Scientists turn plastic into a piece of biscuit.. Will we eat it in the future?

- Researchers at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale are using bioengineered baking yeast to break down plastic and turn it into ingredients used in making cookies. Microbyte is a 3D-printed cookie made from recycled and repurposed plastic.

This experimental snack may seem like a nightmare from a bleak world come true, but it's actually real food designed for a world of limited resources. In 2021, the team of Lahiru Gaikode, a professor of microbiology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, responded to a request from NASA to develop food that could be made from materials carried on a spacecraft bound for Mars.

He found a type of microbe that can turn waste into ready-made meals. The team developed a process to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, used to make bottles and food packaging, and turned it into simple molecules.

The researchers then fed the pureed material to the bioengineered baking yeast, which turns the molecules into edible, vanilla-flavored proteins. “We haven't tasted it yet, but we're working on it, experimenting to make sure this cookie is safe to eat,” says Sandhya Jayasekara, a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

But the idea is similar to some of the chemical processes already used in food processing: the vanilla flavoring used in ice cream, for example, is often extracted from fossil fuels. Whether we are in space or on Earth, a product like Microbyte could be useful for our future.