# @ucberkeleyofficial on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DPUbUy0kup-
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64635384-ucberkeleyofficial-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/e8390a7692.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-10-02T19:49:11.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) — https://gondola.cc/ucberkeleyofficial

## Caption

Chef-turned-chemist Vayu Hill-Maini has a passion: to transform food waste into culinary delights using fungi.

“Our food system is very inefficient. A third or so of all food that’s produced in the U.S. alone is wasted, and it isn’t just eggshells in your trash. It’s on an industrial scale,” said Hill-Maini, former UC Berkeley Miller postdoctoral fellow. 

While studying in the lab of Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Hill-Maini devoted himself to learning everything there is to know about Neurospora intermedia — a widespread fungus that is traditionally used in Indonesia to make a food called oncom from soy pulp — so it can be adapted broadly to Western food waste and Western palates.

People from many cultures have long eaten foods transformed by fungi — grain turned into alcohol by yeast, milk curds turned into blue cheese by Penicillium mold, soy sauce and miso produced from soybeans by koji mold (Aspergillus oryzae). However, oncom, developed by native Javans long ago, is unique in being produced from waste food.

“In the last few years, I think, fungi and molds have caught the public eye for their health and environmental benefits, but a lot less is known about the molecular processes that these fungi carry out to transform ingredients into food,” he said. “Our discovery, I think, opens our eyes to these possibilities and unlocks further the potential of these fungi for planetary health and planetary sustainability.”

🔗 Learn more about how research at UC Berkeley is changing the world at the link in our bio: berkeley.edu/research-impact

#ResearchWithResults #UCBerkeley #Sustainability #StandUp4Science

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## Tags

standup4science, researchwithresults, ucberkeley, sustainability

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