Around two years ago, the then 10-person team of Bowery, an indoor farming startup, started growing a small array of leafy greens out of what was once a shipbuilding yard in Kearny, New Jersey. Undeterred by the rather harsh post-industrial environment, the Bowery team was just looking for somewhere to set up that had a […]
American eating habits are changing faster than fast food can keep up. Instead of dining out, more Americans than ever are staying in. Restaurants are getting dinged by the advent of pre-made meal kits and online grocery delivery. Dining out has dropped to an average 185 times a year, down from a peak of 216 […]
On a projection screen in front of a packed room in a coastal Maine town, computer-animated salmon swim energetically through a massive oval tank. A narrator’s voice soothingly points out water currents that promote fish exercise and ideal meat texture, along with vertical mesh screens that “optimize fish densities and tank volume.” The screens also […]
Britain is set to become the truffle capital of the world within 30 years, scientists have said, as they are developing new genetic approaches to create varieties that grow twice as fast. It comes as a shift in climate means truffle farmers in the Mediterranean are facing exceptionally dry weather, creating a chronic shortage of the flavoursome […]
Our much-loved molluscs have had a bad rap in recent days, with government scientists claiming that seven out of 10 oysters sold may harbour the norovirus bug . But as David Jarrad, head of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain has pointed out, the tests are flawed. They identify the amount of norovirus in the […]
At the turn of the 20th century, prominent physicians who were trying to understand where mental illness comes from seized on a new theory: autointoxication. Intestinal microbes, these doctors suggested, are actually dangerous to their human hosts. They have a way of inducing “fatigue, melancholia, and the neuroses,” as a historical article in the journal […]
Gazing down at the paper plate, I take a few moments to contemplate the meal in front of me. Is that a piece of wheat gluten masquerading as fried chicken, I wonder, poking at it with a chopstick? A speckled roll of yuba resembling steak? A ball of bean curd made bouncy like cuttlefish? Each […]
In 2017, the United States Forest Service spent close to $2.5 billion fighting and containing wildfires. It was the most expensive year on record. Governors in Montana, Oregon, and California declared states of emergency. Blazes cost the state of California alone nearly $700 million. By the end of the year, more than 71,000 fires had […]
Food shortages have been making dramatic headlines for the past half-dozen years. The end of the avocado is in sight. Maple syrup could become a luxury ingredient, just like peanut butter. Hummus will go from snack food staple to special-occasion snack. The panic is based on genuine factors, including a years-long drought in California’s Central Valley, the heart of […]
Biochemist Patrick O. Brown, founder of Impossible Foods Inc., invented a magic ingredient” that solves what he calls the planet’s biggest environmental problem: beef. The ingredient, made from soybean roots and genetically engineered yeast, goes into vegetarian Impossible Burgers, which are available in a growing number of restaurants — even fast-food stalwart White Castle. It […]