Talk to Me About Food

This episode captures a thought experiment. In my mind I can see myself creating an eatery of some kind. A second career. But I know enough to know that I don't know nearly enough or have the fortitude to actually establish and run this eatery I've been thinking about for at least 10 years.

The 2024 explosion of cicadas didn't happen here in North Texas. This was going to be a once in a lifetime event. A coincidence of thirteen-year and seventeen-year broods that hasn't occurred since Thomas Jefferson fretted over pests in his Monticello gardens. Maybe it has been a bigger deal in the upper Midwest where the bugs were expected to darken the skies. If broods XIX and XIII have made national news or the viralverse, I don't know about it.I did come across cicada recipes published in anticipation of the bumper crop of bugs. Some thoughts on the cicada as a food and on cicadas in general...

What follows now are musings about the forces impacting what we choose to eat AWAY from home Priya Krishna, a contributing writer to the New York Times food section shared her assessment of what she and her team discovered surveying 121 menus from restaurants around the country in a story called “The Menu Trends That Define Dining Now.” This was in the February 7th 2024 edition. It's mostly a light-hearted take on what is on menus and observations about the menu itself. In a previous episode I explored themes Ms. Krishna identifies around what's being served. On this episode I muse about the ways restaurants are serving up the menu; the physical object you find on the table or wall or otherwise conveyed in the establishment, or the menu that's displayed on your personal screen. 

On this episode of Talk to Me About Food I share top line findings from "The Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now," by Priya Krishna, writing in The New York Times. I also muse specifically on Caesar salad which is one of items that's hot across the country from the survey of 121 menus that underpins Ms. Krishna's article.

This episode is one in a mini-series about a range of soups and simple foods from different food traditions that are suggested, prescribed, maybe sometimes even foisted on someone feeling under the weather. I consider a basic udon soup. Where it's the bounty of the land that nourishes a chicken, it's the bounty of the ocean and sea washing up on every millimeter of Japan's coastline that infuses udon noodle soup with its curative power. Marc Matsumoto talks me through how to make dashi; the basic fish stock at the heart of a good bowl of udon noodle soup and okayu, a rice porridge.Marc is a private chef, culinary consultant and TV host with a base of clients around the world. He grew up and worked for a time in the US, but is now based in Tokyo. He has a website, norecipes.com, that teaches you basic cooking techniques but also offers a range of recipes from different cuisines, with a skew to Japanese food, including a basic dashi and udon noodle varieties.

How much, if at all, does the food you eat define who you are and where you come from? Do the choices around what food you buy, where you buy it, how you prepare it and even how you dispose of it subscribe you to a specific community (willingly or unwittingly)?In this episode I muse about "gastronativism" -  a word coined in a book titled Gastronativism, Food, Identity, Politics by Fabio Parasecoli. The author, a professor of food studies at NYU, defines gastronativism as the use of food as a political tool to specify and then galvanize a community into action.

Brief musings around discovering overnight oats. Beats regular old hot oatmeal any day of the week.

Sandor Katz, a self-described fermentation revivalist and author of three books on the topic helps me unpack fermentation. What it is and why it's so engrained in all food cultures. He talks about the role of fermentation in preserving food then explains how fermentation plays a vital role in helping us get the most of the nutritional content of food by breaking food down into easier-to-digest elements, like amino acids. Apparently, we don't benefit from the full nutritional potency of manufactured, fermented foods. The better to make your own yogurt or sauerkraut. We also talk through how fermentation brings out strong flavor profiles. Acquired tastes, for most.We are again turning to fermentation to show us the way. We are leveraging one of nature's fundamental organic processes – a single-celled fungus digesting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide to make bread, for example - to learn how to provision ourselves in a more sustainable way.Bioengineers are leading the way. They are learning to mimic the natural fermentation process to create completely new foods and food ingredients through precision fermentation and biomass fermentation.Audrey Gyr, from Good Foods Institute, a non-profit organization which promotes alternative proteins to animal-based ones, helps explain these Fermentation 2.0 approaches.

