Food Bytes: January 2023 edition

Food Bytes is a monthly blog post of “nibbles” on all things climate, food, nutrition science, policy, and culture.

A little warm-up

Are you doing dry, damp, or wet January? Me, semi-dry…I have a good excuse, though. My lovely partner and I had to celebrate with a bottle of prosecco because I have accepted a full professorship at Columbia University’s new climate school, where I will lead their Food for Humanity initiative. I am sad to leave Johns Hopkins, but alas, change is good. I start in June, so get ready Gotham…

I also quit Twitter after 12 years. Felt good. I should have done it years ago…No toxicity! More time! Less self-promotion!

Let’s get the political stuff out of the way…

Is globalization over? The elite will again meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for some strained global discourse. When I say elite, gathering of the world’s 0.001 percent. Every year one asks if Davos has relevance or are these elitists more and more out of touch with what is truly happening in countries and communities. This NYT article on how Davos will confront the new world order says it all:

“The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, finds itself navigating troubled waters. Long the affluent symbol of a globalizing world where the assumption was that more trade would bring more freedom, it now confronts international fracture, ascendant nationalism and growing protectionism under the shadow of war in Europe and sharp tensions between the United States and China.”

I am sure climate change and food security will be on the agenda, but again much of it will be talking, among the elite few, with little action. As it stands, with the global food security crisis, rich countries have fallen short in providing much-needed assistance with increasing risk of hunger and, for some countries, such as Somalia, starvation. Sci Dev wrote an important piece on global starvation looming and rising food prices (see graph below. It deserves attention.

As the world tenses, doing nothing is not good enough, and flying to Davos in your private jet pontificating about poverty is getting tiresome.

If Davos doesn’t get you depressed enough, take a gander at the World Economic Forum’s global risk report. One word: polycrises.

Let’s confront the scary stuff…

California’s “atmospheric rivers”—these doom terms, I tell ya — yield all kinds of chaos for the Californians. The damage due to these intense storms and flooding is estimated to cost the state 30 billion. It is ironic, though, that droughts are a major issue and all roads point to these torrential storms as not helping, but perhaps they will contribute to the necessary snowpack in the long term. What hasn’t been discussed much in relation to storms is the potential damage to crops. California is a massive horticulture producer in this country, growing nearly half of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables in the United States. California’s agriculture also matters to the world because its products are exported to approximately 200 countries. Why is this such as issue? This is why:

“The rains are critical in breaking the worst drought in the US southwest in 1,200 years. The dryness has hurt crops across California’s Central Valley, one of the world’s largest agriculture economies, put large cities under stress, threatened water supplies for many smaller communities, and contributed to some of the largest and deadliest wildfires in state history. Dwindling flow in the Colorado River bordering California has also put hydroelectric supplies in danger.”

There is some hope, though. According to Civil Eats, farms that practice regenerative agriculture seem to weather the storms through innovation.

Let’s give a shout-out to great science…

The AI DALL-E’s rendering of when I asked for “her?” to draw an abstract painting of the Mediterranean diet.

• Some colleagues at GAIN and Cornell just published this fantastic review on how animal-source foods—meat, fish, eggs, and dairy—can play an important role globally in ensuring healthy and sustainable diets.

• Another paper by Amanda Woods and colleagues makes the case for resilience in food systems management and governance.

• Remember that pesky EAT-Lancet Commission report that came out with a planetary diet (very similar to a Mediterranean diet, in my opinion…so what’s the big deal)? Yah, I am guilty of having been a commissioner. Since its publication in 2019, it has been cited about 6,000 times (no joke), and much science has followed. Take this article showing that 86 nations representing 51% of the global population can secure a nationally sourced EAT-Lancet diet from a land-availability perspective. That leaves 3.7 billion living in countries without enough land to source a planetary health diet. I guess trade is important after all!

• Loved this Nature piece on the importance of indigenous knowledge for food security. This line. YES. “I am under no illusion about what it will take to achieve true collaboration at scale — both at the individual and systemic level. Yet in my interactions with Indigenous people and local communities, people’s generosity and willingness to work collaboratively has impressed me again and again.”

• A modeling study published in the Global Food Security Journal from a multi-country collaboration examined the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war on food security. Their model show that food trade would decrease by 60%, wheat prices will increase 50%, and severe food insecurity would increase 30% in 2023. Dire.

• A study in the Lancet Planetary Health examined 83 Food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) for their inclusion of environmental sustainability. Of the 83 they examined, only 37 mention ES and of those, none really emphasize why it is important, and how diets can be made to be more sustainable. My question is, who cares about FBDG? Does anyone follow them?? Yes, I get it, they inform public procurement, but they don’t really help individuals with dietary guidance. If you want a snarky take on the United States guideline, listen to this Maintenance Phase podcast (hands down the best podcast on poking holes in nutrition and dietary science).

Still baking, after all these years…

I am still baking, and it has become a relaxing ritual. This weekend? A castelvetrano olive, rosemary, whole wheat sourdough. My prettiest loaf yet! I followed this recipe more or less.

