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Previous published methods for non-targeted screening of toxins in alternative foods such as leaf concentrate, agricultural residues or plastic fed to biological consortia are time consuming and expensive and thus present accessibility, as well as, time-constraint issues for scientists from under resourced settings to identify safe alternative food...
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... This approach has been used successfully for rapid toxic screening process of the concentrates of the most common leaf in North America, red maple (acer rubrum) (FIA, 2022), concentrates to be used for resilient foods (Pearce et al., 2019). A completely new open-source toolchain has been developed to automate non-targeted screening of toxins (Breuer et al., 2021), which is an effective method to identify potentially harmful compounds in either alternative or resilient foods. This method is used here to do initial screening on nine agricultural plant residues including seven agricultural residues: corn/maize, wheat, barley, alfalfa, yellow pea, sunflower, canola/rapeseed, and two weeds/agricultural residues: kochia and round leaf mallow. ...
... For LC/MS analysis, samples underwent the following procedure similar to Breuer et al. (2021); The agricultural residue concentrate was diluted 12 times in wateracetonitrile 80:20 (v:v). Then, it was filtered with a 0.2 µm quartz filter. ...
... In addition, data-dependent MS/MS fragmentation was recorded for the 5 tallest peaks on each spectral scan with collision energy of 25 (arbitrary unit). This was done to identify co-eluting compounds (Breuer et al., 2021). ...
Background: Potential resilient foods which help reduce hunger are converting the ~998 million tons of agricultural residue generated each year into human edible food. Although it is possible to extract Leaf Protein Concentrate (LPC) from agricultural residues, it is not widely practiced because both toxicity and yields of the protein concentrates have not been widely investigated in the most common agricultural residues.Methods: To fill this knowledge gap, this study uses high-resolution mass spectrometry and an open-source toolchain for non-targeted screening of toxins of nine agricultural plant residues in October 2021; it included seven agricultural residues: corn/maize, wheat, barley, alfalfa, yellow pea, sunflower, canola/rapeseed, and two weeds/agricultural residues of kochia, and round leaf mallow.Results: The average yield ranged from about 7 to 14.5% for the nine LPCs investigated. According to the results, yellow pea, round leaf mallow, and canola are recommended for further investigation and scaling as they appear to be fit for human consumption based on the lack of dangerous toxins found in the analysis performed in this study.Conclusion: All the compounds identified in these samples have either been approved by international regulatory boards for safe consumption or are known to be present in common beverages. The other agricultural residues require additional quantification of the toxins identified as it will determine the actual risk for human consumption. Overall, the potential for LPC to provide more needed calories from existing agricultural practices is extremely promising, but substantial amount of future work is needed to screen LPCs in all the agricultural residues depending on harvesting, handling, and storage conditions.
... An open-source software toolchain was used to analyze the samples. The software included mass spectrometry analysis with MZmine 2, formula assignment with MFAssignR, and data filtering with ToxAssign, which has been previously described in detail in [34]. ToxAssign worked by comparing the existing database of the OpenFoodTox Chemical Hazards achieved by the European Food Safety Authority [35]. ...
In the event of an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario, there is a time window that occurs between when food stores would likely run out for many countries (~6 months or less) and ~1 year when resilient foods are scaled up. A promising temporary resilient food is leaf protein concentrate (LPC). Although it is possible to extract LPC from tree biomass (e.g., leaves and needles), neither the yields nor the toxicity of the protein concentrates for humans from the most common tree species has been widely investigated. To help fill this knowledge gap, this study uses high-resolution mass spectrometry and an open-source toolchain for non-targeted screening of toxins on five common North American coniferous species: Western Cedar, Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Western Hemlock, and Lodgepole Pine. The yields for LPC extraction from the conifers ranged from 1% to 7.5%. The toxicity screenings confirm that these trees may contain toxins that can be consumed in small amounts, and additional studies including measuring the quantity of each toxin are needed. The results indicate that LPC is a promising candidate to be used as resilient food, but future work is needed before LPCs from conifers can be used as a wide-scale human food.
... An Open source software toolchain was used to analyze the samples. The software included mass spectrometry analysis with MZmine 2, formula assignment with MFAssignR, and data filtering with ToxAssign [34]. ToxAssign worked by comparing the existing database of the OpenFoodTox Chemical Hazards achieved by the European Food Safety Authority [35]. ...
In the event of an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario there is a time window that occurs between when food stores would likely run out for many countries (~6 months or less) and ~1 year when resilient foods are scaled up. A promising temporary resilient food is leaf protein concentrate (LPC). Although it is possible to extract LPC from tree biomass (e.g. leaves and needles), neither the yields nor the toxicity of the protein concentrates for humans from the most common tree species has been widely investigated. To help fill this knowledge gap, this study uses high-resolution mass spectrometry and an open source toolchain for non-targeted screening of toxins on five common North American coniferous species: Western Cedar, Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Western Hemlock, and Lodgepole Pine. The yields for LPC extraction from the conifers ranged from 1% to 7.5%. The toxicity screenings confirm that these trees may contain toxins that can be consumed in small amounts and additional studies including measuring the quantity of each toxin are needed. The results indicate that LPC is a promising candidate to be used as resilient food, but future work is needed before LPCs from conifers can be used as a wide-scale human food.
... With the great potential for alternative proteins to provide solutions to challenges faced by traditional agriculture, there is a need for rapid prototyping of different alternative protein sources. Further experiments in high-resolution chemical analysis can be used to provide insights into the potential presence of toxins in foods [94,104]. These methods may serve as an initial screen for the identification of candidate isolates and consortia that produce toxin-free biomass from conversion of waste streams into SCP. ...
Most polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste is landfilled or pollutes the environment. Additionally, global food production must increase to support the growing population. This article explores the feasibility of using microorganisms in an industrial system that upcycles PET into edible microbial protein powder to solve both problems simultaneously. Many microorganisms can utilize plastics as feedstock, and the resultant microbial biomass contains fats, nutrients, and proteins similar to those found in human diets. While microbial degradation of PET is promising, biological PET depolymerization is too slow to resolve the global plastic crisis and projected food shortages. Evidence reviewed here suggests that by coupling chemical depolymerization and biological degradation of PET, and using cooperative microbial communities, microbes can efficiently convert PET waste into food.
Food insecurity is a pressing global concern; concurrently, plastic pollution has emerged as a growing crisis on a worldwide scale. To address both of these issues, we propose a sustainable chemical and biological technology that converts end-of-life plastics into edible, microbial-origin food. We delve into the utilization of microbes, enriched from native microbiomes and engineered through rational metabolic design, to achieve plastic degradation. We also discussed the utilization of microbial biomass as a source of food, and further explore the customization of microbes to enhance the safety, nutritional value, and overall health benefits of the food. Furthermore, we provide insights into the future directions and implications of food production from waste streams.