On this episode I consider healing meals; traditional dishes believed to help cure what ails you, physically, emotionally, even spiritually. First, I reflect on my conversation with Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam, a PhD candidate in Eco-gastronomy, Education, and Society at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. I recently came across their blog post entitled Curative Cuisines of Cambodia. The article reflects on ethnographic research done in rural Cambodia, looking at the impact of seasonal changes on how plant-based traditional medicine complements maternity diets. This is a very focused, maybe esoteric piece of research. But, I think it offers possibilities around how food can cure or heal that go beyond traditional Khmer medicine and what pregnant mothers should consume.I also share snippets from my chat with Amy Foote, Executive Chef at the Alaska Native Medical Center. The traditional food she serves is one important aspect of the more culturally relevant care patients get there. Donations from hunters really help Chef Amy deliver traditional meals - like seal soup - patients really miss and ask for. She explains how the Traditional Native Foods Initiative works and what it means to the patients.I wonder if we can all do more with healing dishes; curative cuisines as Thao coined them. To “eat right” when we're out of sorts and out of balance despite our best efforts to follow a healthy diet. I suggest thought starters that go beyond boiling milk or making a cup of tea for someone in need. Something more  than your go-to soup. Or toast, rice, oatmeal or plain yogurt.

In this audio blog post I consider Squareat; a start-up meal delivery company that delivers a box of brownie-sized pieces of animal protein (like chicken breast) and same-size, same-shape squares of veggie and grain side dishes. 21st century food to ponder while you enjoy your Thanksgiving meal.

In this Halloween audio blog post I muse about the results of an experiment where a human gene that codes for obesity was implanted into the genome of a potato. The spuds grew to be 50% larger! What could be wrong with that? The research is real; only some of the implications conjured here are plausible...

This episode looks at what it might take to make locally grown and processed food the hub of our food system. Why?  For one, Covid-19 has exposed vulnerabilities in our current food system that is dependent on a sprawling, global web of connections on the one hand, and industrial-scale, concentrated agriculture on the other hand. The longer term threat that's been creeping up on us for decades is the loss of soil fertility almost everywhere. A sustainable food system would be built on small, diversified farms close enough to form symbiotic relationships with population centers.I first speak with Thomas Locke of Bois d'Arc Farm. He raises livestock using sustainable practices less than 100 miles from the Dallas Farmer's Market. Thomas shares his story and what it'll take to make DFW a more vibrant local food scene.I then share part of my conversation about urban farming with Owen Lynch, an associate professor in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. Owen is helping folks in South Dallas help themselves to develop a systemic solution to systemic problems around food access by developing a network of professionally run urban farms to support a local produce market. The starting point is Restorative Farms.Jeff Bednar started Profound Foods several years ago as a small food hub in Dallas. Through it he sells his own small farm's 150 varieties of edible greens as well products from 50+ local farms to some 6,000 residential subscribers and a range of restaurant chefs. He tells me how he got started and reinforces the need for more food hubs like his.Next, Zach Correa describes for us how lemonGRAFT works. It's another sort of food hub based on software coordination. lemonGRAFT connects produce eaters with growers - backyard warriors and small farmers alike - who live in the same vicinity. He also talks about the compelling benefits of this system.Finally, Judith McGeary, of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, addresses the elephant the room when it comes to the local food movement; farm policy and regulation. After explaining the factors that have constrained local food, Judith suggests ways that citizen eaters like you and me can make a difference.There is local food potential everywhere. We have to want it…To really want to re-engineer the current food system model in favor of locally grown, raised and processed food. My sense is that we will need to live through more shocks to consider demanding change of others and of ourselves. Photo courtesy of Brad Roa at Restorative Farms

Charles Spence, author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating defines this realm of research as the scientific study of those factors that influence our multisensory experience while tasting food and drink.The basic premise of gastrophysics is that all aspects of the eating environment – where, when, how, and with whom - provide essential sensory cue, and that the eating experience is influenced by multi-sensory faculties you don't even know you have.In this episode I share some of the findings from this book with the help of Charles Spence, Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, and Head of the Cross-Modal Laboratory.Flavor is not experienced with taste buds alone. Not by a long shot. And the smell receptors in the back of the mouth are critical in cataloging memories of what we eat and drink. The sense of smell is what draws emotion into the eating experience. I also look at how sight and touch cues can heighten the appeal of what's on the plate. Charles then shares with me the power of "sonic seasoning" and how all these cross-modal effects can be used to change behavior. He explains how we can eat healthier, for example.Finally, we look at the future of gastrophysics. How can the five senses be manipulated to deliver extraordinary eating experiences?Wine sound associations courtesy of Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory at a TEDx LSE conference in 2018.