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A new year's resolution for the planet

I woke just as the sun rose on the second day of 2023, reflecting, as one does, on what I accomplished over the last year, why it matters, and how I should strive to do things differently in the new year. January always brings about a time for reflection, renewal, and rebirth. For me, the promises I make to myself in the hopeful light of the turning of the clock last only a few weeks, and then I end up reverting toward the same comfortable, survival-mode routine. Maybe a few things change here and there. I tinker around the edges. But nothing spectacularly transformative. And maybe, just maybe, that is okay. This is who I am. These are my habits. My flaws. My warts. My joys. My life. Call it my age, but I guess I am a little less willing to set myself up for failure. Or maybe, I am just letting go.

I say all this to you not as a person who is defeated and cynical but as a person who is hoping for the best but expecting the worst in 2023. I am not an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a realist. I am a “who is going to wash the glass?” This morning, I re-read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the IPCC, report on the physical science basis of climate change. This report lays down the hard science of climate change, the repercussions of that change, and future projections under different scenarios of zero to significant action toward mitigation. It is, frankly, incredibly stark. Many of us who work on climate change issues are told to be more positive and report on and present the good news, the silver linings. Of course, not all is doom and gloom, but it comes close. Unlike me, who tinkers on the edges each year trying to meet my new year's resolutions and goals, policymakers and industry players involved in fossil fuels, agriculture, and infrastructure, need to make massive resolutions that are transformative, and they need to stick to them.

This graph below really says it all. It shows the different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), from sustainable to fossil fuel-dependent. Clearly, the world is not moving towards the optimal SSP 1.9. We are more likely hovering toward the SSP 2-4.5 pathway - the middle of the road. The graph shows that if we commit to this SSP, the world will continue to generate greenhouse gases by 2050, with a final tapering off after 2070. By then, the damage will be done - wreaking havoc on human, animal, and plant populations that depend on a more stable planet. Extreme weather events will come with more frequency and devastation. We will see much upheaval, migration, and inequities.

We are running out of time regarding climate change, and the chance to “reset” year in and year out is shrinking. So let’s raise a glass to bold and sticky resolutions that mitigate climate change and ensure that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged have the support to adapt. Let’s make 2023 about the planet.

Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. doi:10.1017/9781009157896.001. 

Experiencing places in the quiet

My partner and I have a habit of traveling to places when no one else is around, which is often called “off-season” or “low season.” Sometimes we come to places where we happen to be the only people in the entire hotel. Last year, we traveled to Sardinia in November. COVID-19 was still surging, but it had not really touched Sardinia in any significant way. We stayed in some of the most beautiful hotels without a soul in sight. We swam in the ocean and yes, it was a bit cold, but we got some sun on our skin, and enjoyed the incredible bounty of seafood that is so delicious that time of year (shellfish). Right now, we are in Puglia – a very popular destination these days – but only in the summer. Puglia is the heel of Italy, where they grow a ton of olive oil and enjoy their cima di rapa and taralli. To Puglians, their high season is from May to September. After that, “chiuso.” Even though it may be 70 degrees outside, out come the puffy jackets and hats, and no more swimming in the crystal-clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. Anyone who does is “pazza.” What bliss it is to be in places that aren’t “shoulder to shoulder” with other American, British, and German tourists. Instead, we catch a glimpse of how Italians really live, breathing a sigh of relief when they can have their cities back to themselves.

Alone in Chioggia

We have always done this. Gone to the unpopular places in off-season. Vegas on Christmas. Ski towns in the spring. Namibia in December. It calms us. In fact, it delights us middle-aged folk who are in their autumn years. Of course, the weather is not totally ideal, and not everything is open and in its right place, but there is quietness, stillness, and abandonment that is calming and almost meditating. Here in Puglia, sometimes we have restaurants to ourselves. Where we are staying now, at a Masseria, which are 16th-century farmhouses typically found in the Puglia region, we have our own personal gourmet chef (and waiter) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who can beat that?  There are no lines, no need to book much of anything, no obnoxious parties on boats, or loud blaring TVs in the hotel room next door. One may argue that this type of travel is like buying the winter coat during the spring sale, and there is some grain of truth in that, but everything is definitely cheaper.  And, it is just, well, quiet.

And we still get to partake in the beautiful scenery of the cities, nature, and food. What more could you ask for? Speaking of food, Puglian food is quite good. See this mouth-watering visual post. They are all about olive oil, bread (so much bread), and seafood. They are also known for pasta shaped like ears, also known as orecchiette.  They also have this bread that is very hard, called frisella that sailors brought with them across long seas journeys because they lasted a good long time. The photo shows this frisella cooked in tomatoes with spinach and burrata. Yum. They are also known for their zuppa di pesce. We had some, but it was not my favorite. We had lots of pesce crude (raw) and of course, vongole. They like their clams here. Maybe that is where I got my obsession with clams. You see, my family comes from Puglia, Foggia (a not-so-pretty but heavily industrial town in Northern Puglia - not the trendy Salento). Clams are in my genes.

