No place else is good enough

In John Steinbeck’s 1953 essay, The Making of a New Yorker, he wrote: “New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.”

I have traveled to over 60 countries, visited just about every state in the United States, and lived in 9 of them – 4 in the near corners of the country (Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Washington), and moved 25 times since meeting my partner 30 years ago. It is reasonable to assume I have seen my fair share of people, places, and landscapes. Yet, still, New York is good enough, at least for me. It is always in flux—changing, gentrifying, molding in both ambitious and merciless ways. The constant liquescency and, at the same time, the unyielding character of the city is home.

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Having been here for almost a month now, it isn’t the same city as when we first moved here in early 2000. It isn’t necessarily better or worse. It metamorphosed in some ways and remains utterly unvarying in other ways. Watching the documentary, Meet Me in the Bathroom, about the early naught NY resurging music scene, takes me back to my younger self, when we saw a ton of live music, ate out probably way too much, and took in everything we could.

This second go-around will be a bit different, I suspect. I think, and hope, we will be here a good long while (I don’t want to move for the 26th time). New York will be where we occupy our 50s and 60s. I have elaborate plans to be the quiet academic, the routine professor. I want to frequent my neighborhood restaurants and bars “where everybody knows your name…” Days will consist of stellar meals and drinks (we already had some delicious meals near our apartment, like Sushi W, Ortomare, Osteria 106, Calaveras, Rosies, and Flor de Mayo – nothing that requires booking months in advance…), books, movies, live music, and lots of walks.

We are starting our Maphattan* project again – in which we walk every city street of Gotham. A decade has passed, and we won’t do too much research this time. It will be more zen: reflecting and flaneuring with some tentacles into the other 4 lovely boroughs. To kick it off, we did a 9.5 miler today in our own hood: 98th to 109th Street on the west side.

*Our Maphattan Project is named after the Manhattan Project established by Oppenheimer, who lived in our hood on 155 Riverside Drive.

The town that we could call our own

Preface: To hear the deep cultural history of DC, I highly suggest listening to The Atlantic’s Holy Week podcast — a story about the week following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968, and the seven days of heartbreak and revolution, much of it centered in DC.

After eight years (well, technically six and half years, but more on that later) living in DC, we are heading back to New York. In 2015, I was wooed to leave New York and Columbia University to take on a tenured, chaired professorship—as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Food Policy and Ethics—at Johns Hopkins University. I split my time between Baltimore and DC, with appointments at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the School of Advanced International Studies, also known as “SAIS,” and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. I started the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program and built and mentored a strong team of food system scientists. Amid those eight years, 1.5 were spent in Italy – one year as a nutrition policy program officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and another at SAIS’ Europe campus in Bologna. I also took a sabbatical and wrote the first draft of my hippie food book (more to come on that!). I cannot even begin to describe how pivotal these years at Hopkins have been for my career and those I had the privilege to mentor and work with.

But Columbia and, more so, New York City are calling me back. Starting July 1, I will be a Professor of Climate at Columbia University’s new climate school, the first in the country. I will also lead their Food for Humanity Initiative. I am looking forward to my 4th stint at Columbia. Yes, 4th. The first time was as a postdoc fellow in the Molecular Medicine Department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The second was with Jeffrey Sachs at the Earth Institute, leading nutrition work. The third was as an assistant professor at the Institute of Human Nutrition and the School of International and Public Affairs, aka “SIPA.” So, I guess my home is Columbia or, at least, where I continue to feel grounded.

Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library and “Low beach.”

I am looking forward to living in Gotham again. DC has been a fine place to dwell, but nothing that I felt would be our long-term home. Sure, you have free-entry Smithsonian museums, many memorials dedicated to the US wars (if you are into that sort of thing), and two rivers surrounding it. But, still, to me, DC is a suburban-oriented town that is culturally vacant. What I think I will miss most is the greenery, book boxes, birds, and Rock Creek Park. It is clean, but I would not necessarily say it is any safer than NYC at the moment.

I won’t miss the unfettered, careless gentrification of historic neighborhoods, so much so that you cannot distinguish parts of the city from other American towns like Atlanta, Philly, or Baltimore all that much. DC has become a city full of Sweetgreens (you know, the place that sells $13 salads) and Tatte Bakeries. Likewise, NYC has gentrified, and the old-school feel of the city has diminished. That said, when you are in NYC, you know it, and there are still plenty of unique places that are quintessential to Gotham. It just doesn’t seem so brutally gentrified, but maybe I’m biased.

Gotham

I will not long for the insanely expensive and the not-at-all-worth-it restaurant scene in DC. You either spend $200 on dinner for two or dine at a fast-casual place like the aforementioned Sweetgreens or Starbucks. NYC has a range of eateries to satisfy all tastes and wallets. Of course, you can spend even more than $200 on dinner in Gotham, but you can also score some real-deal delish dumplings, scrumptious sushi, or hand-rolled badass bagels for cheap. You just need to know where to go. I can’t wait to walk into a back-in-the-day diner (yes, they still exist), sit at the counter, and order a grilled cheese sandwich and a hot cup of coffee, private eye style. All for under ten bucks. I look forward to frequenting Hasaki or Takahachi in the east village, Lupes LA style burritos in Soho, the dumplings at Shu Jiao Fu Zhou, and the pizza. My god, the pizza.

