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#3: The Future of Food with Dr Morgaine Gaye
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#3: The Future of Food with Dr Morgaine Gaye

It underpins our society and the way that we live, the way we share. We commune, it's cultural, it's religious, it's societal. It's everything that we do. But it's also - as I say - just dinner. And so it has lots of meanings and it has, in some ways, no meaning at all.

In this episode, fellow adventurers, we’re exploring the future of food, glorious food.

I talk to food futurologist Dr Morgaine Gaye about her trend forecasting that supports innovation at global brands like Unilever, Mondelez and Mars. Our conversation is wide-ranging and lively - you’ll hear Morgaine’s rarely-shared predictions for future themes in our food, find out how she became a futurologist, confront what Dr Gaye believes will be an extended period of disruption and unearth newer, clearer connections between fashion, technology, geopolitics and broad societal change.

I hope you enjoy our conversation and take something away that you can apply in your life and in your conversations :)

Please shout with any feedback you have, and if you liked the podcast, do give us a rating - I truly appreciate it.

Onwards!

WM

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Automated transcript

Will McInnes  03:10

I was thinking before this, it would just be brilliant. To get a sense of your story. Like how, how did you get to being a food futurologist? You don't like this question!

Dr Morgaine Gaye  03:25

Oh, goodness, this is the hard. This is the hardest of all questions, really, I think like most people, they end up doing a job that they didn't expect to be doing. And I also believe that the thing that we think about trying to avoid is the thing that we draw to us. And definitely, as a teenager, might you know what this the only subjects I really hated at school was what we used to call home economics, which was sort of cooking and sewing and I really didn't like it at all, and I had some horrible disasters that really, were soul destroying in the cookery class where I ended up with the largest 10 on everybody else got the tins first for the Victoria sponge, I got the I got I got the 10 that was too big. So my Victoria sponge never met in the middle. And it was just like a thin wisp of emptiness in the middle and it was, I mean the whole thing itself must have been less than a centimetre thick. It was a poor link like a pancake. And I didn't even take it home was just horrible. So so those are those sorts of food experiences. And my mother was a butcher and my father was a bodybuilder who a power lifter actually and used to sort of want to bulk up so would be eating baby food has calories back in those days and all of the things that you could do to gain weight so there's a lot of I found mealtimes with the family really stressful. I didn't like it. I was always forced to eat things I didn't want to hear I just food was just for me, not a pleasant space. And I definitely remember thinking that is definitely not a place. I want to go Don't want to be involved in food whatsoever and low and low Here we are. But I do think that really my title food futurologists is a little bit of a red herring because the food part does make people think that I am eating my way around fabulous restaurants in the world or know a lot about cooking or, and really that is the very small end of the wedge of what I do, which is a lot more, I suppose, anthropological or distich trend forecasting. So I'm looking at lots of other things in order to forecast and think about future scenarios. And food is is the biggest part because of course, it underpins our society and the way that we live the way we share. We, we commune, it's cultural, it's religious, it's societal. It's everything that we do. But it's also it is also as I say, it's just dinner. And so it has lots of meanings and it has, in some ways, no meaning at all. So it's So food really is this like I said this small part of it.

Will McInnes  06:03

I love it. Oh this is gonna be such a good conversation. So because as you say food is so universal and it has so much power and and yet at the same time as you brilliantly put it it's just dinner How did you go from that fabulous sort of set up and the wispy Victoria sponge and into the world of trend forecasting and tell us tell us a few, just a little bit of the some of the steps that that or the way that you When did your way to to where you are now.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  06:36