All this to say, sometimes it is better to be in places that are not instagrammable, that don’t bring forth bragging rights. With almost every travel experience having become spoiled, overcrowded, and overphotographed, sometimes experiencing places in abandonment and in the quiet puts a new perspective on them and within yourself. It is in the quiet where I feel most alive.

Global food system transitions in the last 50 years: what have we learned so far?

We recently published a paper on food system transitions in Nature Food.

Food systems across the world have undergone tremendous changes in the last 50 years, shifting from more rural-based to industrialized and consolidated systems, resulting in both positive and negative impacts across various outcomes, including diets, nutrition and health, environmental sustainability, and livelihoods. In this paper, a food systems typology was used to examine how food systems transitioned historically. Food systems have enabled enough food to be grown to keep pace with the rapidly increasing population while reducing devastating famines that caused hundreds of millions of deaths, but with that great acceleration has come trade-offs and new challenges, particularly with climate change, ecosystem resilience, and deepening issues of inequity, which hamper progress to ensure all people are well-nourished.

This typology has five categories: (1) Rural and traditional, (2) Informal and expanding, (3) Emerging and diversifying, (4) Modernizing and formalizing, and (5) Industrial and consolidated. Categorization is based on the agricultural value-added per worker, dietary change as reflected by the share of dietary energy from staples grains and cereals, urbanization, and supermarket density, which are all closely related to economic growth.  The food system typology covers 155 countries and 97% of the world’s population, with 30-32 countries in each category, as illustrated in the figure below.

Source: Marshall, Q., Fanzo, J., Barrett, C.B., Jones, A.D., Herforth, A. and McLaren, R., 2021. Building a global food systems typology: a new tool for reducing complexity in food systems analysis. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, p.432.

Our analysis reveals that although the affordability of a recommended diet has improved over time, current food systems of all types are falling short of delivering optimal nutrition and health outcomes, environmental sustainability, and inclusion and equity for all.  Six ‘outlier’ country case studies show broad trends, trade-offs, and deviations: Tajikistan, Egypt, Albania, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the United States of America.

Key Findings

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Source: Ambikapathi et al. 2022 Nature Food

1.  Recommended diets have become more affordable as food systems have transitioned from rural to industrialized, although access depends on poverty levels which vary within food system types. The figure on the right shows how dramatic the difference is in who can afford a healthy diet.

2.  Increasing diet affordability is a function of multiple forces related to overall structural and rural transformation and food system transition. The process of transition determines who within countries can access an affordable diet.

3.  While food affordability is high, food system objectives to minimize environmental and climate change consequences and to improve nutrition and health outcomes are not being adequately met. Check out the figure to the right that shows the proportion of GHG emissions from each of the eight food system supply chain stages (land-use change, production, processing, packaging, transport, retail, consumption, end of life) across the five food system typologies. In general terms, land-use change and production practices constitute the primary sources of GHG emissions of all categories. However, as food systems transition from rural to industrialized, the share of these two main sources of emissions changes.

4. The reality of current food system transitions across the typology is far from a sustainable food system transformation. Such a transformation towards sustainable food systems will require addressing these challenges directly and setting a global agenda with equity, nutrition, and the environment at its core. In many cases, this agenda will challenge historical trends and processes that have led us to where we are today.  

5. The future will not look like the past and indeed cannot look like the past if we are to achieve sustainable food system transformation. Latecomers to the process of structural transformation face a very different world and a much more challenging economic context. The very process of food system transitions incurred by countries further along with structural transformation and the negative environmental and nutritional outcomes they engendered has changed the parameters of success for future transitions. This, coupled with variation in performance across countries within the five categories of the typology, suggests that we will see unique and heterogeneous patterns of food systems transition.

Implications

1.     Effective policies include reliable and well-targeted safety nets, school feeding programs, equitable distribution of land with appropriate environmental management and tenure policies and creating employment that provides increasing incomes relative to food prices to achieve affordable, nutritious diets.

2.     Food system transformation towards sustainable food systems will require setting a global agenda with equity, nutrition, and the environment at its core.

3. There are clear future research needs. More in-depth country-level case studies and high-quality sub-national data are needed to identify a range of effective solutions and the political economy tensions that hinder sustainable food system transformation.

Food Bytes: October 2022 Edition

Food Bytes is a monthly blog post of “nibbles” of information on all things climate, food, and nutrition science, policy, and culture.

It’s been a long while since I posted a Food Bytes edition, and so much has happened in the food space in the past year. First, a UN Food Systems Summit happened, but I remain quite unclear on what was achieved or what will come of the year-long work leading up to the event. Second, a devastating conflict between two breadbasket countries trudges on, putting food security concerns back on the geopolitical agenda. Third, extreme weather events, many related to climate change, unrelentingly warn us that our ability to feed a world of 8 billion (yikes) is precarious and precious. But science is there to nudge us, generating new knowledge on why we and every other species are here, what accelerates us, what destroys us, and where we are heading. Charles Mann wrote in The Wizard and the Prophet (a stellar book about William Vogt and Norman Borlaug’s discordant visions to feed the world):

Another thing this book is not: a blueprint for tomorrow. The Wizard and the Prophet presents no plan, argues for no specific course of action. Part of this aversion reflects the opinion of the author: in our Internet era, there are entirely too many pundits shouting out advice. I believe I stand on firmer ground when I try to describe what I see around me than when I try to tell people what to do.

