Hi there,
It has been 6 years since we sent out the first edition of Edible Issues! 6 years of building this lovely community that allows us to work, live, breathe, eat and enjoy food. It has also helped us evolve in so many more ways.
The way we look at the food system and learn has also changed over the years. What is the Future of Indian Food — is one such question that we’ve looked at differently across the years.
And here’s how that answer has shifted over the years
We’ve made quite a few changes to the newsletter from this edition:
✨ We’re curating stories around a central theme — this edition being the future of food! The main editorial story and all the curated news articles will around this specific theme!
✨ We’re more than a newsletter — You’ll find more of what we’re up to and the projects we’re working on.
✨ We have a new column where we’re interviewing People in Food and asking them 5 questions! If you have any recommendations, do write in to us.
Dive into this edition and tell us how you liked it!
Stay Curious,
Anusha & Elizabeth
P.S. This newsletter was put together by our in-house food nerds Dewansh Matharoo and Anjali Narendra — part of the Edible Issues squad 🥹
Cabbage Koora: A Prognostic Autobiography
Grist
A family, 25 years in the future, navigates love, culture, tradition, and community in a changing world.
University of Michigan
Urban gardens sprawled across boulevards, rooftops, and shared community spaces promise a green and food-secure vision of the future. But is this vision seen through carbon-tainted glasses? Even if it is, does it alter the necessity of urban gardens?
Navigating the future of food security through machine learning
World Bank Blogs
The World Bank has created a new machine learning tool that aims to fill gaps (created by a lack of official reported information) in food security data, and use data sets from the WDI, IMF, and WEO to make food security projections that would aid policymakers.
The Food Chain (BBC)
We have, for a long time, selectively bred apples to have the juiciest crunch, and we will continue to breed and invent new varieties to meet all our sensorial needs. Should we is a larger question, but how does one invent an apple? (Image by mdjaff)
The future is now for precision fermentation
Food Business News
Precision fermentation is not new to the food and beverage world, but this genetic engineering technique will play a significant role in determining what is on our plates very soon.
Beef rice hybrid sold as food of the future
The Independent
We’ve heard of food fortified using added nutrients, but food might be fortified in labs with animal cells in the future. What does fortification of that kind mean for nutrition, religion, and culture in a country like India?
The title of the brief above has been taken from Vibhu Grover’s article for PARI, which is referenced below.
References
I feel imprisoned at Shambhu border
‘Delhi Chalo’ march: What are the big demands of farmers? Who is leading the protest?
‘Cotton has now become a headache’
Food System Colonisation in Palestine
A Growing Culture
The devastating flour massacre in Gaza is the latest genocidal effort to erase and threaten Palestinian access to food. But this starvation and devastating erasure of land and natural resources has been an active and ongoing process since the nakba.
Going back to roots: A unique food festival celebrates tubers
Livemint
Tubers are a food of resilience that have been an integral part of our past, but festivals like Rooting for Tubers, organised by Spudnik Farms, aim to make tubers an irremovable mainstay in our food futures.
An ‘AI’ fast food drive-thru is mostly just human workers in the Philippines
The Verge
Artificial intelligence is a tool that has been invisibilizing human labour ever since it was touted as the foundation of our future. But what other underpaid labour in the food industry will we continue to be oblivious to thanks to the purported autonomy of AI?
AI And Agriculture: Better Farming, Better Food
Forbes
We often wonder if AI will truly make agriculture and our food “better,” particularly because most accounts praising AI fail to mention caste, human labour, indigenous knowledge, economic privilege, biodiversity, and other ignored risks.
This Is What the Future of Food Looks Like
Edible Issues for Vice
In 2019, we envisioned scenarios of a food future in 2050. A lot of our envisioning is eerily close to the directions food and nutrition are taking, and there was no better time to revisit this piece now as we question our food future (and may never get to revisit this piece when vice.com shuts down).
This year has been quite an interesting one for us! Here is a tiny glimpse into what we have been up to:
Ripe for change @ The Science Gallery Bangalore
You’ve heard of wine and cheese tastings, but we gathered nearly 25 varieties of bananas from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka to host a banana tasting event complete with a banana tasting mat! While visitors sampled various bananas, we prompted them to think about the inextricable links between bananas and carbon, and how the future may (or may not!) rely on carbon in its various forms.
Edible Issues was present at Critical Zones at the Science Gallery to support Saving Grains and Black Baza coffee, both of whom were serving up delicious food and beverages made from waste! Elizabeth Yorke was also was also on the panel discussing titled Wasting Away: A Panel Discussion on Resource Management.
Desi Dairy Dialogues
We got to be a part of the Desi Dairy Dialogues at Chennai which was a one-day event at the Farm, Chennai to bring together producers, brands and researchers working in cheese in India. With guest speaker Trevor Warmedahl — we discussed all about traditional knowledge systems that exist in dairy and cheese in India. And tried so many different varieties of cheese!
That is not all! We have been sharing various titbits from our existing projects and starting new ones on our socials!
You might already be familiar with Roots to Resilience, our project to explore the resilience of tubers and the place they hold in the lives of the people who grow, preserve, and revere tubers. We are actively sharing insights, stories, and questions from the project, and we invite you to join us in learning about tubers on our Roots to Resilience page on Instagram!
If you have been following Edible Issues for a while, you know we are constantly curious about the wonderful and captivating world of seaweed. We’re back with Seaweed Saturdays, our collaborative project with The Good Ocean, to learn more about growing, harvesting, and eating seaweed, the seaweed supply chain, and how the seaweed industry works! Join us in our seaweed exploration and learning here!
We have, very recently, launched a new collaborative series called Eating Between the Lines to ask the very cool humans working on food systems what their favourite reads are! Our first collaborator is Dr. Nayana George, an assistant professor at Christ (Deemed to be) University, who is an active participant in food discourses in the city and coordinates the ‘Cultures ofFood’ capstone project at Christ. Read more about her recommended readings here!
Stay connected to the Indian Food System 