12 September, 2013

the future of food

Meat consumption worldwide has doubled in the last 20 years, and it is expected to double again by 2050. This is happening in large part because economies are growing and people can afford more meat. That's all good news. But raising meat takes a great deal of land and water and has a substantial environmental impact. Put simply, there’s no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people. Yet we can't ask everyone to become vegetarians. We need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources.

The farm-to-table process hasn't changed much over the last 100 years. Innovation in this sector has tremendous market potential. Food scientists are creating healthful plant-based alternatives that taste just like eggs, chicken, and other sources of protein. Companies like Beyond Meat and Hampton Creek Foods are experimenting with new ways to use heat and pressure to turn plants into foods that look and taste just like meat and eggs.

Beyond Eggs, Hampton Creek Foods' egg substitute, doesn't contain the high cholesterol of real eggs. Companies like these are at the cutting edge of plant protein research and development, with a goal of driving innovation and progress on meat-free plates around the world. Even spices are getting re-made: a company called Nu-Tek Food Science has found a way to make potassium chloride taste just like salt, with only a fraction of the sodium.

But why should people consider replacing meat in their diets ? The answer lies along three principal motivators: health, because we know high consumption of red meat correlates with higher chances of certain cancers; and the environment, because we know that conventional meat production is one of the biggest drivers of climate change, as well as water and pollution; and ethics, since the animal factories that produce most of our meat and milk are brutal places where animals suffer needlessly.

On the other hand the future of food as we view it today as consumers, and through the eyes and interests of the big corporations, is somewhat different to the ne proposed above. The trend of the last two decades or so for genetic engineering of food crops is as controversial today as ever, as many of the large agro corporations that use this technology position themselves as the answer to the world food crisis and further consolidate the seed supply. On that front, in 2004 a focused documentary film was released, under the same direct title "The Future of Food". The Future of Food distills the complex technology and consumer issues surrounding major changes in the food system today - genetically engineered foods, patenting, and the corporatization of food - into terms the average person can understand. It empowers consumers to realize the consequences of their food choices on our future.



The Future of Food has been a key tool in the American and international anti-GMO grassroots activist movements and played widely in the environmental and activist circuits since its release in 2004. The Future of Food continues to be a key tool used by activists and educators who call for increased attention to this issue.


GMO OMG is the next documentary you want to put on your to-watch list. Coming out on September 13th, the film by Jeremy Seifert explores a topic that ranks up there as one of the biggest of our lifetime, along with plastic pollution and, you know, global warming. Genetically Modified Organisms and omg! what does it mean for our food, our health, and our economy. Specifically, it "explores the systematic corporate takeover and potential loss of humanity’s most precious and ancient inheritance: seeds." [2]

In "Food, Inc.", the 2008 documentary film, filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli ; the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

As a shocking addition, "Our Daily Bread" the earlier (2005) documentary film by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, was hailed as a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest ; and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas. Welcome to the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming! To the rhythm of conveyor belts and immense machines, the film looks without commenting into the places where food is produced in Europe: monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds - a cool, industrial environment which leaves little space for individualism. People, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of this system which provides our society’s standard of living. Strong filmmaking. So masterfully shot, universal, shocking, eerie, profound, no narration, just stark reality.

On another front, forty years ago, advances in fertilizers and pesticides boosted crop yield and fed a growing planet. Today, demand for food fueled by rises in worldwide consumption of meat and protein is again outpacing farmers ability to keep up. It's time for the next Green Revolution. Wired magazine has compiled and offers for study a series of illustrations (by Stephen Doyle and Zack Zavislak) that help illustrate the point and convey the meaning for the need of change. To explore the Wired Atlas, use the thumbnails to navigate from page to page. Click the main image to zoom, and click again for the navigation box to scroll through the spread.

A report released in May 2013 by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reminds us that there are more than 1,900 edible insect species on Earth, hundreds of which are already part of the diet in many countries. In fact, some two billion people eat a wide variety of insects regularly, both cooked and raw; only in Western countries does the practice retain an "ick" factor among the masses. Why eat something that we usually swat away or battle with insecticides? For starters, many insects are packed with protein, fiber, good fats, and vital minerals - as much or more than many other food sources. And raising and harvesting insects requires much less land than raising cows, pigs, and sheep. Insects convert food into protein much more efficiently than livestock do - meaning they need less food to produce more product. They also emit considerably fewer greenhouse gases than most livestock. [1]

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