Planet Powered Protein! #shorts #science #SciShow

Spirulina is not only a lovely food additive, but it's got the potential to feed millions of people all their protein with none of the GHG emissions!

Hosted by: Hank Green (he/him)
Emma Barratt: Writer
Sarah Meismer: Fact Checker
Amy Peterson: Script Editor
Faith Evelyn Schmidt: Videographer
Savannah Geary: Script Supervisor, Editor, Associate Producer
Daniel Comiskey: Editorial Director
Sarah Suta: Producer
Nicole Sweeney: Executive Producer
Hank Green: Executive Producer

Sources:

Image Sources:

[josephprendergast]

So you could liquify the plant, add it to milk and now you're Luke Skywalker. Go science.

[galning]

Wow Percy’s mom was really ahead of her time.

[safaiaryu]

Huh! That's really good to know! I've been putting it in smoothies because it's high nutrient and supposedly good for chronic pain. I'm always skeptical of "superfoods" and "natural cures", but it's easy to throw in so I figured it couldn't hurt, lol. The protein is a huge bonus.

[Trevor]

At my lab we have a strong suspicion that it also can grow just well enough on labcoats to make the entire hand washing station smell like a pond for a couple days until the labcoat company can get over to pick them up for washing.

[AGothNamedWednessday]

My grandma used to make smoothies with spirulina when I was little, she called it dragon's blood and made "dragons blood" smoothies, this was a whimsical way to try things we might not otherwise try

[davetoms]

"That's what he's been eating. Slime! And there's enough slime for all of us. We're saved!"
~ Lisa Simpson
~ The Simpsons S09E14

[Dyzrae]

"Spirulina" sounds so much … … more edible… than "blue-green alge" 😅

[dakotamerriman]

To be clear food production isn't really the problem with getting food to places of scarcity. The problem is actually getting to the people that need it. A lot of the people that could benefit from programs that increase food production are also commonly home to political instability, corruption, warlords, pirates, etc. basically all the reasons that food scarcity is a problem there in the first place. Beyond that there's the reality that not many people are willing to take up operations to distribute food to these places without some kind of incentive. Not to mention that supply and demand means farmers may be negatively impacted by an increase to production as the supply goes up even if it's not necessarily being distributed in the country of origin. This isn't to say that we shouldn't try but rather that we tend to flatten problems and miss the root cause in the process. We see starving people around the world and chalk it up to a lack of availability and never really dig deeper because "If you're hungry you just eat and if you don't then you probably just don't have something to eat!" is a lot easier to comprehend and tackle than a bevy of sociopolitical hurdles that requires billions of dollars and deep social reforms.

Tldr; If you give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, if you teach him to fish he'll eat for life and if you need to feed his village you'll have to teach everyone how to fish, where to fish, what fish can be eaten safely, provide fishing poles, make sure they don't over fish the river...

[emmahealy]

THIS IS WHY PERCY JACKSON LOVES BLUE FOOD SO MUCH
Its all makes sense now, sea boi likes eating algea...

[RioRav]

I eat spirulina as a supplement because I'm poor its a good way to get more protein into my diet. It's in compressed pill-form and I just pop one when I can feel like I have too little energy so I don't need to worry about the taste either.

[captincrisspantssayshi]

Add it to my long list that I’ve had over five years on why I stan Iceland so god dang much

[eleinaedelweiss]

The hardest part isnt the production. The problem is the taste.

[__-pljg]

Im down with that. Spirulina actually tastes pretty good for a green goo. In some rare instances it can kill you if its contaminated with neurotoxins. But that's mainly from wild harvested algae and I would hope algae farms are batch testing for neurotoxins anyway. It's a heck of a lot easier to avoid than Prions disease 😮.

[-ElysianEcho-]

Brb, going to get myself some lava powered super protein

[carolyntalbot]

Please be very careful about where you get spirulina and use it in moderation. Some sources contain a byproduct containing neurotoxins and, because it isn’t regulated as a supplement, those sources can include contaminants including heavy metals/lead.

[jesse_cole]

I'm not a math surgeon, but "6.6 million people" sounds like a whole lot less than the population of the world.

[slowpokeconnoisseur]

As a Biotech lab worker, I LOVE YOU for the little connotation that algae arent plants. First ever lesson we ever had was our instructor going on a 30 Minute rant over algae 💀💀

[ScottMcMaster-erxj]

There's a twist ending to this when people find out what Soylent Blue is really made of.

[h.w.]

"you will eat the blue-green sludge made palatable with copious amounts of sugar and you will be happy"

[bookish]

I can’t stop thinking of Percy and how happy he would be to hear that blue food equals healthy food now