With its profound and universal importance, food is the lens through which all aspects of a resilient, wholesome future can be imagined and brought to life. This implies that organisations and individuals who work in the food ecosystem are uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role. A recent foodwize survey of chefs and urban consumers in metro cities in India surfaced interesting similarities and contrasts between how both groups envisage the future of food. Nearly all respondents in both groups believe that the future must be characterised by food which is nutritious, seasonal, fresh, environmentally replenishing, culturally appropriate, minimally wasteful and economically uplifting for food producing communities. The reality of the present day is in stark contrast. 

Soil health is deteriorating from excessive use of chemicals, climate events are severely affecting food producing communities, supply chains are long and complex, consumption of ultra-processed food is increasing, millions of tonnes of food is wasted, millions of tonnes of food packaging is exacerbating the problems of pollution and waste and there is an alarming rise in lifestyle diseases. So what is getting in the way of achieving the vision that consumers and food professionals share for the future of food? 

The foodwize survey indicates that professionals in the food ecosystem i.e. the people who work directly with food are not equipped with the skills and the resources to implement sustainable practices. Chefs would like to use ingredients which are more fresh, local, seasonal, learn how to incorporate nutrition, learn new ways of cooking. They are eager to be closer to the farmers and producers who supply their ingredients. They want to attract new customers who are conscientious about their own health and the health of the planet. They are deeply concerned about food waste and want to do more to minimise it in their establishments. However, they are also up against real challenges. It is increasingly difficult to find motivated and dedicated talent for the industry. The economics of clean food and sustainable practices  are unclear - are they affordable, will they be profitable? They are also uncertain about how far consumers will go - will they meet halfway and pay for better food, better practices? 

A truly sustainable future is going to require a transformation - new ways of thinking and doing, in which everyone takes equal and greater responsibility. When food businesses operate with this sense of responsibility and purpose, their impact goes beyond financial success. This is evident at L’Orto del Pian Bosco in Cuneo or at Square Food Foundation in Bristol or at the Holden Farm Dairy in Wales. These organisations and others like them are caretakers of the earth, they nourish communities and they show us what is possible. 

Ultimately, any organisation working with food must have 4 cornerstones - provide nourishment, replenish the planet’s biodiversity and minimise environmental harm, create meaningful livelihoods and preserve diverse food cultures. As planetary boundaries are pushed to a point of no return, food professionals will need to push their own boundaries and develop a new kind of food leadership. They will need to operate at the convergence of traditional food wisdom, modern techniques and technology and be equipped to run businesses which recognise that meaningful profit can only be achieved by caring about people, producers and planet. All people who work in the food ecosystem - growers, producers, restaurateurs, chefs, educators and investors must become beacons of change, demonstrating that food is not just business.    

Since we founded our organisation foodwize, we have invariably encountered the same initial response from various people; those working with food professionally, consumers, our friends and family. Understandably, some people think that we are going to start a restaurant or become professional cooks, but, for the most part, everyone asks, what is food wisdom and what does it mean to be foodwize? It is an important question and one that we must pay attention to, now more than ever before because food is important to us all and it affects everyone equally…or at least, it should.

Food is a source of sustenance. Quite simply, without food, there is no life. Food is integral to the culture of a place and a community, representative of the land and the climate of a region, a source of livelihood for millions of people. While a part of the population engages with food on a professional and commercial basis, food matters to everyone because after all, everyone must eat.

Centuries of evolution has impacted food in profound ways. From foraging and hunting to the gradual expansion of agriculture, colonisation, industrialisation, globalisation and digitisation, food has always changed. And the changes have been dramatic. Industrialised agriculture has brought in higher productivity and food security and global supply chains enable raw and processed foods to travel around the world perennially. A large, aspiring, globally aware population relies on cloud kitchens and armies of delivery agents to supply meals to the doorstep. The modern urban consumer actively seeks out diverse and international food experiences.

On the one hand, there appears to be an abundance of food choices for those who can afford them. On the other hand, these changes in food practices pose significant risks for the future, particularly from a nutritional, cultural and environmental perspective.

Commercially produced food is increasingly homogenous and disconnected from the local climate, local culture, deprived of nutrition and far too often, deprived of taste as well. The world is increasingly obese and malnourished; the two problems more similar than they are different - it comes down to the food we are eating. Travelling food also generates a significant carbon footprint and waste. Then there is the issue of waning food cultures. Previously, knowledge of the relationship between food, health and nature was commonplace in every household and this wisdom was passed down from one generation to another. An increasingly smaller pantry of ingredients has a direct influence on the health of the population and biodiversity.

