Alimentación

MundoAmérica

En un búnker de clima controlado situado en un edificio ordinario de la localidad rural de Aberdeen, Idaho, hay interminables estantes de cajas de semillas meticulosamente etiquetadas. Esta bóveda alberga muchas de las más de 62.000 líneas de trigo genéticamente únicas, propiedad de Estados Unidos, recolectadas de todo el mundo a lo largo de los últimos 127 años.

Aunque por ahora inactivas, estas semillas están vivas. Pero si no se les da un cuidado continuo y se les replanta cada tanto, las líneas morirán, junto con los milenios de historia evolutiva que representan.

Desde su creación en 1898, el Sistema Nacional de Germoplasma Vegetal (NPGS por su sigla en inglés) del Departamento de Agricultura de Estados Unidos y los científicos que lo apoyan han reunido y mantenido de manera sistemática las especies de plantas agrícolas que sustentan nuestro sistema alimentario en vastas colecciones como la de Aberdeen.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Durante muchísimos años fui una absoluta desconocida para el mundo civilizado. Mi presentación en sociedad sucedió tras un viaje marítimo lleno de riesgos y aventuras después de muchos avatares a lo largo del tiempo. Hasta mi nombre fue discutido y cambió en bastantes ocasiones, pero, finalmente, se pudo llegar por consenso general, a una definición admitida por todos, si bien teniendo en cuenta el idioma oficial de cada zona. Aún procediendo de lugares próximos, el tabaco y el cacao tuvieron una difusión más acelerada que la mía, dadas algunas reticencias que se presentaron en la aprobación general debido a la competencia a la que tuve que someterme con otros rivales importantes del mismo sector productivo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hay millones de maneras de pedir tu café en Starbucks. Y eso está arruinando su negocio

ReflexionesSocial

Ya estás en la fila de Starbucks —después de no poder ordenar por la aplicación— cuando descubres a uno de ellos. Ese tipo que no está mirando su teléfono, sino el papelito que contiene los pedidos de sus compañeros de oficina. Lo que confirma que vas a llegar tarde a la próxima reunión, porque esta persona planea pedir seis bebidas de café, cada una de las cuales implica alguna combinación de venti grande alto doble pump, de uno a cuatro shots de espresso, half-caf, leche de avena, leche descremada, leche de soya, leche-leche, crema batida, jarabe, azúcar morena, azúcar blanca, sin azúcar y un drizzle de mocha, al que se le debe agitar exactamente dos y media veces.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSocial

Con denominación de origen, orgánicos, veganos, halal… la diversidad de alimentos que hallamos en nuestros supermercados, y cada vez más restaurantes, refleja la importancia que tiene la alimentación, no sólo como sustento diario, sino como expresión de nuestras preferencias, creencias y/o elecciones de vida. Si esto ha sido así siempre, hoy hay un interés específico por la procedencia y el modo de producir y/o manipular las materias primas que utilizamos en nuestros platos y los procesos de certificación que los garantizan. Merece la pena reflexionar sobre este fenómeno. Primero, los alimentos certificados tienen un peso cada vez más importante en el comercio global de víveres.…  Seguir leyendo »

How to Make a Nation of Meat Eaters Crave the Humble Bean

ReflexionesSocial  

Este ensayo forma parte de Qué comer en un planeta en llamas, una serie de textos donde se exploran ideas osadas para asegurar nuestro suministro de alimentos. Lee más de este proyecto en esta nota, en inglés, de Eliza Barclay, editora de Opinión sobre el clima.

Ningún político quiere ser el que dé la noticia de que más temprano que tarde, por la salud del planeta, casi todos tendremos que aprender a comer mucha menos carne; varias veces menos carne roja de la que actualmente consume el estadounidense promedio. Esto no se arreglará con unos cuantos lunes sin carne.…  Seguir leyendo »

How to Make a Nation of Meat Eaters Crave the Humble Bean

ReflexionesSocial  

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

No politician wants to be the one to break the news that sooner than later, for the health of the planet, most of us are going to have to learn to eat a whole lot less meat — several times less red meat than what the average American consumes. This won’t be fixed by a few meatless Mondays.