Tom’s diner

I will appreciate seeing live music with more than five people in the audience (so sad for bands!) and grooving with like-minded lemurs as opposed to a strange mix of randomers, some just coming from work with World Bank badges hanging around their necks. At least take the goddamn badge off for chrissakes. It’s okay not to be networking all the time…

Moments to look forward to, like hanging out with friends in dive bars with a jukebox and ordering a beer instead of frequenting some douchey bar where cocktails are $20. Of course, NYC is also abundant in douchebaggery up to your knees, but you have more options to escape to the said dive bars and delicatessen, and I am yet to find a cool dive bar or old-school diner in DC.

Mo’s - dive bar in Brooklyn

I will relish walking the vast cityscape without fear of being hit by a car. And for the record, while DC is a bikable town, cars rule, and those cars seem to have a habit of running red lights. In NYC, pedestrians dominate. Plus, walking 6 or 7 miles in DC is like drudgery because everything looks the same. Lots o’ suburbs. It lacks eye candy to keep you preoccupied as you ramble.

I will love the true diversity that NY offers around you in its cultures and peoples, 24-7. Sure, DC is diverse, but everyone is either a politician, a policy analyst, a government contractor, or working for an NGO. Because it is a city of great political power, the whole area of the DMV feeds off that government infrastructure. The first question someone asks you when they meet you is, “What do you do/where do you work?” It is a pretty buttoned-up place. Pearls and pinstripes. Khakis after dark. You get the picture. It just doesn’t have the cultural cache. One of my students gave an apropos comparison between Miami and DC. She said: “In Miami, everyone who is 75 wants to be 25, and in DC, everyone 25 wants to be 75.” Too true.

I guess I just never felt like I belonged in DC. I miss who we were and the place, the town that we could call our own. I know everything will be different, and we, too, have changed. But change is good. I am not saying NYC doesn’t have its problems. Unfortunately, it does, especially right now. Rats, homeless populations, unsafe subways, and grime. But I love the grit. I love the jenk. It’s my kinda town. I can’t wait to go back home.

Food Bytes: March 2023 Edition

FOOD BYTES IS A (Almost) MONTHLY BLOG POST OF “NIBBLES” ON ALL THINGS CLIMATE, FOOD, NUTRITION SCIENCE, POLICY, AND CULTURE.

So much going on in food and nutrition these days that it is hard to keep up. In looking at what has been published in the last month, three areas dominate ultra-processed foods, climate change, and blue foods. Let’s take each and highlight the latest and the greatest.

Ultra-processed foods: What are ultra-processed foods (UPFs), may you ask? Basically, junk food. But we scientists have to come up with fancy terms and categorize everything. UPFs are a very broad category of foods that generally are made from highly processed, industrialized ingredients not found in the home or in restaurant kitchens. These foods are designed to be hyper-palatable, often conveniently ready-to-eat, shelf-stable, transportable, strongly marketed, and, ultimately, highly profitable. More and more research shows that these foods are detrimental to various health outcomes (obesity, diabetes, cancer, morbidity, mental health, etc.) and could be potentially addictive and environmentally destructive. California, which always leads in food governance (blame it on the hippies), is growing worried about what exactly these foods contain. They are considering banning a number of staple ingredients found in these foods. I cannot even begin to source the sheer amount of literature coming out demonstrating the impact of these devilish foods, but here, here, and here are a few good systematic or meta-reviews. This Wired layperson article is a good summary. If you want to read two people who lead in the science of UPFs, read Carlo Montiero or Kevin Hall. Regardless of all the science coming out, their sales are increasing across almost every region of the world. Why? Well, they are cheap, have a long shelf life, are easily stored and transported for long periods of time, and are damn tasty.

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report, 2023: Key Summary Figure

Climate and food: Hard too to keep up with everything going on. The most significant update is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the IPCC, has come out with a synthesis report on how much time we have left before the world falls apart. They are surprisingly and cautiously optimistic, arguing that there is still time to address climate change before things start “gettin’ hot in here.” Food is heavily featured in this synthesis report, thanks to our AgMIP friends at Columbia University. They argue that food security and nutrition are and will continue to be significantly impacted, particularly in resource-constrained settings and among smallholder farmers. They also offer a range of mitigation and adaptation strategies, including agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) options with reduced deforestation in tropical regions, shifting to sustainable healthy diets, reducing food loss/waste and intensifying sustainable agriculture (they even mention urban ag!).

When I asked Google’s new AI system, Bard, what was the latest science published in “food systems” in the last week, this is what they spit out:

Here are some recent research on food systems:

• A new study found that the global food system is responsible for about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions. The study, published in the journal Nature, found that the food system's emissions are mainly caused by the production of meat and dairy products, as well as the transportation of food.

• A new study found that the global food system is also responsible for about one-third of all water use. The study, published in the journal Nature Water, found that the food system's water use is mainly caused by the irrigation of crops, as well as the production of meat and dairy products.

• A new study found that the global food system is also responsible for about one-third of all land use. The study, published in the journal Nature Land, found that the food system's land use is mainly caused by the production of crops, as well as the grazing of livestock.

These are just a few of the recent research on the global food system's impacts on the environment. The food system is a major contributor to climate change, water pollution, and land degradation. These impacts are likely to become more severe in the coming years, as the global population continues to grow.

Not too shabby, but a bit outdated (and they don’t provide any citations). Interesting how AI is set to become such a game-changer, and yet, as an expert, asking Bard to do a bit of research, it is pretty generic and lacks scientific nuance, which can be dangerous…Here are some even more recent papers out this week on food systems and climate from a flawed human perspective:

• Ivanovich and colleagues at Columbia University (see a pattern?) published a paper in Nature showing that if we continue on our current food consumption patterns, this will add 1 °C to an already warm planet by 2100. Most of this warming is driven by what is called high methane foods (methane is another toxic greenhouse gas) like livestock, dairy, and rice (yes, we cannot blame it all on those cute cow creatures). If we made some of the changes mentioned in the IPCC report above, we could cut 55% of that warming.

