Wikipedia
Single-cell protein (SCP) refers to edible unicellular microorganisms. The biomass or protein extract from pure or mixed cultures of algae, yeasts, fungi or bacteria may be used as an ingredient or a substitute for protein-rich foods, and is suitable for human consumption or as animal feeds.
Whereas industrial agriculture is marked by a high water footprint, high land use, biodiversity destruction, general environmental degradation and contributes to climate change by emission of a third of all greenhouse gases, production of SCP does not necessarily exhibit any of these serious drawbacks. As of today, SCP is commonly grown on agricultural waste products, and as such inherits the ecological footprint and water footprint of industrial agriculture. However, SCP may also be produced entirely independent of agricultural waste products through autotrophic growth. Thanks to the high diversity of microbial metabolism, autotrophic SCP provides several different modes of growth, versatile options of nutrients recycling, and a substantially increased efficiency compared to crops.
With the world population reaching 9 billion by 2050, there is strong evidence that agriculture will not be able to meet demand and that there is serious risk of food shortage. Autotrophic SCP represents options of fail-safe mass food-production which can produce food reliably even under harsh climate conditions.
Usage examples of "single-cell protein".
But imagine you're a Malaysian dock worker living on fish meal and single-cell protein.
She had fixed the two of them a light repast of grainbean flats and sunflower dabs, topped by a sauce of single-cell protein and tomato .
It was the Food Mines, where all of my childhood was spent: the shale mines of Wyoming, where rock was quarried and baked into keratogens, and then the oil was fed to yeasts and bacteria to make the single-cell protein that fed most of the too-numerous and too-hungry human race.
The food mines employed many, dipping fossil fuels out of the ground and breeding edible single-cell protein creatures on their hydrocarbon content.
Although Lakesh had undertaken a lot of time and trouble to make sure the food lockers and meat freezers of the redoubt were exceptionally well stocked, there was very little in the way of single-cell protein microorganisms hybrids normally ingested.