We have a deep fatalism about our diets, and the conventional wisdom says that the only way to persuade the carnivorous to eat less meat is to offer them a faux alternative, such as lab-grown meat or a vegan substitute like Beyond Meat.…  Seguir leyendo »

Too Much of Our Seafood Has a Dark Secret

ReflexionesNaturaleza, , ,

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

Not that long ago, if you saw a piece of fish on your plate, you wouldn’t have thought to ask where it came from or whether it was sustainable.

That began to change in the 1990s as conservation groups fought to protect all kinds of life in the ocean from overfishing. After persuading Congress to create and enforce strict plans to bring back species, they set in motion a virtuous cycle that made seafood, from the mighty swordfish to the humble sea scallop, abundant again.…  Seguir leyendo »

This Is How the World’s Favorite Scent Disappears

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,  

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

Once you notice vanilla, you’ll smell it everywhere. It’s in sweets, pharmaceuticals, mosquito repellents, seltzers, makeup and hair products. When real estate agents host open houses or advise clients, they suggest infusing the house with vanilla, for its particular ability to put potential buyers at ease.

Two years ago, scientists from the University of Oxford and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden presented 225 people from nine cultures around the world with 10 scents.…  Seguir leyendo »

Así se desvanece el aroma favorito del mundo

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,  

Este ensayo forma parte de Qué comer en un planeta en llamas, una serie de textos donde se exploran ideas atrevidas para asegurar nuestro suministro de alimentos. Lee más de este proyecto en esta nota, en inglés, de Eliza Barclay, editora de Opinión sobre el clima.

Una vez que te percatas del aroma a vainilla, lo percibirás por todas partes. Está en los dulces, los productos farmacéuticos, los repelentes de mosquitos, agua carbonatada, el maquillaje y los productos capilares. Cuando los agentes inmobiliarios invitan a posibles compradores a conocer una propiedad o asesoran a sus clientes, sugieren impregnar la casa con vainilla, por su especial capacidad relajante.…  Seguir leyendo »

Heat Waves and Droughts Are a Bonanza for Junk Food Companies

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

It’s hard to find drinking water in La Guajira, an arid peninsula in northern Colombia, where drought and overuse are sucking wells and small reservoirs dry. When there’s no water, people turn to soda.

Over the last two decades, as climate change has grown worse, sales have skyrocketed in Colombia, with junk food companies heavily marketing their products to children. In 2017, the country’s largest soft drink manufacturer gave free sugary fruit drinks to thousands of young people in La Guajira under the guise of ending malnutrition.…  Seguir leyendo »

Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?

ReflexionesNaturaleza, , , ,

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

Driving north through California’s Tejon Pass on Interstate 5, you spill down out of the mountains onto a breathtaking expanse of farm fields like few others in the world. Rows of almond, pistachio and citrus trees stretch as far as the eye can see, dotted by fields of grapes. Truckloads of produce zoom by, heading for markets around the country.

The Central Valley of California supplies a quarter of the food on the nation’s dinner tables.…  Seguir leyendo »

Fine Dining Can’t Go On Like This

ReflexionesNaturaleza, , ,

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

Cast your eye across the menus of America’s most celebrated dining rooms, and among the scattering of earthy pastas, garden salads and esoteric proteins, nestled among labnehs and salsa machas, you’ll find them: the water guzzlers.

America is starting to confront the burning realities of climate change, but the seasonal, produce-driven cooking popularized on these shores decades ago remains wedded to thirsty crops such as almonds, pistachios, artichokes, figs, cherries, apples and tomatoes.…  Seguir leyendo »

What to Eat on a Burning Planet

ReflexionesNaturaleza, , ,

This essay is part of What to Eat on a Burning Planet, a series exploring bold ideas to secure our food supply. Read more about this project in a note from Eliza Barclay, Opinion’s climate editor.

From the vantage of the American supermarket aisle, the modern food system looks like a kind of miracle. Everything has been carefully cultivated for taste and convenience — even those foods billed as organic or heirloom — and produce regarded as exotic luxuries just a few generations ago now seems more like staples, available on demand: avocados, mangoes, out-of-season blueberries imported from Uruguay.

But the supermarket is also increasingly a diorama of the fragility of a system — disrupted in recent years by the pandemic, conflict and, increasingly, climate change.…  Seguir leyendo »

What to Eat on a Burning Planet

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

This election season, many Americans are deeply distraught about the cost of food. You hear their frustrations in polls, at rallies and in focus groups — sticker shock is one of the few issues left to unite Americans across the political spectrum. But as painful as foodflation is, it may just be an early ripple of the kind of disruption to the food system that’s coming. The scale of these changes will be breathtaking. Their global consequences will be profound. And for most of us, they will change what’s in our refrigerators and on our kitchen tables.