I resonate with these sentiments. Even though science is plagued by warts, hiccups, and flaws, catalyzing evidence and data to help describe the world matters because it helps us understand nature, people, and the planet. With that background in mind, this month’s Food Bytes is all about highlighting the science community’s observations and uncertainties of a changing world and what it means for food systems and climate change. I purposely do not highlight the work of my team and collaborators, but if you are curious about when we do, you can look here.

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Source: McKay et al. SCIENCE 9 Sep 2022 Vol 377, Issue 661 DOI: 10.1126/science.abn7950

Let’s get the dark stuff out of the way. A paper by David Armstrong McKay and colleagues updated data showing that holding at 1.5°C will trigger multiple climate tipping points. What are these tipping points? Things like ice sheet “collapses,” forest “diebacks,” and permafrost “abrupt thaws” (see the figure to the right). These terms are downright scary but very plausible under different modeling scenarios. Okay, onto more uplifting news — KIDDING! Another study has shown that over the last 40 years, the Arctic has warmed four times faster than the rest of the world, also known as Arctic amplification. These are massive global shifts that will further warm the planet, creating all kinds of chaos. What does it mean for us wee creatures living in our humble abodes? Well, the news is not totally uplifting on that front either. We are and will be deeply impacted by climate — and no one is immune. Research by Sylvia Blom and colleagues showed that repeated, extreme heat shocks impact early child nutrition — both chronic and acute malnutrition. They show that in 5 West African countries, a 2 °C rise in temperature will increase the prevalence of stunting by 7%. As the two latest 2022 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change Reports on adaptation and mitigation, also known as the IPCC, argue, we still have time to act, although when you read it, you may want to have a nice glass of scotch in hand. While the window remains open, it is closing, and fast. We need to make massive changes to the way we live, much of that involving our use of resources. A recent Nature Sustainability paper showed that no country meets basic needs—such as nutrition, sanitation, and access to electricity—for its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. To meet needs, we need to use resources somewhere between 2-6 times more to meet everyone’s needs. Gulp. Just take a look at the difference between the United States (a) and Sri Lanka (b) in the figure below. Blue wedges show social performance relative to the social threshold (blue circle), whereas green wedges show resource use relative to the biophysical boundary (green circle). The blue wedges start at the center of the plot (which represents the worst score achieved by any country), whereas the green wedges start at the outer edge of the blue circle (which represents zero resource use). Wedges with a dashed edge extend beyond the chart area. Ideally, a country would have blue wedges that reach the social threshold and green wedges within the biophysical boundary. Look at the inequities comparing the two countries!

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Source: O’Neill, D.W., Fanning, A.L., Lamb, W.F. et al. A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nat Sustain 1, 88–95 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4

The research and science in understanding the impacts of climate change on food systems and vice versa are growing exponentially. It is hard to keep up with the literature and weed out the noise. One area that deserves more attention is the impact of food trade on global greenhouse gas emissions and the environment—particularly land-use change—a significant source of emissions coming from food and agriculture. A study showed that 27% of land-use emissions and 22% of agricultural land are related to international trade (2004-2017)—food products consumed in a different place from where they were produced. The largest land-use emission transfers come from Indonesia and Brazil to China, the U.S., and Europe. A PLoS paper examining the future of trade shows that if we keep managing and governing global trade as is, food systems will be misaligned with dietary health and sustainability outcomes.

Perhaps one solution is through changing agriculture subsidy policies. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published their annual SOFI report and highlighted the need to transform agriculture subsidy programs around the world towards those that generate and produce healthier food products. Marco Springmann at Oxford modeled the impacts of subsidy policies that focused on nutritious foods and found multiple benefits across both environment and health. I am really uncertain about the political appetite to change subsidies. Talk about vested interests… Speaking of priorities, Ben Davies and colleagues argue that making big transformative policy changes across food systems is wonderful, but don’t do it “on the backs of the rural poor.” Although there are 2.7 billion people engaged in small-scale food production and 1.1 billion people concomitantly living in extreme poverty while working in agriculture, they are often ignored in the “transformation” story.