• Another paper, again published by Columbia University peeps (they are on a roll), called for more studies to better show how the food security of households and communities is impacted by climate-related shocks. They argue that most studies only examine food production and availability, not access or utilization.

• And last, and this is self-promotional, a few of us put together an analysis trying to understand if the EAT-Lancet planetary health diet was adequate in nutrients (we didn’t look at environmental impacts or other health impacts, and we are not suggesting to do so). This particular analysis shows that the diet is inadequate in vitamin B12, calcium, iron, and zinc. The EAT-Lancet may not be happy with these results but this is what science is all about — debating on a level playing field, DISproving one’s hypotheses, and not being wed to ideologies. I am not sure right now that everyone at the so-called proverbial table looks at science similarly and instead holds fast to their worldviews, which worries me. But a lot is at “steak.” The EAT-Lancet Commission part has been downloaded over 6,000 times in 4 years. That is pretty insane. So to go against that, dissect it, calls to do it better next time around, or at least look carefully at the data, in which multiple people analyzing the dataset, is, well, what science and the pursuit of truth is all about. But putting one’s arm out to be potentially severed. Bottom line: This paper is about the trade-offs that are par for the course with a grand food systems transformation.

Showing tradeo-offs of policy bundles: Crona et al Nature 2023.

Blue foods: More and more, and this is long overdue, blue foods, aka seafood, aka aquatic foods, are getting more attention. The Blue Foods Assessment highlighted their importance from multiple angles - important contributors to a nutritious diet, some species’ environmental sustainability, their risk of climate threats, and contributors to livelihoods. Some fantastic articles have emerged recently, including a fantastic paper by Christina Hicks and colleagues examining the injustices associated with aquatic food systems. Another paper summarized the BFA around 4 policy objectives to help realize the contributions that blue foods can make to national food systems around the world: ensuring supplies of critical nutrients, providing healthy alternatives to terrestrial meat, reducing dietary environmental footprints, and safeguarding blue food contributions to nutrition, just economies and livelihoods under a changing climate. However, trade-offs always exist, just as above. The figure shows these — the question is, what trade-offs are we willing to live with? And last, on blue foods, the great Roz Naylor at Stanford published a policy landscape paper in Food Policy (thanks, Chris Barrett!) on aquaculture. I had the pleasure of working with her on this. Through a series of case studies, she presents a state-of-play on how aquaculture is playing out globally, and again, where those policy priorities elicit trade-offs that can be detrimental to the environment or nutrition. Check it out.

Diversifying Our Diets, Post COP 15

This is a cross-posted blog from the Berman Institute of Bioethics’s Global Food Policy and Ethics (GFEPP) blog. It was written by Leslie Engel, MPH, a Science Writer Consultant for the GFEPP.

COP 15—shorthand for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity—wrapped up in late December with ambitious goals to address the rapid and stunning losses to our natural world. Included within the targets for 2030 is the conservation of 30% of the world’s land, oceans, and waterways; a 50% reduction in food waste, and a “significant” curtailment in overconsumption and waste generation.

The critical role food systems play in meeting these targets was acknowledged during Food Day, a mini-conference within the two-week convening. The day was devoted to discussions on “transforming food systems to address biodiversity loss and achieve food security and nutrition for all by 2030.” As the organizers noted, “food production is the biggest driver of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss: 70% of freshwater withdrawn, 30% of global GHG emissions, 80% of deforestation and the degradation of many other precious habitats such as wetlands and grasslands.”

In the U.S., recent events have underscored how intensive agricultural practices and climate change are interacting to create a troubling feedback loop with dire environmental consequences. A severe drought, coupled with overuse, has reduced the Colorado River to a trickle in places. Americans rely heavily on the river, with one in 10 depending on it for drinking water. The rest of us are making salads with it: 70% of the Colorado River Basin is used for agriculture and over 90% of our winter vegetables are grown in Arizona. 

And we are not the only species relying on it. The river that carved the Grand Canyon also sustains life for a huge variety of unique creatures and ecosystems that will disappear without it. A manager at Glen Canyon Dam described it as a “doomsday scenario” in a recent Washington Post article. 

California’s Central Valley, where 25% of our food is grown, is experiencing similar conditions, the January deluge notwithstanding.

Let’s pause here for a deep breath.

It’s heartening that the international community was able to come to a consensus on protecting the world’s ecosystems. How do we translate the momentum generated in distant conference rooms to our everyday lives?

Here’s one idea: this year, let’s step out of our culinary comfort zones. 

Seventy-five percent of the world's food comes from only 12 plant and five animal species. It’s a startling statistic but think about that salad you ate for lunch. Was it so different from the one you had yesterday, last month or last spring? We can support the environment, our personal health and ultimately, a more sustainable future by diversifying our own palates. 

To jumpstart, here’s a veggie-centered recipe, sans lettuce, the leafy green that science journalist Tamar Haspel once described as a “vehicle to transport refrigerated water from farm to table.” Instead, this colorful and low-waste winter salad features nutrient-rich, cool-weather crops that you may be able to source locally or regionally, including:

• Radicchio, native to Northeast Italy and currently grown in similar climates within the U.S throughout the winter months.

• Millet, a highly nutritious and drought-resistant cereal grain that you’ll be hearing more about. The FAO has declared 2023 the International Year of Millets to draw attention to the potential of this small but mighty grain to feed the world in the face of climate change. 

