National Geographic Archives

Menu of the Future: Insects, Weeds, and Bleeding Veggie Burgers

December 16, 2023March 8, 2018

National Geographic • March 8, 2018

Peer into the future of what we eat, and you will encounter many questions about what will happen to our meals. As the world’s population climbs above 9 billion by mid-century, our food needs will grow by 70 percent. How do we meet them without mowing down every forest or without resorting to industrial agriculture, which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has cited as the most significant contributor to climate change? How do we maintain soil health, and keep it from washing away, so that crops can thrive? These questions get into murky territory. But here’s one thing that’s clear: Dinner in 50 years won’t look much like dinner today.

How China Plans to Feed 1.4 Billion Growing Appetites

December 16, 2023January 23, 2018

National Geographic magazine • February 2018

Watching Jiang Wannian and Ping Cuixiang harvest a sixth of an acre of daikon seed in the north-central province of Gansu feels a little like traveling back in time.

In a dry valley ringed by dusky mountains, on a brick-paved lot, Jiang drives a rusted tractor over a hip-deep mound of dried plants. As they crush down, Ping, Jiang’s wife, plunges a homemade pitchfork into the straw and arranges it for another pass. Eventually Jiang and Ping work side by side, wiry figures with tawny skin. It’s hot, but they are swaddled in clothes to protect themselves from the dust and the sun. They have handsome faces, taut and lined from years of laboring outdoors, and they turn them skyward as they throw fine chaff up and watch ruddy seed rain down. This rhythm continues for hours. In a singsong voice Ping encourages the wind, murmuring, “Blow, blow!” Machines can do this work in minutes, but they are too expensive for Jiang and Ping. Instead they still thresh the daikon by hand, just as farmers did centuries ago.

Food Workers Scramble to Put Food on Their Tables

December 16, 2023November 14, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Nov. 14, 2016

One in seven American workers is employed in some segment of the food chain, from apple pickers to packing-house workers, truckdrivers to supermarket clerks to fast food counter staff. And many of them increasingly struggle to put food on their own tables, according to a report released Monday from the Food Chain Workers Alliance, an advocacy group founded in 2009, and the Solidarity Research Center. What’s more, the problem is worse among women and people of color.

To See Food Waste in a New Way, Start With Your Plate

December 16, 2023November 1, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Nov. 1, 2016

Researchers angling to solve America’s food waste problem are taking cues from Instagram and developing an app to measure food waste from your food pictures.

Eating China: 4 Ways the Locavore Movement Is Taking Root Here

December 16, 2023October 7, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Oct. 7, 2016

The absolute last interview I did in China convinced me: The country has a burgeoning locavore movement, complete with farm-to-table fast(ish) food and home delivery of small-farm produce.

Eating China: Fast Food Surprises and Market Chaos

December 16, 2023September 12, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Sept. 12, 2016

We’ve been subsisting a lot on hotel breakfast buffets, which the business joints we’ve been staying in offer routinely. (And do fairly well with, I might add. They’ve not yet resorted to the waffle-batter foil cups and cereal dispensers common in U.S. business motels.) But recently, for logistical reasons, we took an overnight train—which meant no breakfast on offer. And that meant our first stop was KFC for iced lattes—a treat the chain introduced in China just last year—and then to a popular Taiwanese fast food chain for a taste of domestic fast food.

Eating China: A Land of Many Grains

December 16, 2023September 7, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Sept. 7, 2016

If you ask most Americans what grain Chinese people eat, I’m pretty sure they’d say rice.

Llike all countries, though China is not a dietary monolith. Diets here can still be deeply regional and seasonal, owing in part to the fact that most agriculture here is still quite small. In the south and northeast, water is relatively plentiful, encouraging crops like rice, that do well in that landscape. But in the drier central and western part of the country, rice doesn’t grow well at all. But wheat does.

Beyond Banjos: The Bountiful ‘Victuals’ of Appalachia

December 16, 2023August 30, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Aug. 30, 2016

Sometimes there are cookbooks that you wish had stuck to the recipes. Witness, for example, Thug Kitchen. And then there are books like Victuals, by Ronni Lundy.

What Chili-Mango Ice Cream Says About Urban Renewal

December 16, 2023August 24, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Aug. 24, 2016

If I ask you what Detroiters eat to cool off on hot summer days, chances are you think of two Midwestern staples: ice cream and pop. If you know Detroit you might even think Faygo or Vernors. (You may also, to be honest, think beer.)

But folks around Lawndale Street, on the city’s southwest side, have an option that might seem, to outsiders, an odd fit for Detroit: Mexican-style frozen sweets and snacks from a six-table, five-year-old shop called Mangonadas del Barrio. The shop’s namesake, a variation on a popsicle, is a godsend on a steamy August afternoon—and it’s so popular that owner Antonio Hernandez opened up a second shop in June.

I’ll Have What They’re Having, China Edition

December 16, 2023August 15, 2016

“The Plate,” National Geographic • Aug. 15, 2016

“What are you taking with you to eat?”

This was not the question I was expecting from April, my editor here at The Plate, when I told her I’d be reporting in China this month.