15 min
The Global Standard Diet Eat This Podcast
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- Food
We’ll have what they’re having has taken on a whole new meaning.
In a world in which you can get pizza in Tokyo and sushi in Rome, diets have become truly global in reach. You could argue that this has made them more, not less, diverse. Where once rice dominated Asia, wheat, potatoes and corn have made huge inroads: increased diversity. On the other hand, places that used to enjoy their own, local staples – tef in Ethiopia, buckwheat in eastern Europe – have also come under the sway of the global behemoths, and so have lost diversity. Those are two conclusions of a massive data-mining exercise that has rightfully been getting a lot of coverage: Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. I spoke to Colin Khoury, the study’s first author, about the increasing dominance of the big crops, the marginalisation of regionally important alternatives, and the sudden rise of a whole set of previously insignificant species.
We’ll have what they’re having has taken on a whole new meaning.
In a world in which you can get pizza in Tokyo and sushi in Rome, diets have become truly global in reach. You could argue that this has made them more, not less, diverse. Where once rice dominated Asia, wheat, potatoes and corn have made huge inroads: increased diversity. On the other hand, places that used to enjoy their own, local staples – tef in Ethiopia, buckwheat in eastern Europe – have also come under the sway of the global behemoths, and so have lost diversity. Those are two conclusions of a massive data-mining exercise that has rightfully been getting a lot of coverage: Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. I spoke to Colin Khoury, the study’s first author, about the increasing dominance of the big crops, the marginalisation of regionally important alternatives, and the sudden rise of a whole set of previously insignificant species.
15 min