• Winter squash, a great two-for-one deal since you get the flesh and the seeds as a future snack. Keep the veggie peeler in the drawer; squash skin is edible.

• Hazelnuts (aka filberts), which are less intensive to grow than other nuts. If possible, use hazelnuts grown in Oregon. 

• Citrus, currently in season

Radicchio, Millet and Roasted Winter Squash Salad with Hazelnuts and Orange Vinaigrette
Serves 4 generously/Costs approx. $3 per serving (based on current food prices in a New York City)

• 1 medium winter squash (about 2 lbs.): delicata, kabocha, buttercup, almost any type will do, except spaghetti.

• 1 cup millet

• ½ lb. radicchio (of any variety), torn into bite-sized pieces

• 2 large navel oranges: use one for zesting and juicing, and the other for the salad.
  I used cara cara oranges here for their lovely pink hue, but any navel-type orange works.

  • 1 tsp orange zest (zest the orange before squeezing it)

  • ¼ cup freshly squeezed orange juice 

• ½ cup raw hazelnuts

• Olive oil

• Optional soft herbs like parsley, mint, tarragon or chives (a great way to use up any herbs you may have lurking in your fridge)

Roast Squash

Arrange racks in the middle and bottom sections of the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut squash in half and scoop out the seeds (save for roasting!). Slice squash into one-inch pieces, place on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast on top rack 25-30 minutes until caramelized and tender. Flip squash halfway through cook time to ensure even roasting.

Prepare Millet
Meanwhile, add millet to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Toast millet 4-5 minutes until slightly golden and fragrant. Carefully pour in 2 cups of water, 1 tbsp. olive oil and ½ tsp. salt. Stir everything and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes. Allow to steam for five minutes with the lid on, then fluff with a fork. Spread on a sheet pan or plate to cool. This last step is optional but prevents the grains from sticking together too much. Adapted from thekitchn.

Toast nuts

Place hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast on bottom oven rack for 7-10 minutes, shaking pan once, until nuts are lightly browned and fragrant. Roughly chop nuts once cool enough to touch. If your nuts still have the papery husks attached, don’t worry about removing them. They’re perfectly edible.

Make Dressing

Combine orange juice, zest and ½ tsp salt in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in ¼ cup olive oil. Taste dressing and add more salt and a grind of pepper, if you like. Set aside.

Assemble Salad

Tear radicchio into bite-size pieces. Add to a large bowl and drizzle in half the dressing. Gently massage radicchio leaves with your hands. Add squash and 1 cup millet to the bowl, then gently mix to combine ingredients. Taste the salad and add additional dressing, salt, and pepper if needed.

Slice off the stem and navel ends of the second orange to reveal the flesh and create a stable base for cutting. Using a sharp knife, “shave” off the peel, following the shape of the fruit and preserving as much of the flesh as possible. Then slice the flesh into thin rounds. 

Top salad with citrus rounds, nuts and optional herbs. Buon appetito! 

A note about leftovers: 

• The salad is best when eaten the day you make it, but radicchio’s crisp leaves are forgiving, so the wilt factor is minimal compared to more delicate salad veggies. Store in the fridge and bring to room temp before eating. 

• Any remaining dressing can be refrigerated for a day or two. Bring to room temp before using.

• Leftover millet can be eaten for breakfast like Cream of Wheat or used as a base for grain bowls. It also freezes well for future use. 

For more information on the joys of winter vegetables, check out this informative guide from FoodPrint. 

Gas Stoves: More Than a Lifestyle Choice

This is a cross-posted blog from the Berman Institute of Bioethics’s Global Food Policy and Ethics (GFEPP) blog. It was written by Leslie Engel, MPH, a Science Writer Consultant for the GFEPP.

You’ve likely heard the recent flare up regarding gas stoves, inspired by statements from Richard Trumka Jr. of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

@copyright: Scientific American

It turns out that gas stoves are a major source of indoor air pollution from nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter, which they emit even when not in use. While discussing the health hazards this poses—-childhood asthma, respiratory illnesses, increased risk for cardiovascular disease and potentially dementia later in life—Trumka floated the idea of a ban if they could not be made safer. 

The reactions were swift and dramatic. One chef taped himself to his beloved gas stove in protest, while food activist and chef Alice Waters declared that she’s ready to go electric. On social media, home cooks passionately defended their gas stoves. And then there were the inflammatory comments from elected officials. To cool things off, the Biden administration quickly announced that there were no plans to ban them.

Based on this public discourse, one might think that the only people potentially impacted by gas stove regulations are chefs, aspirational home cooks and politicians. It’s been discussed as yet another lifestyle choice—one of our freedoms—that’s in danger of being taken away from us. 

And right on cue, Senators Cruz and Manchin have introduced the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, which would prohibit the CPSC from using federal funds to enact bans on gas stoves.

“The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner, which is why Senator Cruz and I introduced bipartisan legislation to ensure Americans decide how to cook in their own homes,” said Manchin in a press release. 

There’s a lot of hot air blowing around.  

Yet it seems that we haven’t heard from communities disproportionately impacted by the ill effects of indoor air pollution. For example, asthma disproportionately affects low-income families and communities of color: 16% of African American non-Hispanic children, 13% of children of Puerto Rican descent and 11% of kids from homes with incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level. For comparison, the rate of asthma among white children is 7%.

In a recent study, researchers reported that nearly 13% of childhood asthma cases in the U.S. could be attributed to gas stove usage, on par with secondhand smoke. Those numbers increase in states with higher reliance on gas stoves, like Illinois, New York and California. Kids from low-income households may be at even higher risk of gas exposure due to poor stove ventilation and other factors related to their living situation.  

