The first annual Summer Climate Kitchen Research Institute was held from June 3-August 15, 2024. Three interdisciplinary teams (including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as in one case, community members), worked in the Foods Lab on inquiry-based projects. The Climate Kitchen team supported these projects throughout the summer. These projects had an (unexpectedly) shared theme: the potential and sensory characteristics of three alternative protein sources - mung beans, meal worms, and cellular meat. 

There was a 3-day introductory workshop for all team members. The workshop integrated the principles of design thinking, the Climate Kitchen sustainability tenets and practical sensory and culinary skills to promote relevant and innovative research strategies. Some of the activities that emerged? Testing different varieties of mung beans and developing a shared sensory map. Cooking and tasting ground beef, ground turkey and ground bison and figuring out the importance of texture to any future form of cell-based meat. Dehydrating meal worms, developing a feasible mealworm flour and taste testing possible high protein breads using the flour. 

Along the way, we also supported the submission of a USDA Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research grant for further research on mealworm flour and product development, one of the projects hosted by the Climate Kitchen Research Institute.

These teams will do ongoing work in the Climate Kitchen over the coming year. 

Over the summer, two undergraduate summer interns developed and tested protocols for using a hydroponic tower to grow herbs for our classes in the fall and spring. The Climate Kitchen team continues the viability of dehydrated food waste for other systems purposes, such as enabling plant growth or becoming a dried vegetable powder for human consumption. 

We plan to host another Summer Climate Kitchen Research Institute from June-August 2025!