Future of Food
Week of October 20-26, 2019
6 foods for a healthy gut
The microbiome in your gut is connected to your overall wellbeing—and not just your digestion. It’s linked to mood, energy, immunity, and longevity, so, having a healthy gut is of utmost importance. It’s no surprise that sugary, processed, and fried foods don’t support gut health (or Read More...
Startup cuts the ribbon on the world’s first lab-grown meat factory
Lab-grown alternatives to meat (aka cultured meat) that look and taste like the real thing have become mainstream in recent years, with people increasingly turning to these substitutes to green up their diets. A new startup in Israel wants to make cultured meat even more popular among consumers by Read More...
Lab-grown chicken to go on sale for the first time after safety approval
When it comes to the meat industry, the numbers are grim for farmed animals. An estimated 130 million chickens and 4 million pigs are slaughtered every day for meat. By weight, 60 percent of the mammals on earth are livestock, 36 percent are humans and only 4 percent are wild. The slaughtering of Read More...
The Optimist View: Empowerment, skills training, and the fight to eradicate hunger
“Hunger is not an issue of charity. It is an issue of justice.” - Jacques Diou By Amelia Buckley Right now, 80 percent of food banks in the US are serving more people than they were at the same time last year. The pandemic has exacerbated the need for immediate food relief, but it has Read More...
Giant robot in Arizona hunts for crops that thrive in hot climates
On the farmlands of Arizona, the world’s largest farming robot is being rolled out to help secure the future of food. The robot, which is called the Field Scanalyzer, looks a bit like a bridge at first glance, spanning from one side of the crop field to the other. With this vantage point over Read More...
This startup is turning desert lands into nutrient-rich soil
Desertification is human-caused degradation of land in dry climates and it has been on the rise. This is one of the contributing factors to the challenge of feeding a growing global population in a changing climate. Norwegian startup, Desert Control, is attempting to get ahead of this problem by Read More...
Vertical farms can grow fresh veggies using 90% less water
Out of the fraction of habitable land that exists in our world about 50 percent of it is used for farming. Not only is this stretch of land massive, but agriculture also uses 70 percent of our freshwater supply. Considering how resource intensive classic agriculture is to our society, one might ask Read More...
Future of food: The world’s biggest rooftop urban farm is now bearing fruit
In the summer of 2019, we published a story about a rooftop urban farm being constructed in Paris that was set to be the biggest in the world. Now, nearly a year later, the world’s largest urban rooftop farm has started to bear fruit. Strawberries, to be precise: small, intensely flavored and Read More...
Greenspot finds community nutrition solutions California’s bountiful backyards
Southern California’s mild climate and fertile soil make it an ideal habitat for the multitude of fruit trees that dot its landscape. Now, Santa Barbara-based Greenspot is looking to share the produce riches and promote nutritious local food with its harvesting and hosting programs. If you Read More...
Got milk? These shirts made from spoiled dairy sure do
You know the saying there’s no use crying over spilled milk? Well for LA-based startup Mi Terro, spilled milk truly is a new opportunity. The company is using biotechnology to turn a portion of the 128 million tons of milk wasted every year into sustainable fibers for biodegradable Read More...