Many Americans don’t get to decide how to cook their own meals; they live in rental units, public housing or simply cannot afford to replace whatever cooking apparatus they already have. In New York City and Baltimore, gas outages in affordable housing have left residents without a reliable cooking source for weeks and even months at a time. Residents are provided with an electric hot plate, but one has to wonder how this impacts food choices and nutrition in the long run. 

For some, cooking with a gas stove is a lifestyle choice, but for many, it’s simply another structural inequity contributing to poor health outcomes.

By Leslie Engel, MPH, Science Writer Consultant for the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program

Grocery Delivery Services: A Mixed Bag

This is a cross-posted blog from the Berman Institute of Bioethics’s Global Food Policy and Ethics (GFEPP) blog. It was written by Leslie Engel, MPH, a Science Writer Consultant for the GFEPP.

Americans have more ways than ever to shop for the ingredients needed for their meals. This was not always the case. Prior to the first self-service grocery store opening over a century ago, shoppers had to rely on clerks to retrieve and package items for them. Since then—aside from the invention of scanners and self-checkout—the grocery shopping experience has remained largely unchanged. It’s an industry ripe for disruption, and tech companies have seized upon this.

Rowan Freeman, Unsplash License

Enter grocery delivery services. These companies make lofty promises—to eliminate the hassle of grocery shopping, meal planning, preparation, and even the act of cooking itself—while also being good for you and the environment. And more Americans than ever are now using them.

I worked as a recipe manager for a leading grocery delivery startup whose mission is to make healthy eating easy by using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict customer food preferences. As a professionally trained chef with a background in public health, I was fascinated with the ability of such services to seamlessly deliver top-quality, nourishing, and sustainable products and recipes to customers, potentially as another avenue to improve health and wellbeing through home cooking. However, as I developed yet another recipe involving ground beef, I began to question how healthy this industry really is, both for ourselves and for our food system.

Convenience, for a price
Convenience, safety, and accessibility are the main appeal of these delivery services. This was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many consumers turned to delivery to avoid in-person shopping. In theory, this means that more people will have better access to food, especially those with health, mobility, or other constraints. However, convenience comes at a price, and grocery delivery services pass this cost onto consumers in the form of markups, service, and delivery fees. Additionally, increased food costs due to inflation likely render this convenience financially out of reach for those most in need.

Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions?
There’s some evidence that grocery delivery could be more environmentally friendly than hopping into the car because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. A study in Washington State demonstrated that it may be more efficient for a fully stocked truck to deliver to multiple households in the same neighborhood rather than individuals driving to the store themselves. But this is a best case scenario. The biggest emissions reductions would require households to cluster their orders together and forgo specific delivery times, thus reducing the convenience factor and the main selling point of such services.

Tim Mossholder, Unsplash License

Reliance on California’s Central Valley
Twenty-five percent of our nation’s food is produced in the Central Valley of California. The area is so integral to business that the company I worked for hired someone specifically from the region to oversee produce sourcing. But its agricultural future is in peril: water is scarcer than ever, severe droughts related to climate change have diminished groundwater stores and decimated crops, and intensive farming practices exacerbate the problem.

Crop failures or shortages were a huge sourcing and supply chain headache with trickle down effects. Customers often complained about receiving an inferior product, or one not as uniform as what they were accustomed to. Receiving a last minute vegetable “swap” presented a whole new set of customer challenges: I don’t like the cauliflower that replaced my broccoli! And how am I supposed to cook this?

The end result was often wasted food, as evidenced in the customer comments I analyzed. Food wasted at the household level is especially egregious because it squanders all the resources that went into growing, processing, packaging, and shipping it. In the U.S., between 73 and 152 metric tons of food is wasted somewhere along the supply chain annually. About half of that waste is happening at the household or food service level. And worldwide, food waste contributes 8% of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, making it a significant contributor to climate change.

Technology
When customers rated a product or recipe, it became a data point used to further refine the AI, which then “decides” what product or recipe will go into their next delivery. You’ve no doubt seen the effectiveness of this technology in eerily relevant pop-up ads. Similar to how AI learns which ads you are most likely to click on, it can also learn which foods you’re going to enjoy or not. Like that hamburger? You shall receive more ground beef! It becomes a feedback loop designed to retain customers and increase profits, but not necessarily improve your health or the environment.

Looking Ahead
I still believe that grocery delivery services and the technology that drives them are the way of the future and can be a positive force within the food system. AI can potentially be used to improve diets, not just increase profits; researchers have harnessed this technology to help people grappling with obesity and diabetes to eat better.

To improve access for everyone, the U.S. government should make it easier for grocery delivery companies to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).The USDA is currently piloting a program that enables SNAP recipients to purchase groceries online from select retailers. Incentives should also exist for companies to waive delivery and service fees for SNAP recipients.

In addition, produce should be sourced regionally when possible. Shorter transit distances from farm to fridge mean less greenhouse gas emissions and fresher, more nutritious produce with a longer shelf life that’s less likely to be tossed. Fresh Direct offers a selection of local produce and more services should follow suit. The increased demand could help boost struggling regional agriculture and decrease demand on the imperiled Central Valley. Finally, the biggest thing missing from this new grocery shopping experience are people. AI may be “filling” your cart, but humans still harvest, process, pack and deliver everything we eat for low wages in unsafe working conditions. The pandemic has revealed that the meatpacking industry will go to great lengths–at the expense of humans–to maintain production and profits. Most recently, dozens of children were found to be illegally working as sanitation workers in meatpacking plants. By further alienating ourselves from where our food comes from, we’re less likely to see the value in the people behind the scenes making sure your fridge is full.