I think, of course when you look back you see the connections we all do. And at school even during this time of my appalling cooking, I will I was doing things that like school pop psychology age 12 was, I would with my friends, I would say to them for them not to buy sweets and ice cream with their pocket money. Say that just imagine that you don't have these sweets. In fact, if you take this five minutes of your time when you've eaten those sweets, or buy the sweets, eat the sweets as five minutes of your life. Let's condense those five minutes, pretend that you've had those sweets, and then you've saved that money. I wrote, for me, it was like genius. So, I was sort of trying to get my friends to live in a future space. And think about things differently. So so in that way, I was probably slightly doing what I'm doing now and friends now who've sort of seen what I do probably much later on, because I'm not in touch with them have said, Oh, you will like that at school of that's the sort of stuff that you were you were at school, used to wear really weird clothes unlike anybody else. And it wasn't that I was sort of a social outcast. But that possibly I was slightly they used to say you're ahead of the curve. I don't know that for sure. But that's what they were. So that would be what they'd sort of say. So I suppose that somewhere inherently, I had this idea that time is important, and we can, and we, as human beings can think about time in a different way and position ourselves in a different future. And then life moved on. And I guess that after many different trials of things that I thought I would do, because I thought I would be an artist, I didn't want to have a job which would leave me on my own, I wanted something that would connect with people. And I couldn't figure out how to do that in an art form that would also give me a living. So I wasn't very astute at sort of putting those things together. And I think that it really the kind of the icing on the cake of how I became this is a really dear, this is a real terrible cover blow. But my friend who obviously knew that I had these different qualities that's called different qualities at this point, as she was making a progress Which is somewhere Google Hubble somewhere for BBC Worldwide, and it was about the future. And it was called business 2025, which is still the future. There's a it was a long, long time into the future at that point, as opposed to five years. And they needed an extra expert on the show. And on the show, they had some serious sort of older men who for me, I mean, I was at that point in my probably early 30s. And there were men on there who were in their late 50s. And they seemed a lot older than me at that point, I sort of low hairless and things like that. And, and they were these are experts in the future of tech and the future of other things. And she said, I'd like to sit on this panel, here are the six topics. You've got two days to think of a proposition about these six topics into into 2025. And what you what your personal opinion about this future is. And then I went on the show, and they gave me a title and the title was futurology. Just so that was the beginning of that, really is that she gave me a title. And I thought, okay, I can I can do that. And I held my own against these guys. And I just thought, well, maybe I couldn't I can do this. I don't know. That's sort of it. Rather,

Will McInnes  10:17

it's a great, it's a great story. And I'm sure there's so much more. But it's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that and to hear, to hear from, from those early days at school that you are always a bit of a future gazer and seeing the world slightly differently and, and trying to get people around you to put themselves somewhere else.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  10:38

Yeah, I mean, just trying to trying to think I think for me, it was about thinking about things. That was General and then my PhD was about thinking about things and how things connect. And I think that was just a setup really for doing what I do. I'm connecting lots of things. My my, the most important thing about what I do is to challenge people's thinking I'd open their minds and then it's up to them what they do with that knowledge really.

Will McInnes  11:04

And tell us about your PhD, what what was the PhD on or about

Dr Morgaine Gaye  11:11

the, the idea of the PhD was looking at the way things connect, and it started off sort of trying to be in the realm of quantum mechanics, but that was a little bit difficult. So then it moved into a philosophical place where I was connecting seemingly random things. Number Number in nature, basically, what is the foundation of our existence? And how can we connect to that and how can we connect that to lots of perhaps unrelated things, and then create a, a map for, for existence and connection,

Will McInnes  11:50

and so forth? Amazing.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  11:52

So so it was it was, it was, for me life changing and the stuff that I learned, I didn't write it all because what I learned the really the main thing I learned is how to get a PhD. And I think maybe a lot of people who do a PhD, figure that out, it's not really about the definitely not about the learning, it's about how you communicate the learning. So the second if you did a second PhD would take half the time, because you'd realise what is it that they want? And how can I deliver that and I sort of faffing around learning interesting things for myself way too long, and eventually got a PhD out of it.

Will McInnes  12:26

So the story builds and so in your PhD, although the bulk of it, as you put it was about learning how to communicate the PhD or the learning, learning how to communicate the learning. The essence of it was about again, about connection. So it sounds like it sounds like core to your work is is Connecting, Connecting ideas, connecting things, challenging people by connecting their brains to an alternative future.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  12:55

Yes, I think I think connection probably is the root of everything that I do. Because I'm seeing what everybody else sees I'm, but I'm almost like that game where you're turning over those cards and you're trying to match, match the ball with the bicycle or the umbrella and then you turn them back and you try to match the pair. That's really what I'm doing all the time. I'm holding things in this Rolodex of mind and waiting to see a match and think, oh, that's really interesting, because that thing in close connects with this thing in food. And that to me relates to something that the government said about a new something or other in the future of linking things and trying to make sense of them trying to develop a premise and then prove a future scenario.

