Plastic cookie anyone?

I read about some futuristic food research recently that got me to thinking about “food for the future” — particularly if our future includes paved-over cornfields and pastures that grow condominiums, data centers and traffic jams and no crops, no meats, no fruits, no veggies. 

A glance into the cornucopia of foods available at any supermarket today makes worrying about food’s future seem a needless worry. But, nothing is limitless and that includes productive farmland.

An internet inquiry shows that since the 1950s, agricultural land in the United States has been steadily decreasing from 1.2 billion acres to roughly 875 million in 2025. Approximately 325 million acres have been converted from agricultural land to non-agricultural land. That is approximately 507,812.5 square miles, or a land area comparable to the size of Texas. A majority of the acres lost are around large metropolitan areas for housing developments, large warehouse facilities, and different infrastructures such as roads.

That annual loss of farmland shows no signs of slowing or stopping. So, where does it end? And, too often it’s the best of farmland that’s lost, not the marginally productive acres.

All this brings me back to “future food.” In the event we turn all arable land on this planet into barren blacktop incapable of growing food, humankind may have to resort to reaping what we sowed by eating our own plastic pollution. 

I’m not kidding, sort of. A team of researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale just demonstrated that “plastic food” is possible by using specially engineered yeast to create tasty — and yes, edible — cookies which the researchers 3D printed out of plastic waste. The yeast breaks down the components of plastic compounds and agricultural byproducts like discarded plant stalks into proteins, fats, acids, and flavorings that we can eat. When these are combined together, the mixture is fed into a 3D printer that spits out cookies of any desired shape. 

The researchers used gene-editing technology to reprogram yeast strains to eat polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a widely used form of plastic commonly found in disposable water bottles, food packaging, and clothes, which is rich with carbon. Before the yeast can start feasting, the PET plastics are subjected to a complex chemical process to break them down into smaller bits that the microbes can digest. The purported advantage of this approach is that it’s environmentally friendly, using only heat, water and oxygen. 

The yeast feasts on these stripped-down plastic bits, turning them into a slurry of proteins, fats, and acids that are combined with fiber, starch, and sweetener to make them more palatable. One of the yeast strains in particular was able to turn plant biomass into tasty vanilla flavorings. 

Now, all this “plastic foods” research is in its infancy. And, I’m sure it’s way too pricey for widespread use — yet. But, if we continue to lose farmland, someday when we’re hungry, a plastic cookie might be the only thing on the menu.

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Now, let’s flip the table from the subject of stomach-churning FrankenFoods to the good stuff that continues to emerge from my garden. I’ve a story to tell about raising cantaloupe. I consider myself a fair-to-middling gardener, but, truth told, I’ve never been very good at raising melons, berries or fruit. Well, surprise of all surprises, this year I have a glut of cantaloupes, including a whopper I harvested this week that topped the scales at 10.5 pounds. It wuz bigger than a soccer ball. 

The story is how I grew them all. They were all from volunteer plants that grew from some seed from a purchased cantaloupe that I discarded last fall into a pile of soil I’d finished composting. When I topped off my raised beds with new soil last spring, the volunteer cantaloupe plants came up in a lot of places. As I watched them grow early, they looked healthy, so I transplanted some into one bed and left other plants to grow where they sprouted. Well, they all thrived. The squash bugs never found them. We’ve eaten all the cantaloupe we need and have given away a bunch to friends and family, and there’s still more to ripen. Seems Mother Nature knows how to grow better cantaloupe than I do.

However, the zucchini plants finally matured and I pulled and composted the plants yesterday. Still harvesting lots of dried beans and lima beans. And, I’ve got okra a’plenty for ourselves and anyone else who wants any. 

I’ve got some fall green beans growing and I’ve still to plant some fall radishes and greens. But, sadly, the end of the 2026 gardening season is just round the corner. Our three massive flower beds of zinnia’s are absolutely lovely accents in the backyard.

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I spent last week recovering from a strange bout of the summer creeping crud flu. Nevah had it, too, but recovered faster than me. It wuzn’t how we planned to celebrate 62 years of marriage.

However, one happy thing happened. The Kansas City Royals won every game while I wuz sick. They’ve now won nine games in a row and 10 out of 11. I’ve learned that enjoying baseball is as easy as getting up, watching the game, celebrating a win, and going back to bed. Then repeat the sequence the next day. Easy, peasy!

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I called my illness the flu. It also goes by a long list of rather unsavory names such as the dire rear, the runs, the trots, the squirts, the Green Apple Quickstep, the High-Stepping Outhouse Waltz, the Van Dittens and others. Frankly, it’s just diarrhea which means “danged inconvenient as rectum reaches high evacuative action.” 

Those are my words of wisdom for the week. Have a good ‘un.