We’ve gone from roasting to processing over thousands of years. What does the future hold for our food? Watch the video above to see what we’ll be eating in decades to come.
Humanity’s relationship with food production has certainly been a fruitful one. Our constant pursuit of refining how we eat is one of the reasons there are billions of us alive today. But it’s also a key factor as to why we are greatly damaging the Earth.
It all begins with fire. As far back as 29,000 BC Central Europeans were using primitive forms of ovens, roasting pits covered by yurts. Back then, mammoth was on the menu.
As we invented tools like ploughs and mills to help turn resources from the earth into food in our bellies, we produced enough to feed houses, then villages, then towns. Human civilization established itself.
One feature of civilizations that evolved was a thing called trade, and we did a lot of it. That’s why most of today’s biggest cities are found close to rivers and trade routes.
As agricultural revolutions took place, our population exploded, our food became more resilient due to developments such as machine refrigeration and pasteurizing, invented by this guy, French chemist Louise Pasteur in 1864. We could send hundreds of thousands of men to war and feed them thanks to food storage in cans.
By the 20th century microwave ovens arrived, meaning the mammoth we cooked 30,000 years ago in a pit, could now spin around in our kitchens.
We reached a point where the scale of production needed to feed everyone was impacting the planet’s resources. By the 1990’s we were selling genetically modified tomatoes to ensure reliable crop results.
This brings us to today’s climate concerns. Current food production is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. How will we continue to feed a vastly increasing population while reducing damage to the environment? How do we tackle our global obesity epidemic and encourage healthier diets? One thing is certain, we must look immediately for new approaches. We’ve achieved it many times before, so it shouldn’t be too hard too swallow, right?
Well, that was delicious.