A brief musing about the natural absence of blue in our foods and drinks. A few food scientists are exploring ways to create a natural, bright-hued blue to replace FD&C Blue #1, but there aren't that many artificially colored blue foods either, even though blue is our favorite color...

In this  Talk to Me About Food "mover and shaker" profile I share snippets from a conversation I had with Amanda McLemore, chef, and founder of Baguette & Butter, the first sustainable digital food space. Amanda tells me about how she became a sustainable cooking activist and shares her suggestions for how to cook more mindfully: It's about setting up your kitchen to work efficiently but also about being flexible in how you approach the whole process of planning and preparing food.

In this blog post I touch on the growing efforts to reduce food waste by packaging and marketing upcycled food products. This can be produce that's deemed not fit for the supermarket display or an ingredient that's in the waste stream of some food production process, like barley used in brewing beer. Products like these can now qualify to use a packaging mark from the Upcycled Foods Association.

The audio blog post muses about vegan foods by comparing two very different approaches to creating plant-based foods and dishes. The owners of the Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis draw upon their creativity to offer a wide variety of plant-based butcher fare that mimics meats and cheeses as closely as possible. The chefs at Eleven Madison Park in NYC express their creativity by designing vegan dishes that make veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, and fungi shine in new ways that don't mimic animal-based food.Move over faux burgers, crumbles, and nuggets.Photo Credit: Christopher Ison/English Heritage

This audio blog post muses about the relationship between consumers and producers of packaged food in light of a recent article about Nestle's admission that a good part of the world's largest food and beverage company's products "doesn't meet any recognized definition of health."

According to Houzz.com, one of the key tastemakers in home design today, 25% of Americans renovated their kitchen in 2019, and we spend a lot more on updating the kitchen than any other room in the house. The open concept kitchen has been on trend for a while now, but that might be changing per the same Houzz survey, as well as HGTV celebrities Jonathan Scott, one of the Property Brothers, and Erin Napier of “Home Town.” That got me thinking about what might be driving the future of kitchen design.I first speak with Johnny Grey, a kitchen design pioneer about his first principles and how they apply to social and demographic trends, like telecommuting, multigenerational living and Boomers wanting to “age in place.”I then share some home/kitchen design predictions from IKEA, the largest furniture manufacturer in the world, based on what they've seen and heard from consumers during the pandemic.The episode also explores how kitchen design can influence how we might live more sustainably. I talk about a kitchen concept from GE Appliances exhibited at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020. I conclude with snippets from a conversation with Clive van Heerden of vhMDesignfutures. Clive led a team that created a provocative, sustainability-first concept called the Microbial Home; a zero waste design featuring five kitchen components.Sounds courtesy of jjhouse4, pingel,dbosst and dlandat freesound.org

In this audio blog post I muse about the fate of some our staple foods in the face of climate change. Humans continue to contribute to the extinction of species across the kingdoms of life. Some are trying to rescue endangered or even lost food species, but the trajectory of many others does cause a pause for reflection.

In this audio blog post I muse about how functional ingredients are being added to foods and beverages to enhance short-term cognitive skills, keeping in mind that Homo Sapiens has been consuming "brain food"  for a very long time.

Blog post musings about bioengineered bee-less honey, and other look-alike, taste-alike substitute food products.

Hunting and gathering is in our DNA. Very few of us in America subsist on doing either one these days. Major disruptions raise the profile of both activities. COVID 19 has not only reduced income for tens of millions of Americans it has also led to shortages of staple foods. An increase in the number headlines and of books published on growing your own food and foraging suggests that some of us want to take food self-reliance to the individual level.  I explored the idea of growing of your own food last year in a dedicated Talk to Me About Food episode. In that story I looked at examples of a food forest, or forest garden, where humans plan out, plant and harvest from perennial food sources like fruits, nuts, edible greens, and mushrooms. I was also intrigued by the idea of foraging in the wild; of harvesting what life produces on its own and leaves us for the taking, season after season, year after year.I recently reached out to two expert foragers who forage very different ecosystems. Twila Cassadore lives in Arizona. Sam Thayer is in Wisconsin. They share with me how they got into foraging, what they get out of it – which goes beyond better taste, higher nutritive density, and cost -- and how many of us can also benefit from harvesting what nature sows.

