FLAVOURING THINGS UP¶
A circular plant-based gastronomic service. A ferment-lab, cuisine and bio-lab where food and design intersects.
It will show how a plant-based diet can be both nutritious and delicious giving whole and symbiotic meals. While fermenting and cooking, food waste is created so they'd be transformed in biomaterials to develop the menage.
Achieving a circular service would be achieved by the fabrication of our own machines and tools, in order to help us in the process of fermenting and recycling the waste into the biomaterials. Also controlling the materia as an input for the result making it as a part of our own ecosystem.
WHY
This project is stated as a vegan consumer and as a bio-designer. As a vegan consumer I cannot find good vegan options in many places, and I find myself in a lot of occasions not having a proper meal. My cooking skills were improved during the process of creating whole and nutritious meals for myself, but understanding that all, as humans, need to take care of what we put inside us: it doesn't matter if you're vegan or not.
"Probiotics": they're can be found in food, and not just in pills. A probiotic food is the one that has been fermented which are high in bacterias good for our microbiota.
As a bio-designer with cooking skills, the idea of the amount of food waste generated was harmful, but also an opportunity to take my main input from.
EVOLUTION FROM WEEK 11¶
After Christmas experimentations and research I decided to keep focusing on fermented foods. The possibilities that they bring to the table are much wider than expected as for example tempeh can be created from more ingredients than just soya. That fermentation will be the most exhaustive research along with kombucha. I decided to focus more on these two as i found many interesting opportunities to work with and that maintain the inner purpose to raise awareness of the benefits of ferment food and a circular system.
But before explaining which opportunities I’ve found, I’ll describe the context that creates my canvas of work. Menstrual health is the reason to create coherent foods and recipes. Women’s period is linked to the food that we put in our body as they can affect hormonal balance by o inflammation in our body.
Nowadays women have disconnected from their periods and don’t look for the solution in the nutrition. Were given chemical solutions instead of natural solutions that we all can manage. The difference is that the first one acts like a bandage: if you take it off the problem will come back and probably it’ll be worse. When the second one bring in the process a lifestyle where we look for ourselves, hearing and giving the necessities that our body is asking for.
And that should have been always our lifestyle but it’s not late to change it. Nutrition is one of the most important thing where we can act. Real and organic food are full of vitamins and essential nutrients that we can benefit from. And although the phrase “we are what we eat” is true; it goes further: “we are what we can assimilate”. Because a green juice is good, but if your body doesn’t have what it is necessary to digest it and take what’s good for you: the nutrition is not optimal.
Here is where gut health makes an entrance. We humans are a whole ecosystem, full of different living microorganism that function in order. And some bacteria that live inside us are the ones that take care of our digestion. So if we want to have a good gut health, and so a good hormonal balance: take care of your bacteria.
And how we can do it? With the right diet: a symbiotic diet where you can find probiotic and prebiotic foods. The ones that have living organisms (that appear in a fermentation process) and the ones that feed the bacteria. Tempeh, kombucha, miso, cheese, vinegar, koji, umeboshi…these are foods that need to be part of the diet so they can increase the bacterial health (with those other type that feed them). But apart from their bacterial input, they have the nutrients from the ingredients they’re being made of. So we can work with that.
Here is a little graphical explanation of how the workflow went so when you enter in the next chapter of 1º experimentations you understand the originis and combinations
MID TER PRESENTATION¶
Notes from jury:
- For the kombucha, you could submerge it into a natural dye bath for 1 night to give it a different color. the cook book should propose a menu that combine 1 bowl ( menage ) with 1 food recipe like a curated chef!
- Beautifully presented! you are designing the whole system! this is systemic design, from industrial design, to material innovation design, to systems design
- Design museum in london waste age exhibition Edited
- How can you take this back to the "restaurant" the eating experience?
- Reading wise> systemic design association book
RESEARCH:¶
- Bioplastic Fantastic. Johanna Schmeer
- Fermentation: The New Game-Changer For Alternative Proteins?, Forbes, 2021