We’re kicking off the new year – and the new decade – with a look at both the latest and the oldest culinary innovations, from lab-grown meat to Indigenous recipes from Mexico. Also on this week’s menu: a review of over four decades of dietary science and a glance at new strategies to feed a growing population on a warming planet. Here are the most important lessons we’ve learned about food, diets and nutrition over the last 12 months.
Meet the oyster mushroom producer changing urban Ghanaian diets
Award-winning agribusiness entrepreneur Afriyie Obeng-Fosu explains how to grow mushrooms at home using sawdust and other industrial waste.
In Mexico, Indigenous recipes are improving backyard farming
Introducing a new cookbook of Indigenous recipes in Mexico’s poorest state, which has reignited pride in tradition, native seeds and sense of place.
Thought for food: Walter Willett on diet for personal and planetary health
From drawing connections between diet and disease to contextualizing food in climate change, nutritionist Walter Willett reflects on a career devoted to shaping global food choices.
Growing proteins for a meatless future
Today’s proteins come primarily from meat – but raising livestock to feed 9.8 billion people won’t be sustainable. One scientist believes he has the answer.
Lessons for feeding a warming world
As climate change reduces the land’s ability to feed humanity, Saul Morris of GAIN explains why water-intensive crops like avocados could become a thing of the past.
Valentine’s Day Special: Can chocolate survive climate change?
Demand for cacao – the plant from which chocolate is made – is rising rapidly, but it’s also highly vulnerable to both disease and extreme weather.
Growing a green, healthy rice bowl
New methods of growing rice can increase yields by up to 200 percent, while reducing water use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Kenya’s top young agriculturist on the future of professional farming
The East African nation’s 27-year-old “Mister Agriculture” on why new seasons require new technologies, and how to get youth involved in professional farming.
How to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050
To feed a growing world population, we must reduce deforestation and restore abandoned and unproductive land, says a new report.