Regenerative agriculture is practiced on a very small percentage of total farm and ranchland in the U.S., maybe 3-5%. This figure is growing by the day because it is a sustainable approach to growing and raising food that also mitigates some of the effects of climate change.This is Part 2 of a two-part story. It looks at how and why food grown using regenerative agriculture practices tastes better and can be better for you, then delves into the challenges and opportunities around upending the current model of agriculture and the food system it supports.First, Allen Williams and Gabe Brown, farmers/ranchers and consultants with Understanding Ag talk about the importance of biologically active soil in improving both the taste profile and nutrient density of food.Suzan Erem, director of Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, and Jack Algiere, farm director at Stone Barns Center paint a picture of the challenges farmers face in making the switch, as well as possible ways to provide incentives to embrace regenerative farming: providing access to affordable land and more equitable ways of sharing equity and profits.Rebecca Chesney of IDEO, a global design firm, talks about the surprising level of collaboration and commitment from food makers and distributors to enabling regenerative agriculture by building and/or evolving both physical and information infrastructure.I talk with Monica Rocchino, co-owner of The Local Butcher Shop, a custom butchery in Berkeley, CA that buys directly from local farmers and ranchers who grow and raise food sustainably. More of her suppliers are calling themselves “soil farmers” and more of her customers are asking about regenerative agriculture.Finally, I share my thoughts on what each one of us, as consumers and eaters, can do to help create a market for foods grown using regenerative agriculture practices. This touches on where, how, and what we buy.Antonio Vivaldi violin concerti courtesy of John Harrison Music

In this blog post I muse about lentils, chickpeas, and beans (the magical fruit) on the heels of World Pulses Day, a day set aside by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to sing the praises of pulses.

Audio blog post musings about the rise of large-scale indoor farming and what we might miss by not growing stuff in the rich soil of a good vegetable patch.

Regenerative agriculture is practiced on a very small percentage of total farm and ranch land in the U.S., maybe 3-5%. This figure is growing by the day because it is a sustainable approach to growing and raising food that also mitigates some of the effects of climate change.This is Part 1 of a two-part story. It seeks to define what regenerative agriculture is, how it’s different from conventional agriculture, and why we should care. Part II will delve into the challenges and opportunities around upending the current model of agriculture and the food system it supports, including our role as consumers in this system.Matt Ridenour, Senior Portfolio Lead at IDEO, a global design company, helps me set the stage by sharing an overview of the Rockefeller Foundation's Food System Vision Prize and the emergence of regenerative agriculture as a major theme. Jack Algiere, farm director at Stone Barns Center, gives us a snapshot of what happens on their land. Stone Barns is one the pioneers in the regenerative agriculture movement.Then, I try to define more broadly what is regenerative agriculture. On one level, it is a set of principles and practices. Gabe Brown and Allen Williams, farmers, ranchers, and consulting educators at Understanding Ag lay out their approach.Regenerative agriculture is also an ethos; a value system that advocates for a more equitable relationship across the food chain. Rebecca Chesney, who leads much of IDEO’s work on redesigning the food system, and Linyee Yuan, Founder and Editor at MOLD, a platform exploring the future of food, expand on this shift in philosophy. Finally, Allen Johnson helps me look at why we should care about considering this alternative but disruptive approach to growing and raising food. The starting point is a dire picture of soil health and fertility, and the resulting environmental challenges. On top of that, the inequalities in the food system that flows from conventional agriculture are reason enough, for some, to embrace a reimagined system underpinned by regenerative agriculture.Sounds courtesy of diegolarat freesound.orgImage courtesy of Gabe Brown of Brown's Ranch near Bismarck, ND

Audio blog post sparked by perusing a new book called "Digital Food - From Paddock to Platform." I muse about how food factors into the digital world of photo sharing, online video content, and meal sharing apps.

1 in 7 humans is involved in growing or getting food to the rest of us. Should and will the other 6 do more to help mankind do so sustainably? The UN thinks so.

Audio blog post about how we are, out of necessity, exploring the fringes of what we've considered edible; on land, and at sea.

