I'd never heard of Euglena until I came across this item on motherboard. The article explains how a Japanese company is tranforming this organism from a trendy (in Japan at least) nutritional supplement into the world's next superfood.
And aviation biofuel. And CO2 absorber to combat global warming.
And it's apparently good for smooth skin and lustrous hair.
Sound too good to be true? Follow me below
Euglena is a single-celled organism that has both plant and animal characteristics. It is green, due to chlorophyll, and can photosynthesize. So it can produce sugars from sunlight, like a plant or autotroph. It also has two little tails called a flagella for mobility, and a red eyespot to see. So it can also surround a particle of food and consume it, like an animal or heterotroph.
It actually resembles the character Plankton on the SpongeBob cartoon
It can survive in both fresh and marine water. Here's what it really looks like
Since it's neither animal or plant, it's classified as a protist.
You can already eat it
Euglena is currently sold as a dietary supplement. It's not popular here in the states, but I scored some euglena bars in a Japanese market in Los Angeles. The Japanese moniker for euglena is 'midorimushi', which loses something in literal translation to 'green bug'. That might account for the lack of American consumer enthusiasm. That and the fact it tastes much like spirulina, with a slight fishyness. Spirulina's an algae that's used in bottled green smoothies that are popular here in the states.
Despite both being green and grassy-tasting, there are some remarkable differences between euglena and green 'superfoods' such as spirulina. As a protist, it produces both plant and animal lipids, and is high in antioxidant vitamins A, C, E. Euglena also makes the carbohydrate paramylum beta-glucan. It's paramylum's touted properties as an immune system booster and chloresterol reducer that make euglena-fortified products so popular in Japan. There's also some evidence that paramylum helps heal wounds.
From the Euglena company website:
Euglena contains almost all of the necessary nutrients that human body needs which makes it a potential functional food component.
1 g of Euglena contains a rich array of nutrients:
・Beta carotene equivalent to 7 pickled plums (50 g)
Vitamin B12 equivalent to 50 g of cow liver
Folic acid equivalent to 1 sardine
Zinc equivalent to 50 g of clams
DHA equivalent to 50 g of broiled eel
While it would be difficult to deliver this much food to the world’s malnourished people, it is much more realistic to deliver these nutrients with just 5 Euglena tablets.
Well of course they'd say that. But Euglena Corp. is currently
partnering with the Bangladeshi government on a program in which the company will set up a plant in the country to produce euglena-based protein biscuits, to be distributed for free to school-aged children.
“Just 50 grams of biscuit a day can supplement the child’s standard diet with all the protein, and all the necessary minerals, fatty acids and vitamins they need,” says Izumo. “We calculate that the cost will come to just 10 yen — 10 cents — per day. Everything will be manufactured in Bangladesh, by Bangladeshis. Because their tastes are different from Japanese, and we want to make sure these are made for local tastes, or otherwise, the children won’t eat them.”
Company CEO Mitsuru Izumo
Can you put it in your gas tank?
Using algae as a renewable feedstock for biofuel is something US companies like Solazyme are currently working on. But euglena is already more efficient at producing oil than these genetically-engineered algaes. And euglena oil is more easily refined. It's an indication of the forward-thinking of this company in that they are not developing a gasoline product, on the assumption that the cars and trucks of the future will run on electricity. Rather, they are developing aviation fuels, since it is doubtful that planes will run on anything else. Like Solazyme, Euglena Corp. faces some serious hurdles in scalability in order to harvest the massive amount of organisms necessary to produce fuel.
A way to combat global warming?
But what intrigued me the most was the role this little 'green bug' could play in reducing global warming. In 2009, the Euglena Co. experimented with the of absorption of CO2 mixed in the exhausts of a thermal (coal) power plant located in Okinawa. The exhaust gas was fed into a euglena culture tank and researchers documented higher growth rates. Euglena just might evolve into a biological CO2 scrubber for energy plants, with the benefits of nutritious food production.
Why is this news now?
Euglena's been around for eons and it's beneficial properties has long been know by man. From the WSJ interview with Euglena Co. president Mitsuru Izumo:
Before our innovation, euglena could be grown in clean rooms a few liters at a time,” says Izumo. “We are able to produce them in outdoor cultivation ponds, currently at the rate of 140 tons a week
From a
2011 investors conference:
In truth, our concept of saving the world through Euglena is not original. Professors at the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Agriculture have published mountains of research articles on this topic over the past 50 years. Despite this, no one has ever achieved mass cultivation of Euglena. The accepted practice in previous studies was that Euglena must be cultured under aseptic conditions, and thus our predecessors repeatedly made the mistake of destroying the Euglena if other microalgaes got into the culture.
We were able to successfully cultivate Euglena on a large scale by reproducing the natural living environment of Euglena.
Almost all of us drive a gas-powered car. Most of us eat cheeseburgers. We all currently enjoy a somewhat 'normal' climate. But in the future, I'm not so that the things we take for granted now will still be around. It always seems like Japan exists a little bit in the future, so maybe this is an indication of things to come. As a former cook, I would imagine dressing up plankton as a meal would be a tall order. As much a challenge as grasshoppers and liquid-cultured meats. But I hear Reni Redzepi is
serving up live ants in yogurt at Noma, and they have a one year waiting list. Euglena may seem like something served at a commissary on Mars, but until we get there, maybe the Martian commissary will be right here.