Leslie Engel, MPH, is a Science Writer Consultant for the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program.

Understanding human water turnover in times of water scarcity

This writing was originally published in Cell Metabolism in their February issue.

Water covers 70% of the planet; however, only 3% is freshwater, which the global population depends on to drink, irrigate crops, and for our sanitation and hygiene. Water is central to almost all human activity and endeavors and, most importantly, the homeostasis of our bodily functions and health. We know that access to both adequate quantity and quality of water drives optimal health. Still, when in shortage or contaminated, it can cause deleterious effects on various health outcomes, some more known than others (1).

While there is substantial research understanding the health effects of insufficient water intake, there are measurement uncertainties in how much water people consume, retain, and excrete as well as a paucity of evidence on the influence of physical, metabolic, and environmental factors on water homeostasis in the human body. A recent study by Yamada et al. published in Science provides further insight into the determinants of water turnover (WT) or the water processed and used by the body (2). The largest study of its kind, they sampled 5,604 people living across 23 countries across diverse regions of the world ranging from 8 days to 96 years old. They examined whether age, body composition, physical activity, socioeconomic status, and geographical attributes of various regions impacted WT. They did this by having subjects consume 100 ml of water, of which 5% was deuterated. This isotope tracking allowed the investigators to measure WT in a highly accurate and precise way.

Predictably, WT was highest in neonates and decreased with age, positively correlated with free mass, total energy expenditure, and physical activity, and negatively correlated with percent body fat. Interestingly, where people live, and their livelihoods matter for WT as well. WT was higher in those living in hotter and more humid places and higher altitude areas. People with traditional livelihoods, such as hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers, had higher WT than those working outside agriculture. Furthermore, people living in countries characterized as having a low human development index (HDI)—a comprehensive composite index that measures the different dimensions of human development, including standards of living, life expectancy, and education—had higher WT than those living in countries with middle- and high HDI, even after adjusting for physiological and environmental factors.

While some of these results may not be surprising regarding age and biology, they present clear warning signs of vulnerability when considering looming global scenarios, trends, and shocks to water security, with poor populations disproportionately suffering the most severe consequences (3). The world is already grappling with water scarcity—the availability of water depends on an intimate dance between a region's water demand and water supply. As it stands, 4 billion people live with severe water scarcity at least one month a year, with nearly half of those people living in China and India. Half a billion live with severe water scarcity all year round (4). Distressing still, 784 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water (5). The figure below shows how these numbers break down by the four major country income groups, and climate change will likely worsen this situation.

Figure 1: Number of people (millions) without access to safe drinking water, 2020

Legend: Each bar represents the surface (drinking water directly from a river, dam, lake, pond, stream, canal, or irrigation canal), limited (drinking water from an improved source for which collection time exceeds 30 minutes for a roundtrip including queuing) and unimproved (drinking water from an unprotected dug well or unprotected spring) sources of drinking water by country income classification. Source: World Health Organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2021

Climate change will have significant impacts on how much water is available as well as its quality. Already, water systems that provide freshwater to human populations are drying up and polluted from overuse and runoff, much of this coming from agriculture and other anthropogenic forces (6). Water ecosystems around the world will also continue to be strained and stressed. For example, since 1900, approximately 68% of wetlands have been lost, which are essential ecosystems that purify drinking water systems, among many other functions (7). In addition, extreme weather events related to climate change, such as changes to precipitation and severe drought, as well as the melting of glacier ice, is and will continue to impact water resources. There will also be a decline in the quality of water sources due to anthropogenic and natural factors, along with an increased demand for water due to higher temperatures and evaporation rates. As a result, water insecurity under "business as usual" climate scenarios will worsen (8).

Human demand for water worldwide has increased six-fold over the past century and continues to rise at around 1% per year due to the growing population and global economy (9). At the current consumption rate, by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may face water shortages (10). What will be the consequences for those vulnerable populations living in countries of low HDI given their increased demand for water? Even a slight imbalance in the delicate homeostasis of WT could put these populations at disproportionate risk for various health disparities, along with constraints on access to improved water safety and quality.

We are just beginning to understand the importance of how water is cycled through the body and how to measure it. Yamada and colleagues shed further light on the factors influencing how water is used and excreted in the body. One gap they highlight is the inability to measure the influence of water coming from food on WT. For those who work in food security, it will be necessary to understand how the quality and diversity of diets contribute to and potentially further protect water homeostasis in distinct biological, sociodemographic, and geographical contexts. Understanding this relationship could spur joint policy action among communities concerned with food and water security. With climate disruption continuing to threaten the quantity and quality of food and water sources, scientific and geopolitical collaboration has never been more urgent.  

References

1.     Popkin, B.M., D’Anci, K.E., and Rosenberg, I.H. (2010). Water, hydration, and health. Nutr. Rev. 68, 439–458.

2.     Yamada, Y., Zhang, X., Henderson, M.E.T., Sagayama, H., Pontzer, H., Watanabe, D., Yoshida, T., Kimura, M., Ainslie, P.N., Andersen, L.F., et al. (2022). Variation in human water turnover associated with environmental and lifestyle factors. Science 378, 909–915.

3.     Dell’Angelo, J., Rulli, M.C., and D’Odorico, P. (2018). The global water grabbing syndrome. Ecol. Econ. 143, 276–285.

4.     Mekonnen, M.M., and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2016). Four billion people facing severe water scarcity. Sci. Adv. 2, e1500323.

