about foods that have extended life.

Although you know, that would be great.

What technologies can you think about? And I'm going to give you an example.

I do my shopping online, where I can.

So I do my food shop online.

What if there was an app produced by my supermarket that linked in my sell by dates.

So I could have a look on my phone and see I've got four days left on those yoghourts.

Otherwise, they're not going to be any good.

And I can have reminders on my phone that ping up and tell me right, okay, you've got 17 products that are going to go out this week.

Maybe even I could have an additional little app that we could tell me a dish I could make with them.

So have a little think.

Can you think of a new technology or something that you could design to reduce the amount of food waste, especially, especially where foods are thrown away.

And these are the ones who have short sell by dates, aren't they? Foods are thrown away without even being used.

So pause the video and have an idea, have a little think about some ideas you can come up with.

Maybe talk to somebody in the house.

They might have great ideas.

Brilliant, so that's interesting, isn't it? And I think as well, we have so much technology at hand that things are not very difficult.

We could definitely do something about that.

Even if it's just in our own home, we could create something to help us.

Right, okay, so we can move on now to drones for farming.

What do you understand about the drone? For me, I can imagine people flying and zooming around and taking photos, but how could this be used in farming? Let's have a little look at the notes.

Oh, they can be used to find problems with crops so they can be flown above the fields to see if there are any areas where crops are maybe not growing as quickly, or they might be in need of a watering or something like that.

And they can be used to make decisions of what to do next.

Here's a really good example.

When crops are sewn, people will come out and they will look at the soil, and they'll go and look at how the crops are doing.

Well, it was very easy.

They wouldn't have to come out into the field.

They could be on the computer.

The farmer could be out there with his drone, zooming over acres and acres of fields, having a look and having those conversations.

Yeah, it looks fine, that's great.

Or it might be actually, I'm not happy with that.

I am going to come out and have a look at that.

So it's a great opportunity to be able to share knowledge and expertise about people having to be together.

And also, for the very large farms, it means that people can very quickly see what's going on, especially in an island like ours, where you have weather changes so quickly.

So drones use in farming.

And they also can not just be used for crops, but they can used for checking animals as well.

And maybe fences that might've broken down or cows that have escaped.

We have a lot of cows that escape near me.

Okay, so super crops.

Wow, okay, these sounds exciting.

And maybe a little bit like our artificial proteins, in terms of them being developed.

Let's have a look.

Crops that are developed to grow in drought areas, contain more nutrients, that can reduce cholesterol.

So they are crops that have been altered and developed to help a certain type of people.

So it might be to help somebody with their health.

It might be that they can grow in an area where people require they can't grow their own crops because it's too dry.

Therefore, let's create crops that can grow in those conditions.

Or it might be that they we want to grow a crop to specifically help introduce more of a mineral or something like that into somebody's diet.

When I say somebody, it could be animals as well as humans.

So it's altering and adapting crops so that they can grow in new areas or that they can do a specific task.

Okay, what I would like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video and in your lovely little diagram, write a couple of little notes.

And under food waste, maybe pop down your great idea for your new technology.

So here are our three themes where I've put them in.

We've got farming, science of food, and environment.

So under farming, we have drones and super crops.

Under science of food, we have these artificial proteins and 3D printing.

And under environment, we have food waste.

And that's where you came up with your idea for your future technology.

So here we are back to the diagram where we started.

And this is really just a summary section to make sure that you have the correct notes down.

So let's start with super crops.

These are crops that are altered for a certain task.

And when we look at drones, a technology that uses a camera on a drone to monitor crops.

Well actually, it could be animals as well, couldn't it? Pause the video and just check that you've got those notes down.

Let's move on to science of food, the jade area.

Manufactured proteins that contain no animal material are artificial proteins, and 3D printing is where food is printed using a liquid base.

I'm going to pause the video now if you need to add to those notes.

And finally, food waste.

And this is where food that is thrown away and it is not used.

Do you remember that 70% of the food we throw away has not even been opened? So pause the video and add your last annotations to those notes.

Right, this is our last task.

And what I would like you to do is start to think about how these new technologies in food can really help other people.

So I'm going to give you a really quick, 30 second thinking time, and then we'll come back together, and we'll think about how the new technologies are going to help different people.

So the first area where I'm going to set you the challenge is how could new technologies in food production help people in hospitals, people in hospitals? So here's our diagram to help you out.

I know you've got that down in front of you.

How could new technologies help people in hospitals? Go.

Putting drones above them is not a solution.

Okay, let's think about what you've got.

Super crops and drones, maybe.

So maybe if they were in hospital for a certain reason, we might be able to grow super crops that have specific nutrients in them.

And it's the same with the artificial proteins, isn't it? If you've got somebody with muscle wastage or they need to really regenerate a lot of their selves, it might be that there's artificial proteins that they can be using that will last longer in the body.

3D printing is one as well because with 3D printing, you could print a dish to their specific nutritional needs.

You're getting the idea.

Come on, let's have another go.

Let's have another go at one together.

How could new technologies in food production be useful, you ready? Farmers, how could new technologies in food production.

I know you already know the answers, hang on.

How could new technologies in food production help farmers? You ready? Okay.

Okay, let's have a look together.

I'm going to get to science of food first.

Artificial proteins, do you think that's going to help farmers? What about 3D printing? Probably not, probably not either of those.

What about food waste? Okay, maybe for food waste if there was like a technology that meant that it wasn't wasted so much, but actually really, I think we're going to talk drones, especially is going to be the big one, isn't it? Drones can really help farmers help them keep control of what's going on, whether it's crops or animals.

And those super crops as well.

Do we think that would help farmers? It might do if it was something like a crop that wasn't affected by a bug or something like that, or if it was a crop that meant that a certain type of insect wouldn't attack it.

And that's what you can do.

You can change and develop the crops so that they're not affected, or they're not affected by types of rotting that might happen, or that they're drought resistant, and they can deal with inclement weather.

So super crops and drones are going to be a really good one for the farmers in terms of new technologies.

Okay, let's should we do another one? Yeah, okay, so how could new technologies in food production help, ready for it? Reduce food waste.

How could new technologies in food production help reduce food waste? So we're going to ignore the environment one at the bottom the reduce food waste, but have a look at the other four.

What'd you think? What'd you think? So artificial proteins, do you think they'll help reduce food waste? Yeah, they could.

They could, because if your proteins are going to last longer in the body, you might not need so many.

What about 3D printing? Absolutely, firstly, well, packaging is never needed.

You're only going to print what you need and the chances are, if you've put it to print, you're going to eat it, aren't you? So 3D printing is a really big one.

Super crops, will they help reduce food waste? Maybe, probably not.

Maybe if they were longer life, create longer life products, then maybe.

What about drones? Yeah, maybe from the point not so much of somebody buying the product.

But maybe from the point in which it's created.

So rather than a load of crops going to waste, the drone could have picked up the problem and therefore the waste wouldn't happen at that point, at the source, rather than selling it to other people.

Okay, well done, good thinking.

I know that was rapid but I like to keep a bit of pace going.

Well done today.

We've had a great look at some new technologies and such to get you thinking about some of the opportunities that there are.

As always, there's an exit quiz.

And I look forward to seeing you next lesson.