Everyone is different, but we all eat. Maybe that's why food is such a popular topic these days, online and off: Debates over organic produce, genetically modified foods, cage-free chickens, rising food prices, fast food production, how to feed the world's exploding population and where to get the best banh mi rage wherever we turn.

Wired.com's Epicenter blog, which covers disruptive technology that changes your world, turns its focus to mealtime today with a look at some of the top disruptive foods set to change the way we eat, from the whimsical to the nutritional and beyond.

What did we miss? Add your suggestions below and we'll gather them all into a poll along with the following examples:

Nuke-Powered, Nanotechnology-Delivered Calories ———————————————–

On the fringes of how we might eat in the future lies an idea from the celebrated scientist Robert Freitas, whose putative nanorobots, powered by a radiactive gadolinium isotope, would patrol every cell in the human body and supply energy to cells directly so that it needn't come from food.

This would only replace food's caloric aspect, so we'd still need to take vitamin and nutritional supplements in order to provide the body with new matter as cells die off, according to Patrick Tucker, director of communications for the World Future Society. Still, there's a certain cold comfort in knowing that if worse comes to worst, nanotechnology might give us a food pill that, taken every 10 years or so, would power our bodies if the planet loses the ability to do so – or if we're forced to leave the planet, as Stephen Hawking suggests.

Non-Sentient Meat —————–

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Although they don't refrain the way vegans and vegetarians do, most meat eaters would probably prefer to enjoy a steak while also enjoying that the beast did not suffer excessively: Witness the boom in cage-free, antibiotic-free, free-running, and/or grass-fed, meat.

What if meat didn't have a brain attached to it? One imagines the guilt factor dropping lower, in addition to increasing efficiency. If science serves up a filet mignon that was grown in a filet mignon factory, it will require less water and other resources than the commensurate number of actual cows, in addition to staking the presumable moral high ground.

Non-sentient lab meat is not yet a reality for widespread human consumption, and growing a steak with longer strands of tissue presents greater difficulties than simulating ground meat. But the wheels are already in motion – witness the In Vitro Meat Consortium, In Vitro Meat Foundation, this FutureFood.org article, and researchers at universities and labs around the world.

An easier, more efficient and eventually perhaps more palatable route would be to flavor vegetable-based matter with the texture of meat, like a much-improved version of today's seitan steaks and tofu dogs, according to Tucker.

"I think we'll reach a flavoring threshold where stuff really does have the taste and texture of meat, but it's not meat-based," said Tucker, who conceded a personal fondness for one of man and nature's most resource-inefficient forms of protein: the cow. Non-sentient meat would consume less water and resources than actual cows, he said, but algae or vegetable matter plus flavoring, manufactured by who else but the artificial flavoring capital of the world (the United States), holds more promise (more on that to come).

Winston Churchill called this one back in 1932, although he was way off on the timing: "Fifty years hence … we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

Bananas 2.0 ———–

Just about every banana you've eaten in the past few decades, excluding variants such as plantains, is genetically identical to every other banana you've eaten. All were cloned from a single banana tree to create the "Cavendish" variety we generally think of as a banana. Its flavor, texture and resilience to diseases that affected other strains made it suitable for widespread cultivation, but a host of diseases with keys to its genetic code threaten the clones.

Scientists and farmers have been working on new breeds through genetic modification and cross-breeding to create Banana 2.0. Whatever the result, there's a good chance the banana of tomorrow may not be the one most of us are familiar with, making this the one entry on the list that's both disruptive and disrupted. (Sadly, it's not the only example of a monoculture approach to farming hurting crops' ability to defend themselves.)

Bee Products ————

Scientists estimate that one-third of the food we eat is owed to pollination by bees, but honey itself is also a disruptive food. Bees were the first cultivated animal and provided the raw material for the humankind's first alcoholic beverage, mead. In addition to pollination and apitherapy (such as intentional bee stings increasing the body's cortisone levels to fight arthritis), other foods within the hive – propolis, pollen, bee bread and royal jelly – have nutritional and medical properties of growing interest as well, as does honey grown near specific plants, such as Manuka honey, which has antibacterial properties.

Pesticides, vegetative monocultures and overwork were reportedly behind the collapse of an increasing number of commercial hives, which typically travel by truck to the fields they pollinate. Smaller colonies in more natural habitats appear to report fewer problems.

Although bees have been an engine of human prosperity for thousands of years, their role in our food system is arguably larger than ever before, both in terms of their own products and the vegetation they help flourish.

Genetically Engineered Foods —————————-

Photo courtesy of Flickr/lkwd

Perhaps nothing on this list generates so much controversy as genetically engineered food, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We've been breeding animals and vegetables for millennia, of course, dramatically altering their genetic patterns at a frenetic pace. But GMOs take that concept to the next level in that scientists cut and paste genetic code between species to make new ones. In one notorious example, a GMO had apparently been created by inserting a gene from the flounder fish into the tomato to try to protect it from the cold; the resulting variety was never sold (updated). The European Union does not allow GMOs, although studies have found them safe for human consumption.