Will McInnes  13:40

Now you are a food futurologist What wouldn't he us? Yes. Officially, official, official food futurologist approved. I'm hoping our listeners don't even know that that's a thing. And now they're starting to think oh, yeah, of course. It's a thing and I would love them to get a glimpse. into the you know what, what does a brief look like? Or what what might what projects have you worked on that they might have devoured? Or you know, what, what can you help us understand about that work?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  14:11

So it typically, it's, gosh, it feeds into many areas of what people do eat, drink, experience some because sometimes it'll be in the media. So of course, we're being fed, which is a perfect word really. We're being fed information. We're being fed food we're being we're, were in taking all of this, this future where we are, we're inhaling the future all the time. And so it's what we read. It's what we see. It's what we we connect with other people on the internet. It's our aspirations. It's how we speak to other people about what we're up to. It's like, Oh, I'm dehydrating my own salmon in the airing cupboard or whatever it is, you know. So people are wanting to be an experience the next new thing and food is a great vehicle for that. because it enables people to show status. So you only have to go around a supermarket and have a look what somebody else has got in their trolley. And it's already easy to make a judgement like value meal for one, you know, that kind of thing. So, so we know we're doing that all the time with food so, so my work can be with a brand who typically wants to reinvent their brand. So they might have a really well known food product that they have been making for decades that's really popular, but they realise that they want to do something new or it needs innovation, it needs updating. So I'll do a trend briefing around that particular area. So for example, what could happen for Cadbury in children's snacking, so I will do a children's snacking trend briefing which will be one hour in the future of children snacking. And then we might either innovate some new products, or we might take a product that already exists within their product portfolio and revamp it and this this this Sort of quick word of revamping takes about three years. So from the complete innovation, ideation, packaging, branding, all of the positioning the massive checks and balances on everything from health and food safety to, to where this will be positioned. And just every single thing about the product. It's very in depth food, unlike fashion fashion, which can be turned around in six weeks. Food is a minimum of 18 months.

Will McInnes  16:27

Make sense? So let's go to perhaps the more fun place than what is actually genuinely exciting to you, at the moment,

Dr Morgaine Gaye  16:38

who so many. I mean, I think the world is exciting at the moment. I think it's just an incredible time that we are on this planet at this time. And I sort of believe that everyone who's alive right now, obviously has some kind of capability to process change and be able to be a witness to This cataclysmic times I mean, we are for I think, 4000 years we have been living in this time of having and accumulating, and this whole, the whole consciousness of humanity has been about having. And we're moving into knowing, and knowing on a much bigger scale, so not just brain knowledge and AI, but also self knowing, human knowing, interconnected knowing of our species and of the world species. So it's, it's, it's so exciting. So I'm excited about that. But as part of that, the ingredients I would say that are exciting or interesting to me as water, I think that we're going to understand what's in our water supply, how we can manipulate water in a better way, how we can live with water in a better way and understand water. And that goes from of course, all the pollution in the ocean, to write down to tap water, how we can how we're using that What's the stuff we shower in? What are the chemicals that we're using filtration systems, the way that what water wants to be stored, it doesn't want to be stored in linear shapes it wants to be stored in sort of vortex of, of inverted x shapes really is the perfect shape for water. So we'll understand all of that. So I think like waters really interesting. I think air is just surprisingly the, of course, right now we're much more focused on the airway, breathing and how it's contaminated. But air is a future ingredient, or a present future ingredient is really where the money is because it's free, but it matters. And it fully Mises and it gives texture and texture is the thing really, that divides our preferences. So we often think that we don't like things because of the taste, but often for us, the defining thing that stops us liking something is texture, and that can be cultural. So for the, for example, that the Chinese Chinese law tend to like slimy texture. They're slimy, that's good. Whereas if you were British, you might think slimy, that's not good. So, so air is a great texturizer. And it will change our ability to take a food that we might not like because it's slimy, like avocado, and profit with air, and then we've got crunchy avocado bites. So we ended up being able to take something we don't like, but also volumize something so we fill a bag for cheaper, we can fill a bag, you know, with a couple of bits of avocado, because we've popped it with there. So I think those those ingredients are exciting. I think there's some really fun stuff happening in in 3d printing where we can make something that looks like Lego sushi out of sushi ingredients. So it looks like a digital image of sushi. But it's real. It's just messes with your mind in terms of playfulness. I think there's a lot of play in that 3d printing space. So I'd say those those things are

Will McInnes  20:00

fun, really interesting, I would never have thought of 3d printing in the context of food and water and air elements, you know, fundamentals that we that we take for granted.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  20:14