In this episode I interview Michelle Baade, wife, mom, and grandmother in small-town Wisconsin, about how a whole-foods, plant-based diet has dramatically altered her and her husband’s health trajectory, and transformed their relationship with food.Michelle and her husband were overweight, suffering from several ailments, and were at high risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Starting in 2016 they decided to cut animal-based products, and even oil to a great extent, out of their diet for one year. They’ve never looked back because they regained control of their health and wellness.I ask Michelle to tell me about what it was like to make this abrupt transition, both emotionally and practically. She explains how planning, shopping, and preparing meals changed, and describes what they eat day in, day out,. She also shares some her family’s new favorites recipes, including a twist on her mom’s lasagna, comfort-food tacos filled with jackfruit, and a General Tso stir fry using soy curls.You’ll hear that one of the big changes in how they eat is that they don’t eat out (or order in) nearly as often as they did before. Michelle explains what they do when they eat away from home.Finally, Michelle offers advice on how to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet. She reiterates that she and her husband don't have any super powers that enabled them to make this change in diet. She claims that if these "meat and potato" folks could do it, anyone can adopt a whole-foods, plant-based diet.

In this audio blog post I break down bread as I think about breaking bread at Thanksgiving. It's back to the future for better tasting, more nutritious bread made with sustainably grown wheat.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response - ASMR - is that relaxing sensation all over your scalp and down the back of your neck in response to a range of stimuli. Getting your hair cut. The tone and timbre of a specific person's voice. Whispering. Repetitive tapping or scratching. Just the suggestion of one of these triggers, just thinking about it, anticipating it, or watching someone else experiencing the triggering activity, is enough to induce ASMR. Inducing ASMR through video has become a thing all over the world. YouTube and other services provide a platform and gateway for all kinds of folks looking to provide a few, stupefying minutes of escape.There are hundreds, if not thousands, of food-centered ASMR videos out there. Viewers are invited to be hypnotized by interesting-looking edibles and the eating of these edibles. An expressive face methodically working through a platter of brightly-colored confections of different shapes and textures, for example, nibbling, chewing, or chomping on each piece in turn.In this episode I experiment with food and ASMR. What you'll hear (mostly) is my peeler, knife and cutting board at work preparing the seven vegetables I chose for a Friday couscous stew.

Audio blog post pondering the sources of the record amount of food waste in America and the mindset change needed for consumers to do more to reduce food waste.

Can zesting and juicing a lemon, and then savoring a lemony morsel of cake lift your spirits? The School of Life recently published a book of recipes developed through a collaboration of philosophers, chefs, and psychologists. The book promotes the idea that certain foods and recipes can change your mood in specific ways.The authors of this book called “Thinking & Eating” assign symbolism to sixteen foods. A lemon is a symbol of hope, while mushrooms are associated with pessimism, for example. The book provides recipes that help you cope with various inward-focused emotional need states as well as dishes that help with entertaining situations. There is guidance for relationship challenges and suggestions for how to sharpen your thinking.In this podcast you’ll hear snippets from several friends and colleagues about their experiences making recipes from this book and eating the end dishes. It’s a somewhat diverse group in terms of overall background and comfort level in the kitchen. This plays out in their reactions to the recipes and the degree to which specific recipes do or don’t affect their moods...and thoughts.Sounds courtesy of Audeption, eyenorth, and cemagar at freesound.org

So called “DNA” diets have caught the public’s attention in the past few years. In the never-ending quest to find a diet regimen that really will take off the pounds for good, millions of us Americans have been at least intrigued by the idea of letting your genes tell you what to eat and drink, and what not to. Many more of us are also curious whether our individual genetic pre-dispositions say something about enjoying better health depending on what we consume.In this podcast I talk to two researchers in the field of nutrigenomics, a gastroenterologist, and a nutritionist to help me better understand the promise of personalized nutrition recommendations based on our individual genetics.Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto, and founder of Nutrigenomix, talks about a landmark study around caffeine, and other studies looking at the links between nutritional factors and health outcomes.Dr. Nathan Price, Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology, describes his findings around genetics and cholesterol, and helps put nutrigenomics within a broader context of personalized nutrition.Dr. David Alpers, Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University urges caution in interpreting findings to date based on nutrigenomics. He also underlines the importance of understanding each person holistically in order to factor in what your genes might one day say about your nutritional needs.Ann Swanson, RD, has a practice called New Way Nutrition. She shares her front line experience with clients and their DNA test scores.Cover art courtesy of Zephyris

Audio blog post reflecting on some of the "winning" new packaged food products of the past 25 years. Our desire to eat healthy or healthier is evident in the splash items like Snackwell's and CarbSmart made when they launched. The culprits (fat, carbs, refined sugar) have changed over time but the underlying emotional needs that drive us to experiment don't.