One legitimate worry that many human rights groups, farmers, nations and epicures share is that the spread of genetically modified crops across the world will doom local and heirloom varieties and replace them with a monoculture of patented vegetation. Engineered varieties are generally hardier, and spread by wind. That worry is legitimate, but one specific concern – that the GMO movement favors wealthy over developing nations – may have been unfounded.

A recent Economist article (subscription required) claims "the sector is blossoming, especially in the developing world, where poor and unproductive farmers have the most to gain from such advances," and that rather than licensing GMOs from Western firms, some developing countries are creating their own patented crops, perhaps based on the local varieties they're trying to protect, to avoid paying licensing fees or "seed pirate" penalties.

Organic Pancake Batter in a Spray Can ————————————-

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Nothing has Big Pancake quaking in its boots quite so much as Batter Blaster. The startup sells organic pancake and waffle batter in a pressurized can so that you can make exactly the number of pancakes you require without wasting ingredients or cleaning a mixing bowl.

"We are a new food category – there's nothing like us in breakfast, and we've sold 6 million cans in two years with hardly any marketing," said Batter Blaster COO and former Listen.com (now Rhapsody) vice president Nick Tangborn. "A lot of people in dry mix view us as pretty disruptive."

In addition to disrupting the pancake market, Batter Blaster recently began testing QR codes that display product information and a video shot at its Austin, Texas, headquarters when a prospective buyer aims a smartphone at the can in a grocery store.

Salt-Water Algae —————-

The story of food is also the story of water. We need at least 50 gallons per day in order to survive including about one gallon of drinking water per day, but our food sources – animal, vegetable or otherwise – need much more.

"1,320 gallons of drinking water are needed to produce a person's daily food requirement, so we eat a lot more water than we drink," said Tucker, who noted that this is especially the case where meat is concerned. Making matters worse, water is growing scarcer relative to a booming worldwide population, especially in Africa, in an increasingly carnivorous China, and elsewhere. The fresh water tied up in Alaskan ice could one day be worth more than whatever oil lies underneath.

Salt water is a different story: It's everywhere, including on the coasts of drought-wracked areas of Africa, and could even encroach over the coming years. Any crop that grows in it is worth looking into. The key, according to scientists, corporations and governments, is to genetically modify one of the hundreds of strands of algae on the planet to make it more efficient at grabbing nitrogen out of the air as it sits in salt water pools, which offer little of that element vital to algae's growth.

"The key issue facing the way we eat food in the future globally is a lot less water and a lot more people wanting that water," said Tucker. "Genetically-engineered crops, but particularly, genetically-engineered halophilic crops – salt water plants [offer the most promise].

"Agriculturists are told to think of salt as bad, but people living on the shores of India have had a saline-based agriculture system for hundreds of years. So, what's the most useful and scalable crop of the future that's salt water-based? The answer is genetically modified salt water algae."

Not only would this organism create a new power source to augment or replace fossil fuels, but it grabs the same carbon molecules out of the atmosphere that it later releases, making it a carbon-neutral fuel supply. Even better, its oil can be extracted with an olive press, according to Tucker – or with more complex machinations.

"Exxon/Mobil and a lot of other large corporations, as well as the U.S. government and the government of China, are pouring billions of dollars in R&D into creating genetically engineered strains of halophilic [salt-loving] algae that can absorb a lot more nitrogen from the air and therefore doesn't need huge influxes of nitrogen to survive." said Tucker. "That's the core technological hurdle that needs to be overcome [and] it's simply a matter of mapping the algae genome and altering it so that the algae can absorb much more nitrogen from the air."

In addition to its use as a fuel source, we can also eat nutrient- and protein-rich salt water algae once it's been pasteurized, and already do in the form of spirulina and other variants. Much the way fresh water-intensive legumes provide protein all over the world, salt water algae could provide nutrient-packed food – especially, perhaps, in countries with the most advanced food-flavoring technologies. Fast food restaurants already add the flavor back into over-processed meats using powder; the same should be possible with salt water algae.

Surrounding It All: Intelligent Packaging —————————————–

You (usually) can't eat it, but the packaging surrounding our food preserves it and keeps it clean, enabling many or most of our eating habits. Plastic wrap will soon incorporate advanced functionality according to a December study by Pira International, which forecasts food-packaging trends up to 2019. The study predicts that time-temperature indicators, or TTIs, will soon keep grocers and distributors updated about food's temperature fluctuations, while timed emitters and absorbers of chemicals will help keep food fresher.

RFID technology hasn't quite advanced to the point where it makes economic sense to include a radio transmitter in food packaging, but it will soon, helping with inventory – and, we imagine, cashier costs. Researchers in South Korea and Houston, Texas, have devised a way to print RFID tags directly onto packaging for only three cents per unit, so we could see this happen much sooner than previously suspected, with major ramifications for how we shop for food, track inventory and/or shoplift.

Honorable Mentions: corn, farm-raised catfish, farmers' markets, growlers, ketchup, lettuce-in-a-bag, seaweed and urban chickens.

Most disrupted: shellfish and older fish high on the sea food chain, which have proven effective at filtering chemicals from the ocean.

See Also:

Top image modified from ben vickery/Flickr; PETA contest image courtesy of NotionsCapital