What I’m Reading: The Future of Food

Keith Law: “Clean eating is a fad diet founded on quackery, pseudoscience, and good marketing. So why are people still so desperate to believe in it?”

KL: “The federal government and antibiotic manufacturers have worked hand in hand to protect the latter’s profits over the public good.”

KL: “Industrial production has made wheat less nutritious and less flavorful. This profile of the director of Washington State University’s Bread Lab, argues for one way to fix it.”

KL: “Two members of the Harvard class of 2013 are growing high-quality mushrooms to serve a market looking for ingredients that can take the place of meat.”

KL: “That cheap produce you see at your local megamart wouldn’t be so inexpensive if pickers had higher pay and better working conditions—and it wouldn’t be so available without immigrant labor, much of it undocumented.”

KL: “Driscoll’s made strawberries a ubiquitous, year-round product by breeding them for looks, size, and durability — not flavor.”

KL: “This series of essays looks at different aspects of the future of our global food supply, including climate change, a growing income gap, and failing regulatory standards.”

KL: “Four companies control 60% of the world’s seed sales—a disaster for both our palates and the biodiversity that our planet and diet need.”

KL: “A fungus is attacking banana plantations, and scientists are racing to engineer a replacement, which may mean all the bananas in tomorrow’s supermarket will be genetically modified.”

KL: “Examining the future of the high-quality, small-batch coffee movement and how a ‘fourth wave’ should include more people in the drive for better coffee.”