And the fundamentals right now are where our focuses because we are we really becoming much more concerned and connected with, with earth with rewilding with nature with wanting to connect with that. One of the things I predict, which I think is starting to happen now is people wanting to go of cities, people will move, there'll be an exodus from as opposed to cities, because people are realising that that connection with nature is so so key and so essential, and it's what people have reconnected to during lockdown, I think, and it's become a big part of people's conversations and focus. So that's definitely part of our future future motifs, patterns, interests. It's such as reconnecting with nature. So

Will McInnes  21:04

how does that come to life? How would you? How do you see that panning out? You mentioned leaving cities which I've seen a couple of examples of contacts of mine professionally, moving away and friends speculating that houses will be chosen more on you know, less on the exact location and proximity to a city and more on how is their space to work from home and can I get out and do the things I want to do mountain biking or whatever it happens to be? And you mentioned fashion motifs patterns like how does this return to nature come alive in your mind?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  21:42

in all our because food doesn't exist in a vacuum so that we are looking at everything across casually so homes, interiors, fashion, surface textures, every single thing that we exist within? Is that real expressing expressing the earth it's a bye failure. It's it's trying to connect inside and outside so that we will want much more of an integrated outside space inside space. Inside growing countertop growing, outside living, I think there's been a massive surge in garden furniture and garden games or whatever that might mean sort of hot tubs and trampolines and all of that. We're already seeing it. And it's just this this sense that we, we are, I think we up until now we've spent a long time feeling like humans and nature as though we are separate from nature. And I think that what we're going towards is this connection between humans as nature and it will make a massive difference. So these patterns will be patterns of tree barks, things made from tree bark materials made from bark, we will be like you know, it will feel like leather, but lots of use of waste materials way more so that we take orange peel and we can make a beautiful From it or we take used bamboo and we can make packaging from that will take mushrooms and it will be the will we have the mushroom colours but we'll have something that has maybe a mushroom motif and also we'll be drinking more mushroom tea and then we'll be using mushroom for packaging and building materials so that we see food and nature becoming integrated every element of our life

Will McInnes  23:25

so enjoyable hearing you talk and and my signups as a firing I'm seeing things and it's exciting me about how this world how this world changes before us and I agree with you like it's such an interesting time to be alive. We are we are witnessing such strange or full beautiful, crazy. I don't know is it disruption is it phase changes are the chickens coming home to Bruce, it feels incredible. And I guess making sense of it is making sense of it. It's pretty hard, but making or do you do not find it hard to make sense of all of this?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  24:12

For me, I was talking about this yesterday, actually to a couple of friends that for the last eight years, my job has been to map the disruption trend. So for me, it's been definitely happening since 2012, the collapse of things that we have held esteemed, or that we could just trust and believe. So whether that was no and it's it turns out in sex sex scandals, its horsemeat scandal, it's everything that it's almost like I always think of it almost like the Wizard of Oz, and you pull back the curtain and it's a little old man operating it all. It's been like that. And we've been leading up to this time, and I use the example which I think was in 2012, where there was the volcano eruption in Iceland. And if you remember that you remember that with In a week, people were fighting for bread on the shelves at the supermarket. There was barely anything left. And that really was a signal right then that we almost had a preview. I think that was very much a preview of what was to come like, here we are. With one week without flights coming in. And look at the state of us. We've already turned into an anon community minded, unpleasant human beings fighting for more than we need. And we actually don't even have our needs met. Suddenly, the basic needs were taken away within a week of there being a problem with the flight. So that was a preview, but we just because we're human, we go, Oh, yeah, we'll just get back to normal it'll be fine. And then we get the big stick, you know, get the same again, but bigger and we get the same again and bigger until we listen. And here we are. And the big stick was always for me. 2020 I don't think it's any surprise. It's 2020 vision. I just think 2020 This is when we actually see it all. And when you say that, you know the chickens come home to roost. Okay. This is a This is really a global experience of what it looks like when things fall apart. Who are we? How do we behave? What's our capacity to change? And, and so this whole time the last the last eight years have been in this disruption phase. And then the almost the massive breakdown and the the global life changing events that affect everybody are 2022 2021. So my predictions, this was always coming. And that's why, as I said, there's a an example of me speaking about a year and a half ago where I'm showing masks and people in hazmat suits and talking about how the air will be very valuable and it will be concerned about these things about our safety and protection will be the biggest conversation how do we protect ourselves, how to protect the environment, excuse me, and, and so that this was always is going to come. And of course straight out of the gate 2020 we had the fires the bush fires Australia which have killed species and decimated massive part of Australian wildlife. And then and then the next thing we've got COVID and then we've got the Black Lives Matter, which really, you know, of course, there's been horrible deaths in custody and, and, and in the past and treatment of people of colour, but nothing's really shaken things like now. It's almost like now when things get shaken. It's on a whole nother level. And that's what we're going to see on everything. And we're in July. We're halfway through the year. We've already had a big year and this is I say to people don't think Oh, well. Good. We've got that out the way now we can just get back to the new normal No, forget that. Because there's a next thing coming and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing until we it's like Armageddon we need to be we the ashes will be what we pick up and we say right what are we actually left with what are we left with as a as a people as a potential? And what's good and what can be retrieved? And what can we recreate and co create to go forward into a better space because we've done a pretty shitty shitload of things up until now we've done some amazing things of course we have, but we've got lost and things have got lost. And, and it's not really about a this is not it's not my my job to make people feel like bad or, or this is what you should be doing because it's not my it's not necessarily about my opinion, my opinion doesn't really matter. It's this is what's happening. This is what will happen. And these are and the reasons why these things will happen and what I show for my job, and it's just that our focus will completely shift and it's shifting. And this is the beginning of that shift.