5.     World Health Organization and UNICEF (2021). World Health Organization and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme. https://washdata.org/data/household#!/dashboard/new.

6.     van Vliet, M.T.H., Flörke, M., and Wada, Y. (2017). Quality matters for water scarcity. Nat. Geosci. 10, 800–802.

7.     Davidson, N.C. (2014). How much wetland has the world lost? Long-term and recent trends in global wetland area. Mar. Freshw. Res. 65, 934.

8.     IPCC (2022). Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press).

9.     Water, U.A.U.N. (2020). United Nations World Water Development Report 2020: water and climate change (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

10.   World Wildlife Fund. (2023). Water Scarcity https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/water-scarcity#:~:text=Billions%20of%20People%20Lack%20Water&text=By%202025%2C%20two%2Dthirds%20of%20the%20world's%20population%20may%20be,and%20economic%20decline%20may%20occur.

Food Bytes: January 2023 edition

Food Bytes is a monthly blog post of “nibbles” on all things climate, food, nutrition science, policy, and culture.

A little warm-up

Are you doing dry, damp, or wet January? Me, semi-dry…I have a good excuse, though. My lovely partner and I had to celebrate with a bottle of prosecco because I have accepted a full professorship at Columbia University’s new climate school, where I will lead their Food for Humanity initiative. I am sad to leave Johns Hopkins, but alas, change is good. I start in June, so get ready Gotham…

I also quit Twitter after 12 years. Felt good. I should have done it years ago…No toxicity! More time! Less self-promotion!

Let’s get the political stuff out of the way…

Is globalization over? The elite will again meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for some strained global discourse. When I say elite, gathering of the world’s 0.001 percent. Every year one asks if Davos has relevance or are these elitists more and more out of touch with what is truly happening in countries and communities. This NYT article on how Davos will confront the new world order says it all:

“The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, finds itself navigating troubled waters. Long the affluent symbol of a globalizing world where the assumption was that more trade would bring more freedom, it now confronts international fracture, ascendant nationalism and growing protectionism under the shadow of war in Europe and sharp tensions between the United States and China.”

I am sure climate change and food security will be on the agenda, but again much of it will be talking, among the elite few, with little action. As it stands, with the global food security crisis, rich countries have fallen short in providing much-needed assistance with increasing risk of hunger and, for some countries, such as Somalia, starvation. Sci Dev wrote an important piece on global starvation looming and rising food prices (see graph below. It deserves attention.

As the world tenses, doing nothing is not good enough, and flying to Davos in your private jet pontificating about poverty is getting tiresome.

If Davos doesn’t get you depressed enough, take a gander at the World Economic Forum’s global risk report. One word: polycrises.

Let’s confront the scary stuff…

California’s “atmospheric rivers”—these doom terms, I tell ya — yield all kinds of chaos for the Californians. The damage due to these intense storms and flooding is estimated to cost the state 30 billion. It is ironic, though, that droughts are a major issue and all roads point to these torrential storms as not helping, but perhaps they will contribute to the necessary snowpack in the long term. What hasn’t been discussed much in relation to storms is the potential damage to crops. California is a massive horticulture producer in this country, growing nearly half of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables in the United States. California’s agriculture also matters to the world because its products are exported to approximately 200 countries. Why is this such as issue? This is why:

“The rains are critical in breaking the worst drought in the US southwest in 1,200 years. The dryness has hurt crops across California’s Central Valley, one of the world’s largest agriculture economies, put large cities under stress, threatened water supplies for many smaller communities, and contributed to some of the largest and deadliest wildfires in state history. Dwindling flow in the Colorado River bordering California has also put hydroelectric supplies in danger.”

There is some hope, though. According to Civil Eats, farms that practice regenerative agriculture seem to weather the storms through innovation.

Let’s give a shout-out to great science…

The AI DALL-E’s rendering of when I asked for “her?” to draw an abstract painting of the Mediterranean diet.

• Some colleagues at GAIN and Cornell just published this fantastic review on how animal-source foods—meat, fish, eggs, and dairy—can play an important role globally in ensuring healthy and sustainable diets.

• Another paper by Amanda Woods and colleagues makes the case for resilience in food systems management and governance.

• Remember that pesky EAT-Lancet Commission report that came out with a planetary diet (very similar to a Mediterranean diet, in my opinion…so what’s the big deal)? Yah, I am guilty of having been a commissioner. Since its publication in 2019, it has been cited about 6,000 times (no joke), and much science has followed. Take this article showing that 86 nations representing 51% of the global population can secure a nationally sourced EAT-Lancet diet from a land-availability perspective. That leaves 3.7 billion living in countries without enough land to source a planetary health diet. I guess trade is important after all!

• Loved this Nature piece on the importance of indigenous knowledge for food security. This line. YES. “I am under no illusion about what it will take to achieve true collaboration at scale — both at the individual and systemic level. Yet in my interactions with Indigenous people and local communities, people’s generosity and willingness to work collaboratively has impressed me again and again.”

• A modeling study published in the Global Food Security Journal from a multi-country collaboration examined the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war on food security. Their model show that food trade would decrease by 60%, wheat prices will increase 50%, and severe food insecurity would increase 30% in 2023. Dire.

• A study in the Lancet Planetary Health examined 83 Food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) for their inclusion of environmental sustainability. Of the 83 they examined, only 37 mention ES and of those, none really emphasize why it is important, and how diets can be made to be more sustainable. My question is, who cares about FBDG? Does anyone follow them?? Yes, I get it, they inform public procurement, but they don’t really help individuals with dietary guidance. If you want a snarky take on the United States guideline, listen to this Maintenance Phase podcast (hands down the best podcast on poking holes in nutrition and dietary science).