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Affordability of a healthy diet grouped by five different food system typologies, showing transition of food systems. Source: Ambikapathi, et al Nat Food 3, 764–779 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00588-7

Positive transformation of food systems is not easy as history suggests. As Ramya Ambikipathi shows in a recent Nature Food paper, food systems have shifted from predominantly rural to industrialized and consolidated systems. Historically, incomes have risen faster than food prices as countries have industrialized, enabling a simultaneous increase in the supply and affordability of many nutritious foods. Evolving rural economies, urbanization, and changes in food value chains have accompanied these transitions, leading to changes in land distribution, a smaller share of agri-food system workers in the economy, and changes in diets. While the affordability of a recommended healthy diet has improved over time, food systems overall are falling short of delivering optimal nutrition and health outcomes, environmental sustainability, and inclusion and equity for all. Another fantastic paper by Jeff Waage and colleagues in Lancet Planetary Health shows the complex and risky relationship between agriculture and infectious disease, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries that are undergoing rapid food system transitions. They remind us that lessons can be drawn from COVID-19 and the rise of zoonotic spillover events within food systems should be prioritized (and minimized) on the political agenda.

Ensuring that everybody gets access to and consumes a healthy diet will remain a global challenge. The metrics, indicators, and data in understanding what people eat and why are improving. Just check out the Global Diet Quality Project, which collects dietary quality data in the adult population across countries worldwide using the Gallup poll and provides tools to monitor diet quality within countries. Wow. I hear rumblings of a global report coming out soon, so stay tuned. There has been a whole range of papers coming out on diet quality. Victoria Miller at Tufts University is on a roll. In one recent Nature Food paper, she examines diets across 185 countries from 1990 to 2018 using the Global Dietary Database (estimates and modeled). Their assessment shows that diet quality is modest at best but varies significantly depending on where you live, how old you are, and how much education you have. No surprises, but good to see more data emerging from this database. Miller and colleagues also published a more specific paper examining the consumption of animal-sourced foods worldwide showing that meat consumption is lower or higher than optimal intakes depending on the population. Another Miller paper published in JAMA examines the association of specific dietary factors with coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes using a systematic review. The table below summarizes the relative risks of the associations of nutrients with heart disease and diabetes events. Bottomline? Eat your fiber.

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Source: Miller et al JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e2146705. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.46705

Another emerging area gaining significant traction with scientific consensus is ultra-processed foods (UPFs), a term loathed by the food industry and a handful of nutritionists. The majority of those working in nutrition epidemiology and public health largely agree that UPFs—food-like substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats that also contain additives like artificial colors and flavors or stabilizers—are detrimental to human health across a bolus of outcomes. Many people argue that these foods should be regulated, avoided, and minimized in the global food system. If you want to hear more about this ongoing debate, check out this BBC podcast and this online debate with some heavy hitters in the space like NIH’s Kevin Hall, Marion Nestle, and Mike Gibney. The next frontier for these foods is their environmental impact. While a handful of papers argue that these foods have a significant environmental and climate footprint, the evidence is scant, and much more needs to be done in this space.

The question is, are alt-meats in this category? The pace of science in this space is hard to keep up with as there is a lot coming out in the grey literature (see the IPES report and the OECD report as examples) along with peer-reviewed publications, but some of what is available often bends towards ideology and less science. Same with plastics. There is deep concern about microplastics showing up all over the place, including food, but the evidence and impact of these plastics on health outcomes need much more exploration. So while Mr. McGuire told Ben in The Graduate, that the future lay with one word, plastics, we may need to re-examine that advice in light of the fragility of our world.

Too pure to be pink

For many of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, the recent passing of Olivia Newton-John was sad. My sister and I watched her in one of our favorite movies, Grease, play the goodie-two-shoes Sandra Dee character. As much as I loved Sandra Dee, I related much more to black-clad Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies gang, played by Stockard Channing. Rizzo was the badass who “didn’t take any crap from nobody.” She had a protective exterior but was also vulnerable and empathetic. She had street smarts and grit and wasn’t easily swayed, not even by the innocent Sandra Dee. “She looks too pure to be pink.” Was it Iggy Pop who said the most punk color is pink? Rizzo was very punk.

Why am I writing about Betty “Rizzo” on a food blog? I thought Rizzo was a liberated woman—a woman for the times when the women’s rights movement was underway in which women were fighting for equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom. Women are still fighting for their rights and freedoms. Now, more than ever. The overturning of Roe v Wade is downright heartbreaking, but I will not lose hope. I am surrounded by incredible women who continue to fight the good fight in my personal and work life. Our team consists of almost all women, and they are amazing beings. We have a lot of Rizzos on our team! They give me inspiration and perspective. They teach me new angles about how to see the world and our place in it. They are pushing for different rights in new contexts and situations in a more complex world.

Food system leader Corinna Hawkes authored a recent Lancet paper along with a smorgasbord of fantastic women leaders and indicated that we still have a long way to go in recognizing the importance of women in food systems leadership: “… in global food systems organisations, less than 34% of senior management positions are held by women and only 6% of chief executive officers and board chairs are women from low-income and middle-income countries.” Dismal.

The Next Gen(D)eration Leadership Collective is an initiative trying to change that. They are building on the experience of professional women working in the field of nutrition and food systems globally. Many women have signed up to be a part of the collective, and a 12-women task team shepherds the collective. Rizzo galore! In my view, they give voice and agency to the many young women working on food system issues, and I think the platform is “unleashing the power of women!” They may not be donning pink, but they are definitely punk.