Will McInnes  28:50

I find it so compelling when you when you hit that stride, it's it's it's it makes a lot of sense. What what Where do we go next, then what, in divisions that you've outlined and that you've, you know, been recorded on camera talking about? If If it's not going to relent yet? What does are there phases or shifts in the future? Or should I just strap in? Order extra toilet roll, get my well sharpen my Hunter, like prepare.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  29:28

I think preparedness actually, all that all the trends that I would speak about what all towards 2020 really the thing was, this is this is to 2020 let's get to 2020. This is going to be our focus. For me now, what I'm looking at my trends that I've been working on during lockdown have been what happens from where are we from 2021 to 2027 28? What what's that look like? And actually, I have Oh, did you hear that? Did you hear that?

Will McInnes  29:57

Was that a train? Yeah, yeah. Talking to a food futurologists chewing in the background. I know

Dr Morgaine Gaye  30:04

and this is London in the future or the past, I don't know, I just felt like I went to the railway children for a moment. So I've got seven big sort of category of trends for the future. And in the first one, which I am calling survival, because this is going to be a big part of things. One of the sub trends in that is preparedness. And so exactly the things that you mentioned, are key. It's for people to understand, and people will be doing this naturally. Absolutely. They'll be doing this about what it is that they need to be prepared. It's almost like a self contained potential. Do they do they have a food source? Do they have a way that if thing if we had locked down again, How different would it be for them? because they'd have a different preparation? Could they work from home? Of course they could, because that's set up now. What other things would they have in place? What is that network? I mean, one of the things that I do talked about in the past, for this time and going forward would be the value of our social network. Because that will be and has been really for lots of people their Lifeline during this lockdown. It's been people's real lifeline. I mean for some people to get grocery shopping done. It's been that it's been their lifeline. And that's just you know, that that's one example. Of course, there's loads of examples because of mental health, our wellness, our holistic wellness, I'll give you some sort of top line, things about the future trends, just words really, that I look at So, so touch lists, what touchless society will be, preparedness, the home as a sanctuary, soothing, self soothing, restorative setting, how do we restore and pause the instinct, what how we understand our natural instinct. There's something about wandering because we're moving into this age of uncertainty. So that being anchored might To not be what people choose going forward, because their investment in stuff will be less, less interesting, less focused. And for them, it will be about the freedom and the quality of themselves of their life. I talked about eco futurism. So at which I mentioned the rewilding transformation, we're going to see a lot of things in that sort of trace mysticism type space, which we haven't seen in the mainstream before. So these internal mechanisms and this idea of wonder, so that a little bit like childlike wonder at things in nature and things that we can't see what about those things that we can't see and understanding, understanding that more humanity a massive focus on humanity, about feeling good and belonging and sharing and what that starts to look like? These are real top line by the way, and then what I would like to call the fundamentals as a mean by that is the fun In the in the Playhouse, so it's the fundamentals in the Playhouse. We're going to want to go to these this idea of texture and comfort. We want comfort, and we want to feel comforted. And we want to feel joy and play. And we're going to go towards that. So on the one hand, we're going into this very minimal essentialism. Natural, pared down minimal place. And on the flip side of that, it's going to be, it's going to be fancy dress and, and fun, and it's going to include nostalgia, because that gives us comfort. And there's going to be a lot of ideas of this fluffy, puffy, sort of marshmallowy soft hug machines, and there will be hug machines, because some people will be worried about other people touching us, you know, so we have to have our own personal hug, hug system. There'd be all sorts of fun for all sorts of fun things.