Still baking, after all these years…

I am still baking, and it has become a relaxing ritual. This weekend? A castelvetrano olive, rosemary, whole wheat sourdough. My prettiest loaf yet! I followed this recipe more or less.

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A new year's resolution for the planet

I woke just as the sun rose on the second day of 2023, reflecting, as one does, on what I accomplished over the last year, why it matters, and how I should strive to do things differently in the new year. January always brings about a time for reflection, renewal, and rebirth. For me, the promises I make to myself in the hopeful light of the turning of the clock last only a few weeks, and then I end up reverting toward the same comfortable, survival-mode routine. Maybe a few things change here and there. I tinker around the edges. But nothing spectacularly transformative. And maybe, just maybe, that is okay. This is who I am. These are my habits. My flaws. My warts. My joys. My life. Call it my age, but I guess I am a little less willing to set myself up for failure. Or maybe, I am just letting go.

I say all this to you not as a person who is defeated and cynical but as a person who is hoping for the best but expecting the worst in 2023. I am not an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a realist. I am a “who is going to wash the glass?” This morning, I re-read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the IPCC, report on the physical science basis of climate change. This report lays down the hard science of climate change, the repercussions of that change, and future projections under different scenarios of zero to significant action toward mitigation. It is, frankly, incredibly stark. Many of us who work on climate change issues are told to be more positive and report on and present the good news, the silver linings. Of course, not all is doom and gloom, but it comes close. Unlike me, who tinkers on the edges each year trying to meet my new year's resolutions and goals, policymakers and industry players involved in fossil fuels, agriculture, and infrastructure, need to make massive resolutions that are transformative, and they need to stick to them.

This graph below really says it all. It shows the different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), from sustainable to fossil fuel-dependent. Clearly, the world is not moving towards the optimal SSP 1.9. We are more likely hovering toward the SSP 2-4.5 pathway - the middle of the road. The graph shows that if we commit to this SSP, the world will continue to generate greenhouse gases by 2050, with a final tapering off after 2070. By then, the damage will be done - wreaking havoc on human, animal, and plant populations that depend on a more stable planet. Extreme weather events will come with more frequency and devastation. We will see much upheaval, migration, and inequities.

We are running out of time regarding climate change, and the chance to “reset” year in and year out is shrinking. So let’s raise a glass to bold and sticky resolutions that mitigate climate change and ensure that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged have the support to adapt. Let’s make 2023 about the planet.

Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. doi:10.1017/9781009157896.001. 

Experiencing places in the quiet

My partner and I have a habit of traveling to places when no one else is around, which is often called “off-season” or “low season.” Sometimes we come to places where we happen to be the only people in the entire hotel. Last year, we traveled to Sardinia in November. COVID-19 was still surging, but it had not really touched Sardinia in any significant way. We stayed in some of the most beautiful hotels without a soul in sight. We swam in the ocean and yes, it was a bit cold, but we got some sun on our skin, and enjoyed the incredible bounty of seafood that is so delicious that time of year (shellfish). Right now, we are in Puglia – a very popular destination these days – but only in the summer. Puglia is the heel of Italy, where they grow a ton of olive oil and enjoy their cima di rapa and taralli. To Puglians, their high season is from May to September. After that, “chiuso.” Even though it may be 70 degrees outside, out come the puffy jackets and hats, and no more swimming in the crystal-clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. Anyone who does is “pazza.” What bliss it is to be in places that aren’t “shoulder to shoulder” with other American, British, and German tourists. Instead, we catch a glimpse of how Italians really live, breathing a sigh of relief when they can have their cities back to themselves.

Alone in Chioggia

We have always done this. Gone to the unpopular places in off-season. Vegas on Christmas. Ski towns in the spring. Namibia in December. It calms us. In fact, it delights us middle-aged folk who are in their autumn years. Of course, the weather is not totally ideal, and not everything is open and in its right place, but there is quietness, stillness, and abandonment that is calming and almost meditating. Here in Puglia, sometimes we have restaurants to ourselves. Where we are staying now, at a Masseria, which are 16th-century farmhouses typically found in the Puglia region, we have our own personal gourmet chef (and waiter) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who can beat that?  There are no lines, no need to book much of anything, no obnoxious parties on boats, or loud blaring TVs in the hotel room next door. One may argue that this type of travel is like buying the winter coat during the spring sale, and there is some grain of truth in that, but everything is definitely cheaper.  And, it is just, well, quiet.

And we still get to partake in the beautiful scenery of the cities, nature, and food. What more could you ask for? Speaking of food, Puglian food is quite good. See this mouth-watering visual post. They are all about olive oil, bread (so much bread), and seafood. They are also known for pasta shaped like ears, also known as orecchiette.  They also have this bread that is very hard, called frisella that sailors brought with them across long seas journeys because they lasted a good long time. The photo shows this frisella cooked in tomatoes with spinach and burrata. Yum. They are also known for their zuppa di pesce. We had some, but it was not my favorite. We had lots of pesce crude (raw) and of course, vongole. They like their clams here. Maybe that is where I got my obsession with clams. You see, my family comes from Puglia, Foggia (a not-so-pretty but heavily industrial town in Northern Puglia - not the trendy Salento). Clams are in my genes.

All this to say, sometimes it is better to be in places that are not instagrammable, that don’t bring forth bragging rights. With almost every travel experience having become spoiled, overcrowded, and overphotographed, sometimes experiencing places in abandonment and in the quiet puts a new perspective on them and within yourself. It is in the quiet where I feel most alive.