We’re in the middle of a pandemic that’s made us put extra layers of protection between us and everything we come in contact with. That means a lot more plastic overall, and a lot more plastic food and beverage packaging for all the take-out and delivery. We’re starting to drown in plastic just as momentum was starting to build around alternatives to single use plastic packaging. It’s just a pause, I hope.Pioneers are still forging ahead on the main strategies to reduce our reliance on producing millions of tons of fresh plastic every year; REDUCE, REPLACE, RECYCLE, AND REUSE.I focus on REUSE in the episode - each of us can make a direct impact when it comes to reusing packaging - with the help of three entrepreneurs and a solutions designer.Jocelyn Gaudi Quarrell, CEO and owner of GO Box talks to me about this reusable container service that made its start with food trucks in Portland.Brian Reilly, CEO and Founder of muuse describes how their reusable model works, and shares his vision for how ”reuse” will grow beyond the network of coffee shops muuse started with.Chris Krohn, Portfolio Lead at IDEO, a global design firm, explains what they’ve learned about how people like and you and I are responding to a Bay Area reusability pilot test across several services. He also shares his thoughts on a “pack free future.”Brian Bauer, who leads Circular Economy & Alliances at Algramo, talks a bit about their nascent home refill delivery pilot test in Santiago, Chile.

America's Grow-A-Row began as a weekend daddy daughter project to get a four year-old to want to eat fresh, healthy food by planting and harvesting herself. In the process Chip too has adopted healthier eating habits. And the more he gave away of the overabundance of produce from his oversized plot, first to co-workers and neighbors, then to those who really need much more fresh food in their diet but who don't have access to fresh produce, the clearer it became to him that he had stumbled on a calling to serve in this way. What also became clear to Chip is that many people want to be more actively involved in addressing hunger and malnourishment. This is why America's Grow-a-Row now has nine thousand volunteers. Chip talks about the kids who come from urban areas with limited access to healthy food. Many of them have never been to a working farm.What really makes America's Grow-a-Row work, it seems to me, is this valuable exchange built around food for people who share the same patch of Earth. A willingness to work, learn, and serve others flows into the farms, and fresh, healthier food flows to where it's really needed. Goodwill flows in both directions.There is more talk of food sovereignty and food security these days. Down-to-earth, grass roots organizations like America's Grow-a-Row can play a needed role in acting on these lofty goals.

Audio blog post about the importance of the ritual of making the time to make your own food.

An audio blog post reflecting on how the drive for contactless contacts might accelerate the use of robots in restaurants. What all would we miss? A lot...

Meat is at the heart of the unprecedented growth in supermarket food sales these days. It’s one of the core foods we are turning to as we shelter in place. It’s at the center of the plate, and will likely be there for generations to come. The rising challenge to this attachment to meat, according to many experts, is that we will not be able to sustainably produce enough meat to meet the demands of a fast-growing population around the world. Plant-based meat alternatives have been available for decades but the urgency of the challenge has brought them to the fore, and spurred the exploration of cultivated meat as well.This podcast episode introduces you to the idea of meat grown from cells taken from live, healthy animals. I talk a bit about the 20-year history of cultivated, or cell-based meat. Keri Szejda, Founder and Principal Research Scientist at North Mountain Consulting Group helps me understand consumers’ reaction to cultivated meat. I talk with Zak Weston from the Good Food Institute about future prospects for this ”meat” meat alternative that promises an environmentally sustainable approach, the well-being of animals, and human health benefits over the current industrial animal agriculture model of growing meat.

An audio blog post about how a new book, called "Thinking and Eating," has got me thinking about the power of the color of foods. I've been working on a food fiction piece about this.

Audio blog post about this food-centered movie experienced again in the midst of our current experience of making food at home like never before.