Will McInnes  34:00

Wow, a hug machine.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  34:04

Would you like would you like one john?

Will McInnes  34:11

This is this is incredible and such so enjoyable to listen to you and to think about all of this. My brain is my brain is fizzing. I have agency to indulge in a lot of this to be more prepared to I was lucky to be able to work from home. What what? What does it look like? In your view for the for the less privilege,

Dr Morgaine Gaye  34:36

my job isn't really necessarily to see how it's going to be for different parts of the society because really, when I give these top lines that I'm drilling down into possibly real examples of what that looks like, I suppose we're looking at an aesthetic and an aspiration for everyone. So rather than the aspiration being, Oh, I'd like a new car and a new watch. The aspiration will be The things I talked about. So the good, the good news for people who are less fortunate to have a lower income or less mobility is that nature for them is free, pretty much so that people can get to a green space, they can grow a plant in their home, that there are some very simple things that don't cost the money of the previous aspirations. So in some level, that's a great thing, in terms of working from home, and that not being a possibility, obviously, one of the things that happens when we're going through a massive disruption as we are now is that things get extremely difficult, which is why there is civil unrest, which is why there is social uprising, which for for different people for different reasons, that people's people's status quo, people's fundamentals are shifted. And it's very frightening for a lot of people for very different reasons for many different people. I mean, even people with money can be very frightened by these. It's just, it's challenging. It's challenging for everyone for different reasons. But one of the things that we are doing and that we will be doing, we already seen it, we are celebrating, we're celebrating cleaners. And we've set people who've never been celebrated the invisible people who are supporting society, the binmen. And suddenly, they're, you know, they're getting a shout out every day, or every week, which they never have before. And celebrities are getting less fake, like less time, less focus, as we focus our attention on key workers. And so already we're seeing a rise in that balance because our future focus will be on kindness. And that's how we're going to value people in our culture. It's about the work they do so the unsung heroes for want of a better phrase Really?

Will McInnes  36:53

Yeah, and so those people will definitely for the first time, get some airtime and get some get be seen wonderful. We haven't touched on do you think about space? You know, like Ilan Musk is launching rockets. And it sounds actually like your work is your processes leading you much more to Earth than to space,

Dr Morgaine Gaye  37:12

I suppose I'm looking at trends which, which have actually incorporated space in the past, some of the trends have been much more about the notions of space, it's funny about about space and our notion of space, which are not the same thing. So that we often think of, we often think of space as silver. And we think it's shiny, and we have ideas of what space is, and so we incorporate that. So, and we had a whole phase of that in the 60s, when we had lots of things that were to do with space, but we were singing about space. We had the whole us space missions and first man on the moon, everything was really focused and it had a real look. And so space has a look for us has an aesthetic really, and we have been actually have we had a little bit of that. A few years ago, but but I suppose I've looked at I've thought about space in different ways in terms of, really, in this future when we're talking about knowing. One of the things really is if we're talking about war in the future, it's the war of knowledge. It's the war of knowing. And it's the space wars. Because that's really what the fight is, for now, people have given up with trying to put a flag in a country and say, you know, this bit of land is mine. And what they want to do is say, This planet is mine. This bit of this, this platform that's floating around whichever planet is ours, this are we our country on that bit of space. And so I think really, that's space was even thinking about the things like flying drones, and who owns that space, who owns the airspace. I think that there's going to be a lot of conversation about that. But I'm not sure that our focus in the next few years will be that, of course it's happening, but it's not happening to the average person and I don't think it's the person's thought process or focus, where we are trying to get this earth sorted. Because if we don't sort this earth and most people can be saying to get me a ticket out of here,

Will McInnes  39:09

you're right. I do think of spaces silver and shiny. That's that's, that's fine.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  39:15

There's a wonderful perfumier in New York who's developed a fragrance called space. Moondust. Oh my goodness. And it smells like Oh, it smells like it smells like moon dust. I mean, you think yeah, that's what that's what the moon smells like. It's great. It's really great. I mean, to go and smell it.

