Edible Houses Could Soon Be a Reality

We could soon have building materials made from food, making a gingerbread house a real possibility. The Victorian Gingerbread House is under construction at Fairmont San Francisco on Nov. 18, 2021. (Ilene Eng/The Epoch Times)

Japan has taken the lead in the edible house market by inventing cement made from Chinese cabbage, coffee grounds, orange rinds, pumpkins, banana peels, seaweed, and onions.

This cement, which is four times stronger than conventional concrete, is perhaps not something to serve on your finest china, but it can be flavoured, coloured, and fragranced.

So children beware, the gingerbread house is a real possibility.

In terms of taste, it appears that insects and worms have not been attracted to a meal of this cement and that although it doesn’t need a coating, it can be lacquered and waterproofed using chemicals that would take your house firmly off the menu.

A pot of coffee beans at the newly-inaugurated Starbucks outlet in New Delhi on Feb. 6, 2013. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)

Developed as a Pathway to Deal with Food Waste

Invented by Tokyo University’s Kota Machida and Yuya Sakai, who created the company Fabula Inc, the researchers’ goal was to combat the food wastage problem in Japan. According to the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, Japan produced around six million tons of food waste in 2018.

Compared to 2017, this was a reduction of 120,000 tons. Japan is now striving to reduce food waste to 4.9 million by 2030.

Machida and Sakai took several years to develop the product, which is still awaiting its patent.

It was eventually created by drying the food waste, pulverizing it into a powder, heating it up, mixing it with materials such as corn starch or cellulose, and pressing it into a mould. The strongest cement they were able to create was made from Chinese cabbage with a five-millimetre plate able to support 27 kilograms of weight.

Researchers have found Chinese cabbage makes an incredibly strong cement. A basket of cabbage family vegetables, including bok choy, red cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, swiss chard, and turnips. (Cat Rooney/The Epoch Times)

Fabula Inc. is collaborating with other companies to produce a variety of products such as ornaments, furniture, and crockery. They have the ability to make coasters from coffee grounds that are the colour of coffee and which give off the delightful aroma of your morning fix.

Sweet potato is another vegetable they have turned into a plate that showcases the rich purple of the potato, and the company has also created flat-pack stools made from coffee grounds and Chinese cabbage.

The Future of Sustainable Housing and Humanitarian Shelters

Building houses out of edible cement is also not too far away, with the cement being featured as part of a sustainable teahouse at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, which is taking place until Nov. 26.

Mitsubishi Jisho Design, a Japanese architecture and engineering firm, have said the proto-type edible tea house is possible to construct anywhere in the world. It is made from Italian coffee grounds and pasta with a series of 45-degree waterproof pasta joints.

While teahouses and coffee-fragranced plates offer sustainability with a novelty factor, Fabula Inc. has said they would like to see the use of their cement span into other areas like humanitarian crises via its use in emergency shelters where in a disaster, if the food supply is cut off, the edible cement could provide another form of sustenance.

Makeshift shelters could be replaced with multipurpose shelters built from edible cement, thus providing a backup food supply, argues a Japanese firm Fabula Inc. Image of Afghan refugees resting in tents at a makeshift humanitarian shelter camp in Chaman, a Pakistani town at the border with Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021.  (AFP via Getty Images)

Additionally, Fabula Inc.’s cement has several advantages over conventional cement. These include biodegradability, as it can be buried if not wanted. It also can be reused and has durability and resistance to wear and tear because of the natural fibre. It also works well with other natural materials, such as hay bales and rammed earth, to create durable buildings.

The environmental benefits are also apparent as not only does edible cement offer a solution for food waste; it also reduces the environmental impact of the building industry. Especially since the material is not limited to fruit and vegetables, with innovations using algae-based cement also being fostered in places like America.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $2 million (AU $3.2 million) to Wil Srubar of the University of Colorado Boulder to create cement from algae.

Water full of algae laps along the Sewell's Point shore on the St. Lucie River under an Ocean Boulevard bridge, Monday, June 27, 2016. (Richard Graulich/The Palm Beach Post via AP)

Srubar has hypothesized that microalgae can be used to make cement production carbon neutral and maybe carbon negative. He contends that microalgae can sequester carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.

However, despite the hype and interest around the process, it is still in its developmental stages.

At present, the cost of producing edible cement is more expensive than conventional cement, but with technology and as production processes streamline, it is believed that it will rival traditional cement in terms of costs.