And women are giving voice to women who may not have the opportunities that some of us do. For example, three stellar women scientists published an important piece of work in Nature advocating for funds directed towards international food assistance to prioritize women and girls. They wrote, “This food crisis is not the last crisis the world will face, but it should be the last one in which women and girls carry this grossly unequal burden. Now is the time to transform the food system to create more opportunities for women and girls, leading to greater gender equality.” Well said.

I am a middle-aged woman, and I am still learning what that means and how much it matters. I am consistently inspired by the women around me and all they are doing to make the world more equitable and meaningful for everyone. We have a long way to go, but we have come so far. So, let’s keep going. As Rizzo said, “Okay girls, let’s go get ‘em.

Custodians of our memories

If you want to read a food book this year, read Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them by BBC food journalist Dan Saladino. The book is about the rich biodiversity found around the planet and how humans have used that biodiversity to feed the world's population. Saladino illustrates how important this diversity is for our nourishment and sustaining the vast cultures and traditions that humans have passed on from one generation to the next. Not only is Saladino a wonderful storyteller, but the story he is telling is one of the most important in food systems today. He writes:

"We cannot afford to carry on growing crops and producing food in ways that are so violently in conflict with nature; we can't continue to beat the planet into submission, to control, dominate and all too often destroy ecosystems. It isn't working. How can anyone claim it is when so many humans are left either hungry or obese and when the Earth is suffering?"

Saladino structures the book across the main food groups — fruits, vegetables, grains, cheese, meat, seafood, alcohol, stimulants (coffee and tea), sweets, and wild foods. He discusses the importance of these food groups and their role in food security. He provides us with lush, visceral vignettes of particular places, exceptional people, and distinctive cultures uniquely trying to grow, raise, and nurture certain traditional varieties of these foods. You get a glimpse of how the hunter-gatherer Hadza hunts for honey in Tanzania. You learn how sheep meat, known as Skerpikjot, is preserved in the fragile ecosystem of the Faroe Islands. You feel the pressure of how Sicilians grow the vanilla orange amid the weight of the Cosa Nostra. You sympathize with the Syrians amid a protracted conflict who attempt to preserve their traditional sweet, Halawet el Jibn, made of war-threatened ingredients like pistachio. You realize that winemaking began in Georgia using traditional pots, known as Qvevri, a practice not done anywhere else in the world.

These stories are wonderful, but they are punctuated with startling and tragic statistics:

• 50% of all our seeds are in the hands of 4 companies.

• Of the roughly 6,000 different plants once consumed by humans, only nine remain major staples today.

• Three crops—rice, wheat, and corn—provide 50% of all our calories.

• 70 billion chickens (of roughly the same breed and ironically named "chicken of tomorrow") are slaughtered annually.

• 30 million bison roamed the great plains of the United States, all to be decimated at the hands of the white settlers.

• 95% of milk consumed in the United States comes from a single breed of cow.

• 90% of soybean grown in North and South America is genetically modified.

• 50% of all the world's cheese is made with bacteria or enzymes made by one company

• The giant Pacific bluefin tuna is down 97%. Yes, 97%.

• Only 2% of farmers are African American.

• We only consume 2% of barley that is grown. The rest is used to make beer or fed to animals.

• Speaking of beer, 25% of beer is produced by one brewer.

You learn about the heroes, like Vavilov, who spent and gave their lives conserving and preserving precious seeds, specific varieties, preservations, and processing of foods as a way to say, "remember us." We were here. They were and are the custodians of the biodiversity across the planet. They are also the custodians of our memories and humanity.

As Saladino escorts you around the world, I imagined these vignettes being turned into a beautiful documentary demonstrating the vast diversity that exists on the planet—as humans, as foods, and as cultures. As Saladino expressed, we must embrace diversity in all its forms: biological, cultural, dietary, and economical. Having more diversity across the range of agriculture systems and landscapes is vital. Capturing all this diversity on film, as the book does, could be a way to preserve these moments, memories, and the history of it all. So, we never forget what we once had.

While the book is inspiring, every chapter ends with a common tragic theme – and I am not giving anything away because it is in the book's title: Extinction. You realize how fast these ways of life, these foods, these cultures, and traditions are disappearing. Our world and food systems are transforming at a speed that is hard to comprehend and capture, and the loss along the way is disturbing. There are many reasons for this extinction, but the major ones are agricultural change, loss of habitats, disease, economic forces, hangovers and continuations of colonization, and conflict.

As Saladino expressed, these endangered foods will not become the mainstay of diets, nor should they. But they have essential and assorted roles to play; if we don't use them, we will lose them. In reference to a chapter on O-Higu, a soybean grown on the island of Okinawa made into unique tofu, "O-Higu might be an insignificant bean. But to many Okinawans, after colonialism and occupation, its return feels like an act of resistance and a celebration of who we are." Many traditions in holding onto these foods are worthy; they involve intimate knowledge, special skills, and lots of care and labor. It is not a simple path forward.

