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…
Several years ago, my husband and I decided to stop eating meat for a month. Both of us love steaks, sausages, burgers and…the most irresistible of all meats, to my mind at least: bacon. For many years we had sourced the meat (and fish) we ate at home from what we were confident were high…
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…
Resilience. This one word to me encapsulates everything about the challenges of the last year and the path out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Resilience is the capacity to face adversity and remain strong, but also to be open to change, to be flexible. A robust system can endure, but a resilient system can adapt. We’ve…
The year is 2035. Sitting at my desk, later than usual finishing up the day’s work, I open an app on my smartphone and search for ‘pizza’. ‘You have the ingredients for that’ pings back to me and I click ‘ok’. Another message appears ‘how many servings?’ I select ‘one’. A clock function appears, and…
A lot has been written about the potential for insect proteins to become part of our diets. The topic has been investigated in the scientific literature for more than 30 years. Much of this research has tried to account for the popularity of insects as part of the traditional diet in non-western cultures and the…
I recently wrote about the potential for insect proteins to shape human and animal diets. Despite decades of research and hype, insects have not become a mainstream food in westernised cultures. Many factors are responsible for the current state of the industry and a combination of economic, political, and social issues will need to be…
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,…
Our food systems are complex and interdependent with other systems such as the environment and health. This makes it difficult to identify solutions to the crises of inequality, health, safety, sustainability and stability affecting our food systems. Over the last six weeks I’ve set out what I see as the problem diagnosis. Clarity on the…
Elta Smith is an independent researcher, writer and consultant. She is an experienced leader in making better policies for our food systems. Her research focuses on the intersection of food, the environment and human health.
She has directed and managed studies for UK, EU and international organisations covering issues not only from ‘farm to fork’, but from ‘lab to fork’, particularly the role of science and technology in transforming the food chain.
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