[janezhu]

Why are people are having such a visceral reaction to this idea? Finding alternatives to solid, "fresh" food is an issue we will have address in the near future, if not right now. With forecasts about population growth rapidly rising (We said it would reach 10 billion by 2100. It only took 13 years to jump from 6-7 billion.)

This could be implemented not only for hunger in impoverished nations, but for world overpopulation and depletion of resources including livestock and agriculture.

People are commenting this guy is crazy. But in the next few decades I'd rather there was 100 crazy guys trying this for every McDonald's junkie.

[jessaustin]

You're right, but sadly this innovation, if it works, has the potential to make the problem worse. Human population, like any population of any organism, will grow logistically approaching some limiting factor. If we don't like a world in which 10B people are limited by agricultural capacity, we'd like a world in which 100B people are limited by something else even less.

The solution is to find cultural limits lower than our agricultural limits. It's possible that we've already done this, and we won't know it until all of Africa undergoes the demographic transition. (Please note: by cultural limits I mean things like changing family norms rather than forced sterilization, resource-motivated warfare, and other such monstrous practices.)

[ballstothewalls]

Where have I heard this before? Oh that is right! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

Anyway, world hunger right now is not a problem of there not being enough food, it is a problem of food distribution. There is enough arable land in the Democratic Republic of Congo to feed all of Africa, but wars, greed, and other things stop it from happening.