Author: Elta Smith

Lab-grown meat offers the tantalising prospect of a new relationship with our food producing animals: one that doesn’t require their death in order for us to consume meat. Cultured meat is also promoted as an opportunity for creating a healthier, safer and more sustainable food system. What’s not to like? My last article explored the…

I remember the news headlines back in 2013 when the first lab-grown beef was ready to eat… The most striking of these, to me, were those that focused on the price tag: ‘Building a $325,000 Burger’ And rather amusingly: ‘A quarter-million pounder and fries’. At the time, the technology was very new – revolutionary, in…

Imagine a farming future that is 100 times more productive on the same amount of land. Few or no pesticides are required. As much as 95% less water is required. No soil is needed. Crops can be grown year-round, with less labour and where the labour requirements are consistent and sustained across the year. In this future, crops…

How safe is our food? We probably don’t consider food safety all that often. As with so many things, however, COVID-19 made us think about issues that often go unnoticed. Could the virus be transmitted on food or food packaging? So far there is no evidence that COVID-19 is associated with handling or eating food. But…

When we talk about climate change, we often talk about transportation and energy use. Before Covid-19 brought most travel to a standstill, I regularly heard friends and colleagues talk about how they were trying to reduce their carbon footprint by limiting their air travel, spending more time on trains where that was a plausible alternative…

As I was preparing dinner the other night, my husband wandered into the kitchen and looking at the vegetables next to the chopping board said, apropos of nothing — ‘that’s some wonky carrot!’ Indeed, it was. A totally crooked carrot can come as a bit of a shock when you’re used to the produce that…

Our food systems are complex, and they represent a dynamic and interdependent set of problems, as well as opportunities. Over the last eight weeks I’ve focused on the problems. This week I want to start looking more closely at the opportunities. I want to start that reflection with a story – a legend, in fact,…