Our world and food systems are transforming into a homogenized vat of staleness. For many, saving these foods and the biodiversity that makes up these foods and our diets is not worth the effort as we move through the world at warped speed. Some argue that this savior complex is romantic and precious, and we should instead focus on the potential for technology and innovation. Growth, growth, growth. Call me sentimental, but I worry about solely following this path and what is lost along the way.

Last night, I watched Chris Marker's visceral Sans Soleil film. In it, the narrator said something that sticks with me:

When filming this ceremony, I knew I was present at the end of something.

Magical cultures that disappear leave traces to those who succeed them.

This one will leave none; the break in history has been too violent.

I want to witness the traces. I want to remember. What is the point of living in this world without cultures and all the food that punctuates those cultures? We must, as global citizens, decide what kind of world we want to live in and figure out what is worth saving. To me, it is the whole lot. I want to save it all—every food, every human, every animal, and every piece of culture. This is what makes our world interesting. As Saladino said, "the Hadza remind us that there are many ways to live and be in the world." I am hanging onto my hopes that the incredible array of people curating these endangered foods will remain the custodians of not only our memories but of our food traditions for the future.

The art of indie food

Food is in. Food is it. Of course, it is. We are in the middle of a global food crisis with skyrocketing food prices and supply chain shortages due to the Ukraine-Russia war, the pandemic, and climate-related extreme (maybe now normal?) weather events. But before this crisis bubbled up into the ether, there was a resurgence in food journalism and food craft writing and curating. Of course, there are a whole lot of media outlets, NatGeo, NPR’s Salt, BBC, NYT, Economist, etc., that have highlighted sections, special reports, and special issues dedicated to food politics and other foodisms, but I am talking about dedicated, purist attempts to bring all things food to the everyday reader.

We have the wonderful Civil Eats that provides us the nitty gritty on the American food system. Ensia mainly reports on the environment, but there is some great food reporting. Same with the Fern. The Counter was a fantastic outlet that sadly went away because of a lack of financial support. Hint Hint.

We also have outstanding food writers like Helena Bottemiller Evich (formerly of Politico) and her dedicated site, called Food Fix. Author Bee Wilson, an author, communicates exquisite, often longer pieces for the Guardian. Tamar Haspel, also an author, pens hard-hitting, come-to-jesus pieces on controversies across the food system for WaPo. Kim Severson writes for the NYT on food culture. Kristina Peterson is the new food and ag writer for WSJ. Looking forward to seeing more from her.

We also have a ton of artsy, indie food zines like Whetstone, Fare, and Compound Butter, to name just a teeny tiny few. Here are even more. And no, these mags cannot be compared to your typical monthly rag like Bon Appetit, Saveur, Food & Wine, or Cook’s Illustrated. Each is beautifully crafted and themed, punctuated with high-art photography, illustrations and stories. Down Under is into it. When one flicks through these gems, you can tell a lot of time, effort, labor, and care were undertaken to bring you unique storytelling about food, our food system, and the people that are custodians of food.

While I love all these zines, and I fully support many of them, some would argue that maybe they are just too precious and put food into this category of elitism. There is a grain of truth in that, particularly when our world is faced with almost a billion people who just can’t get enough food to live their full life and potential. Reading about food and its beautiful imagery seems almost irrational, decadent, or even more so, clueless to the larger global challenge. But they are different from say the traditional monthly food mag. When we think about Saveur-type magazines, they seem upper class, crusty, and white. Instead, this renaissance of indie food zines is being led by the next generation of individuals who are trying to put food on a different footing — one that is authentic, more accessible, and more diverse in who it represents and portrays.

These zines are rich in content, but you have to pay for that content in heeps. They are pretty expensive — sometimes 20, 30, 40 bucks a pop. Decadent indeed…Some have already gone under after just a few years in the biz. Publishing is a bitch. There are probably some lessons to be heeded from the now defunct but admired David Chang’s Lucky Peach. So if you are into your food as art and enjoy reading rich stories about all things food, subscribe to one or two and support their noble efforts.

Time's the revelator

The jig is up. I turned 50 this past October. It seems like a long time ago already, but now being on a sabbatical, I have time to think (what a concept) and write more, including on the Food Archive blog.

Even though we were still in the throes of a pandemic, I was lucky to celebrate my birthday in one of my favorite places in the world, the Amalfi Coast. It was glorious. Some more personal, epic milestones happened during covid, including my promotion to full professor, my 25th wedding anniversary, and a temporary move to another country. All these moments got me reflecting.

It is strange to think that my life is (probably more than) half over. But at the same time, I feel the same as I did at 40 or even 30, with maybe a little more stiffness in the morning and the predictable wrinkles and grey hairs here and there. At the core, I am not that much different than my young adult self. Of course, that is not totally true. We all change – time has a way of ensuring that. As Gillian Welch sang, time’s the revelator.