The major disruption in how we feed ourselves ignited by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the worries about the on-going impact this will have on America’s food supply chain, has spurred more people to look into growing their own food. But “growing your own food” has been on a long-term upward trend since the financial crisis in 2008.According to the National Gardening Association, at least 35% of Americans say they do some amount of food gardening, and the appeal is growing across a broad swath of the population. Millennials, in particular, are driving this trend. While the median garden size is 75 sq. ft, the average size is 550 sq. ft. That’s a fair amount of the most popular things we grow; tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, carrots, and summer squash.This podcast explores a range of approaches to growing and foraging your own food. Marjory Wildcraft, founder of the GROW network talks about her 3-part system, which relies on animals, for growing up to half of your food needs in your backyard. I tap into the wisdom of Wild Abundance, a permaculture and homesteading school, to learn what vegetables to grow, and look at some examples of a forest garden; a valuable but undervalued source of perennial edibles. I also talk with Roman Gonzalez, founder of Gardenio, a company that’s all about initiating Millennials into successfully growing edible plants, one herb at a time.Sound clip courtesy of dersuperanton at Freesound.org

We are not flocking to vegetarianism, and even less to veganism. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization projects that meat consumption will grow by 2% in the U.S. through 2027. Between 20% and 30% of Americans say they are trying to cut or even drop meat-eating all together. Is it really happening? The increasing popularity of plant-based meat alternatives like the Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers shows that we are willing to try meatless options. We have a long way to go, despite the compelling arguments to go meatless; the ethics and morality of eating animals and/or the treatment of animals in the industrialized farm system, the environmental impact of large-scale animal agriculture, the health concerns around eating a lot of meat, and the health benefits of eating a plant-based diet.This podcast explores our deep-seated attachment to meat and the journey most of us considering going meatless must travel to get there, with the help of Dr. Paul Rozin, a preeminent food psychologist who coined the term “Omnivore’s Dilemma” more than 40 years ago.

Intermittent fasting has been on the periphery of my attention as something getting buzz in the broader world of food and food marketing. In fact, intermittent fasting is among the most popular weight loss strategies as we roll through 2020. According to an annual survey by the International Food Information Council, about 10% of Americans tried intermittent fasting in 2019, second only to “Clean Eating.”An app promoting intermittent fasting - DoFasting - broke through the onslaught of January diet marketing for me because fasting brings back poignant memories. Not because I’ve fasted to lose weight, but because fasting was an annual event in my family growing up. Breaking the fast is what I remember most and best. Food never tasted so good! And not just any food. Special food that did more than replenish your energy. A hearty, nourishing soup called harira (I give you my vegan version of it in this episode), figs, dates, eggs, and a special Moroccan sweet treat called chebakia.This wave of interest in fasting got me wanting to revisit my experiences to better understand the potential of fasting, especially as something more than a way to lose weight. From my limited experience it seems like fasting can heighten the pleasure of eating and offer emotional, even spiritual rewards if it’s part of an overall approach to eating.In this episode I talk to Liliya, who recently started a fasting Meetup group, about her experience and why she's a big proponent of IF. I also speak with Dr. Rachel Herz, a neuroscientist who specializes in perception and emotion, and author of "Why You Eat What You Eat." She tells me about some of the latest research into the health benefits of intermittent fasting related to managing insulin. Dr. Herz also talks about how we experience food after not eating for a long time, and speculates on the potential emotional benefits we derive from breaking the fast. Martina observes a vegan fast for weeks at a time, in addition to periodic 18-24 hour fasts. She describes the spiritual rewards of fasting.Then we talk about food to break the fast with. Mehdi Menouar, owner of Meska Sweets, a Moroccan bakery/patisserie in Englewood, NJ, talks about his Moroccan Macaron and elaborates on chebakia, the heavenly cookie/pastry that is one of my favorite things in Moroccan cuisine, and a staple during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The Specialty Foods Association holds a Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January. The 2020 edition just wrapped up. I did a virtual fly-over of the show to see what caught my attention. The sheer number of specialty foods and beverages on exhibit is overwhelming: 80,000 + items! There’s no way any one observer could cover the whole show in person or by perusing the online directory and pages devoted to the more than 1400 exhibitors from around the world. I relied on a steady stream of pretty picture posts from folks covering the Fancy Food show in person to get a sense for what was getting buzz.For this episode I asked my business partner, and wife, Farnaz Badie to have a light-hearted, definitely not definitive or comprehensive chat about a short list of items I thought made a statement. With all our combined years managing, marketing, and researching food and beverage brands I thought we might weigh in on the prospects of some of these products.