Already, we can see the early tremors starting to rattle the global food system.…  Seguir leyendo »

I Said the Era of Famines Might Be Ending. I Was Wrong.

Internacional,

Nearly eight years ago I wrote an essay for New York Times Opinion asking whether the world had finally moved beyond the peril of large-scale famines. My answer was that it might very well have.

I was wrong. Famines are back.

I underestimated the cruel resolve of some war leaders to use starvation as a weapon. And I overestimated how much the world’s largest humanitarian donors cared about feeding the hungry in conflict zones, and giving them the necessary help to rise above the devastation when the fighting finally ended.

Since 2016, the year I took that optimistic view, a decades-long improvement in world nutrition has stalled.…  Seguir leyendo »

A customer shops for food items at a grocery store in Alhambra, Calif., in April 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/ AFP/Getty Images)

InternacionalEconomía,

The system of food labeling in the United States does not make it easy for consumers trying to assess the nutritional value of the foods they buy. Now, the Food and Drug Administration can do something about it.

More than 40 countries have adopted easy-to-understand, front-of-package nutrition information showing, at a glance, which foods are more — or less — healthful. Thus far, the United States has not required front-of-package labeling, relying instead on the food industry’s voluntary efforts, laden with confusing numbers and percentages. Compare that with the “excess sugar” stop signs you’ll see in Mexico, the Nutri-Score system used in France, or the Health Star Ratings in New Zealand.…  Seguir leyendo »

The lunchroom at Alyssa Blakemore’s son’s school. (Alyssa Blakemore)

MundoAméricaEuropaUnión Europea, , ,

Each day on our short walk to our town’s scuola materna, my son and I stroll past tiny yards brimming with tomato plants, squashes and citrus trees. A vine of kiwis adorns the entry to one neighbor’s home, and rows of olive trees dot a hillside nearby. Juicy cantaloupes in summer, ripe figs in fall — these are but a few of the mouthwatering choices my son enjoys every day at his Italian preschool.

In the six months since we moved to Italy on military assignment, I’ve been shocked at how well Italy feeds its schoolchildren compared with the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, pictured at COP28 (Photo by Stuart Wilson / COP28 via Getty Images)

MundoAmérica, ,

The United Arab Emirates’ COP presidency has successfully moved food system transformation firmly onto the global climate change agenda.

A new US–UAE fund, pledging $17 billion to support low carbon food system practices, and initiatives such as the Alliance of Champions for Food System Transformation (with Brazil as co-chair), are important signals that governments and non-state actors recognize the speed and scale required to deliver both climate and biodiversity objectives.

A new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Global Roadmap for food system transition, offers a clear vision for countries to adopt in this global effort.

The problem is serious and urgent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Crop spraying in Ens, The Netherlands. (Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images)

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

This year’s international climate change conference, COP28, will be the first such conference to have a major focus on food, which the UAE as COP28 president sees as important aspect of its agenda.

This is long overdue: food systems are responsible for about a third of all greenhouse gases produced by human activity. Modern farming methods are the most significant drivers of biodiversity loss. In turn, the world’s ability to provide healthy diets (‘food security’) is threatened by the impacts of climate change, with severe weather like storms and drought affecting the ability to produce and transport food.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine have also emphasized the global food system’s lack of resilience, and how easily events drive up food prices.…  Seguir leyendo »

Alimentos basados en plantas por defecto

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Los efectos catastróficos del cambio climático están aquí: olas de calor abrasadoras y mortales están chamuscando a Europa, y los polos se están derritiendo. El crecimiento de los hielos marinos en la Antártida está alcanzando mínimos sin precedentes. ¿Hay algo que los individuos puedan hacer al respecto?

La respuesta es un sí contundente. Lo que comemos, en particular, es de suma importancia. La afirmación de que “las vacas son el nuevo carbón” puede parecer hiperbólica, pero, en efecto, es precisa. Aproximadamente un tercio de todas las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) del lado de la demanda son generadas por los sistemas alimentarios, y solo la carne vacuna representa un cuarto de las emisiones producidas por criar y cultivar alimentos.…  Seguir leyendo »