What does feel very different is my vantage point. I am officially at least 20 years out from my getting my Ph.D., and that means 20+ years of work experience post-grad school. It also means a lot of different jobs under my belt – two postdocs, one foundation, one CGIAR center, two UN agencies, two universities, and one NGO. It also means a lot of travel– 64 countries and counting – much of that with my partner by my side. I have been lucky.

What have I learned in the first half-century through these work and travel experiences?

• I care less and less what people think about me, and I am not liked by everyone. And that is ok. And Richard Feynman thought the same thing.

• To honor my integrity, I had to burn a bridge or two. It was worth it.

• I changed careers; I changed jobs. These changes have been good – I have learned a lot from them.

• Young people have taught me the most. I am humbled by them.

• Walking (+ music and movies) is the best therapy. Especially when enjoyed with others.

• Food—and all the biodiversity that makes up food—is remarkable, joyful, and complex, and I am every day in awe of it.

• I got better at admitting when I was wrong, and apologizing goes a long way.

• I am often not right about much of anything. Who is?

• Telling people how to behave or at least thinking you are the authority to do so is just so naïve.

• The answer to everything is, “it depends.”

• The grass is never greener.

• I am not a “glass is half full,” or a “glass is half empty” kinda person. I am a “who’s gonna wash the glass” kinda person.

• The best decision I ever made in my life was who I chose to spend it with.

We may not have a choice but to consume alternative proteins

Climate change is having profound impacts on the ability to grow both foods for humans and feed for livestock. Growing food and feeding livestock, in turn, exacerbates climate change. Livestock raised for beef is responsible for 6 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions largely in the form of methane. Livestock is also the number one driver of deforestation around the world, reducing the chances for large forest biomes to serve as carbon sinks.

While these stresses continue to rise if no significant action is taken to mitigate climate change, demand for meat is rising all over the world. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, beef consumption has been steadily rising over the last few decades, and as people become wealthier, the more meat they consume. And people, well, like meat!

Some tech companies have come up with a solution—alternative proteins—which include lab-grown meat, plant-based meat, single-cell proteins from yeast or algae, and edible insects. The lab- and plant-based alternative innovations mimic the taste, smell, and texture of meat and could be significant disruptors, eliminating the need for people to raise or consume animals.

As of now, the products available for consumers are mainly plant-based proteins like Impossible Burger and Beyond Beef. Data suggests that these foods are tasty to most consumers and have lower environmental footprints and greenhouse gas emissions than beef. They also have benefits for those who care about animal welfare.

They are however under scrutiny about their health properties and cost. Some argue these foods are overly processed, with a lot of artificial ingredients to get them to a state of palatability. Beyond Burger has approximately 25 ingredients whereas beef has just one ingredient – muscle tissue. They are also costly. One Impossible burger in Washington DC’s Founding Farmer restaurant costs $17.50 as compared to the all-beef cheeseburger at $14.50.

The products in the R&D pipeline – such as lab-grown meats – will have to undergo significant regulation by governments and there is the issue of scale. In the film, Meat the Future, the company Upside Foods (formerly known as Memphis Meats), which is using cells taken from an animal to grow meat, is challenged in making enough products at scale to feed the world’s growing population. While these are hurdles, there are some glimpses of promise. Those that have tried these products are pleasantly surprised at how similar they taste to the real thing and issues of scale are just temporary roadblocks.

Yet, will consumers accept and embrace these foods? The backlash against genetically modified foods shows early signs of what may come as companies begin to get lab-grown meats to market. Many consumers may argue these foods are fake and may be hesitant about their food being “grown” in Petri dishes. 

The big issue is, that we may not have a choice but to eat lab-grown meats. It will be very difficult to raise livestock in a hotter world. Not only will feed and water be scarce, but hotter climates wreak havoc on the health of the animals. These projected adverse effects will put premiums on the price of meat in the grocery store.

So while the world can be picky for the time being, these new foods may become our mainstay survival foods because they may be the only option. To ensure these foods are affordable, accessible, and acceptable to consumers all over the world, and not just curious rich people, several things need to happen.

First, companies producing these foods need to ensure transparency in how these foods are produced, and their impacts across a broad range of outcomes, particularly health and nutrition. There is a need for transparency regarding their nutritional content that is easy for consumers to understand and find. Companies should take lessons from how genetically modified foods were communicated and the fears and doubts they have raised among consumers.

Second, for those products that have unhealthy ingredients with losing palatability, the companies should work hard to reformulate the products to decrease the content of sodium and unhealthy fats. They should also work to fortify these foods with adequate micronutrients.

Third, these foods should be low cost, or real meat should be more expensive, keeping with the true costs to produce beef. As the demand for these alternatives increases and more companies come on board with new products, as with any economies of scale, the price will come down.

Last, while the innovation for these new foods is tempting, there are many traditional foods such as legumes, insects, and algae that have important nutritional value, particularly protein, have low environmental footprints, and do not require raising animals. These traditional foods, while traditional, may offer low-cost, low-resources alternatives to shiny and new future foods.