Our lifestyle, for the vast majority of us in the U.S., demands the convenience of packaging. This dependence on convenient packaging is only growing as we live more of our daily lives on the go, and we look to light-weight, sturdy, sealed, hassle-free packaging (think plastic) to transport our food with us. And when we do eat at home, many of us are often too time-pressed or too tired to prepare a meal from scratch, so we turn to pre-prepared, packaged foods.At the same time, many of us are literally feeling the effects of too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. We are worried, individually and collectively about the impact on our health, and, for some, even our survival as a species. There is an uncomfortable, unrelenting tension between what we think we need, which translates into producing 300 million tons of virgin plastic feedstock every year, and the price we are paying in terms of the unsustainable levels of pollution we are generating, to live the way we do.Recycling is not working nearly as effectively as it could or should. And while packaged food manufacturers have started to invest in alternative, more eco-friendly packaging to plastic, the fact is that the plastics industry is planning to make more food and beverage plastic packaging for years to come. Another, or parallel solution is for us consumers to just not ask for, or use as much disposable packaging. That is mostly what the zero waste movement is about.This episode focuses on two zero waste shopping approaches. First, I talk to owners of two zero waste stores that have opened in the last year; Stephanie Lentz of Scoop Marketplace in Seattle, and Lea Rainey at Roots Zero Waste in Garden City, Idaho. Nothing is pre-packaged or branded in these stores. You bring your own containers, or pay to use the store's.I also speak with Ben Weir, from Loop, a start-up that is testing a model where you and I can buy products in non-disposable, durable packaging that we send back to Loop for them to reuse when we've used up all the product.

Chocolate can transport you to your happy place, some other-worldly realm, better than maybe any other food. If just for a few minutes. A product with this kind of magnetic pull - this sway over our emotions, was bound to become ubiquitous from the moment the conquistadors secreted the first cacao beans back to the Spanish court hundreds of years ago. It’s no wonder that chocolate is a $100+ billion industry around the world. We Americans eat just under 10 pounds of chocolate each every year, which, by the way, is only half of what the Swiss eat. As we gift our way into the winter holiday season with boxes, and bags, and bars of the stuff, I got to wondering, where are the frontiers of chocolate?For one, craft chocolate is creating a new wave of chocolate products and aficionados, much in the way specialty coffee and craft beer have over the past couple of decades. For this episode of Talk To me About Food, I had a good chat with Nate Saal, CEO of CocoTerra, a company whose mission is to revolutionize the art and craft of chocolate-making by making it more accessible. He explains what's happening in the world of artisan chocolate, and how his appliance will allow you and I to make our own, personalized craft chocolate.Another frontier is the fruit that surrounds the cacao bean. Emanuel Gavert, an innovator at Mondelez, one the world's largest confectionary companies, talks about a "super food" snack they are testing which is made from the cacao fruit. Not only is it good for you, it also makes use of food that's been going to waste.What we think of when we think of chocolate is also being defined by the small chocolatier with a storefront. Blue Stripes is a new restaurant in New York with a menu that celebrates everything cacao, from unusual shakes and juices, to sweet/savory bowls, to breakfast oatmeal.Chocolate in more ways. All ways.

The 5th Smart Kitchen Summit was held a few weeks ago in Seattle. Two days in early October when entrepreneurs, food techies, food futurists, and investors gather to check out the latest ideas around how to make the process of planning for, shopping for, and preparing foods/meals better. To make it easier, faster, cheaper, less wasteful, or in some other way more rewarding through advances in technology. A slew of smart appliances and smartphone apps were on display.In this podcast I get the perspectives on some the featured ideas at the Smart Kitchen Summit from two experts in their fields who attended. Lisa McManus is a kitchen equipment tester. She’s a reporter and editor who also stars on PBS television shows "America's Test Kitchen" and "Cook's Country.Anna Marie Cesario spent a good part of her career at food companies like Unilever, attuned to the whole meal preparation process. She and her teams developed recipes that fit into our changing lifestyles. In this show I also consider if and how any of these ”smart” solutions could help me in my own kitchen…