With a growing world population and climate challenges that are causing agricultural areas to shrink, many are wondering where sustainable food will come from in the future. A professor of gastrophysics from the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen and a chef offer a suggestion in a new research article: The cephalopod population (including squid, octopus and cuttlefish) in the oceans is growing and growing – let’s get better at cooking them so that many more people will want to eat them!
With a growing world population and climate challenges that are causing agricultural areas to shrink, many are wondering where sustainable food will come from in the future. A professor of gastrophysics from the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen and a chef offer a suggestion in a new research article: The cephalopod population (including squid, octopus and cuttlefish) in the oceans is growing and growing – let’s get better at cooking them so that many more people will want to eat them!
Among chefs and researchers in gastronomy there is a growing interest in exploring local waters in order to use resources in a more diverse and sustainable manner, including using the cephalopod population as a counterweight to the dwindling fishing of bonefish, as well as an interest in finding new sources of protein that can replace meat from land animals.
“We know that wild fish stocks are threatened and we are finding it difficult to establish new aquaculture because of problems with pollution. At the same time, the global cephalopod population is growing, which is why we have investigated whether there may be grounds for getting people to eat cephalopods in those parts of the world where there is no widespread tradition for it,” says Professor Ole G. Mouritsen from the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH FOOD).
Together with the chef Klavs Styrbæk, he is the author of the article ”Cephalopod Gastronomy – A Promise for the Future”, published in the English scientific journal Frontiers in Communication. The article is part of a worldwide study of cephalopod species under the initiative CephsInAction.
Read more at Faculty of Science - University of Copenhagen
Image: This is a Loligo forbesii with lobster. (Credit: Jonas Drotner Mouritsen)