Will McInnes  39:34

Love it. And what's your favourite meal?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  39:38

Oh, I'm so rubbish at things like this. I'm I really like I'm sorry. I really like seaweed. Big fantasy weed. Big fantasy with seaweed. I do quite a lot of big plays seaweed. Yeah, I do. I like Japanese food a lot. I like salads a lot. I like variety. So I mean, like tap Because as you get a little bit of everything rather than a big dinner, I don't like a big dinner. And I don't like anything that's got this, which I've called wet food, which apparently is a very British thing with food because I had a comedian do is the first time a few weeks ago had this amazing South African comedian say that one of the things that he noticed about the UK was that everything was wet. Because he was like I heard like it said, you know, baked beans. Yeah, that sounds really good like beans that have been baked in and then they come in it's like wet sauce. Like, like yeah, then you said what's wrong with the biscuit and then they dip it in their tea to make it wet? Why would you do that? The best thing about biscuit is crispy. And he went through all of the list of wet things. I think I am totally on there. I hate gravy, wet things. Slight slippery. All of the wet foods. Yeah. So I'm not a fan of the wet food, food, dry food, dry food.

Will McInnes  40:47

Like dog biscuits. You know that kind of. Okay. And one other gimmicky question before we before we start to come to a close. What will I be eating in two or three years second, he sighing What will I be eating in two or three years time that I'm not eating right now? Something something new.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  41:06

I don't fully know what you're eating now. But will you eat a lot of wet food? Okay, right, you'll be a lot of wet food probably, but probably more more aerated food that I talked about. So definitely food with their, I would imagine that you'll be eating eating way more vegan plant based stuff, for sure. Because all of those big brands are doing that and part of a project with doing some of that stuff so that for sure way more options in the non meat meats in the non egg eggs and the non milk milks that don't GTS, all of that. So I think lots of that stuff, and possibly some fun, some fun digitally, digitally produced foods and I think a lot of a lot of really cool stuff that they can do using digital printing with waste material. So waste food that's recreated into shapes that makes it not look like slop makes it look like something that's, that's fun. So think a little bit of that perhaps by three years to three years. Oh, well edible edible packaging,

Will McInnes  42:11

more edible packaging, more edible packaging, more edible packaging. Yeah. Love it. If I was to interview someone else about a different topic, what's a topic that's outside of your domain or there your domain is very broad because you're synthesising lots, so it could be within, but what? What's the topic that you are finding really riveting? And do you think that people would be surprised to hear about, like, what's changing in the world that people underestimate?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  42:39

So I think what's, oh, gosh, I think there's a couple of areas that are on the edge of my understanding, just because I look at it but I don't know enough about it. One is materials. So material scientists are doing phenomenal, amazing things where you have this tiny little thin jacket which could be like this. It's super thin. You can scrunch it down. into a ball, and you can wear it to go skiing. And it's completely it's just, it's the same as a proper ski jacket, or that you have materials that can self repair themselves. Or that said that if you cut it, it repairs itself. Wow, or what wild stuff, all of the different carbon fibre material. So I think a material scientist, amazing all sorts of cool stuff happening there. And in the realm of architecture, some really exciting things happening with using wind power and and water power as a as a way to to power buildings and all the different growing spaces that being integrated into new structures. So I think those two areas are

Will McInnes  43:46

cool. Those are very cool. Really, really cool. Where can listeners follow Dr. Morgan gay, where where should we point people to research you further keep up to date with your interesting stuff?

Dr Morgaine Gaye  43:58

Not much. I'm on Instagram. Which is just Morgan gay calm, which is more gay, not calm. And my my website is just Morgan gay calm and there's some videos on there about different stuff that I've done,

Will McInnes  44:09

where we're really privileged and I've definitely felt that today I've really, really enjoyed listening to you and speaking with you more.

Dr Morgaine Gaye  44:16

Thank you so much.

Will McInnes  44:21

So there it is. Episode Three, the future of food. I hope you got some new perspectives on the world we live in from Dr. Morgaine Gaye. I know I really did.

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Here Right Now explores the future that’s already here. Every week a special guest brings a new perspective on how a facet of everyday life is changing right now. Through their expert eyes we go deep into emerging new trends around the world.