In short, food is a subject of multiple dimensions and it is further complicated by an accelerating climate crisis. Higher temperatures, heavy unseasonal rainfall, unprecedented weather events, unsustainable agricultural practices are impacting yield of several food crops, depleting groundwater and eroding soil. In the face of climate uncertainties, a food security crisis may well become a reality, unless it is addressed through significant interventions.

Who should take the initiative? The scale and complexity of this subject naturally leads us to think of governments, international and civil organisations and such. Indeed, they play critical roles with the power to influence enduring change and at scale. But, as eaters, we, the people, have the power to make a difference every single day, by the choices we make in how we source and consume food.

Hence, to be foodwize is to apply the following 9 principles when you buy, cook and consume food:

1. Buy and consume seasonal vegetables and fruit. If you’re not quite sure about what is in season, look it up or ask. Food is most fresh and at its best in taste and nutrition when it is in season. Seasonal adjustments to your diet make you more healthy and keep you in sync with nature’s cycles.
2. Buy and consume local food i.e. food which is grown or produced in the country and does not travel far to reach you. That way, you directly support the livelihoods of local farmers and producers and reduce the carbon footprint.
3. Ask where your food comes from and how it was grown. Chemical free, organic, fair trade, sustainably raised, free range - look for signs which indicate if your food was grown in a manner that is good for you, for the grower and the environment. Ask before you buy food.
4. Diversify your plate, to include fresh, seasonal, local vegetables, fruit, grains and cereals. A diverse meal is more flavourful and more nutritious. Buying diverse food produce also supports a wider range of growers and producers and improves biodiversity.
5. Cook and consume food in culturally appropriate ways. Ingredients and recipes are rooted in a place, a community, a time. Seemingly similar dishes vary ever so slightly from one region to another as the land, climate and culture change. Respecting diverse food cultures enables us to preserve and build a rich, diverse culinary heritage.
6. Pay attention to food waste in your kitchen and on your plate. Take action to minimise it. Buy and consume in quantities that are suitable for you, avoiding the ‘shopaholic syndrome’. Food waste is one of the largest emitters of green house gas emissions globally. So, a half full refrigerator is better than one that is overloaded; it means that you can buy fresh food more frequently.
7. Make thoughtful choices when you eat out or when you order in. Demand good ingredients, diverse menus, freshly prepared food and sustainable packaging. Watch out for chemicals and substitutes of natural foods. Educate yourself before you eat.
8. Say NO to plastic, no matter what. Vegetables, fruit, herbs wrapped in plastic bags, plastic containers, bottles, lids for coffee cups, straws, pouches for chutneys, salads, pickles, plastic cutlery for your takeaway meal - just say NO. When you choose responsibly, it stimulates a much larger ecosystem to also adopt responsible practices.
9. If you don’t already know how, learn to cook, even just a little. Food is life and cooking is a life skill, a few notches ahead of learning to drive and to use a computer. It really could save your life someday.

The passport to becoming foodwize has only 9 steps and you can tell quite quickly that they are all inter-related. Take one step at a time. Add one vegetable to your plate. Change one habit. When you take even a step or two ahead, it will show you the rest of the way. This is a noble undertaking because we’re talking about food - the stuff of life, not just for us but, for those who grow it for us and for the planet at large. When we’re wise about food, we truly are wise about the world.

Several months ago, I wrote about the potential for eco-agri-culinary tourism in India, as a way to create greater economic opportunities for small scale agricultural communities by creating travel experiences rooted in local food cultures while also replenishing and protecting the natural environment. The agriturismo model of Italy, a law since 1985, was one of the references behind my recommendations for India. I’d had the opportunity to visit several Italian agriturismos however, I wanted to see one from behind the scenes, to understand how it really worked, whether it worked. To understand if it was truly sustainable not just in its farming and production methods but, also economically sustainable. I also thought that it was necessary for me, with my own ambition to make a difference to the future of food systems, to know more about what it takes to grow good food. Good food can be interpreted in many different ways; I use the definition of Slow Food which defines good food as good, clean and fair i.e. – food which is tasty, grown in a way that does not harm the natural environment and fetches a fair price to the grower or producer. I decided to educate myself in a ‘live’ setting and I became an intern…again. 

After many months of texting with Andrea, waiting out the winter and a last minute cancellation in spring, it was autumn when I finally arrived in L’Orto Del Pian Bosco, a large organic farm and agriturismo in Fossano, northwest Italy. Fossano is a small town with a population of approximately 25,000 people, quiet and relatively unexplored in comparison to its neighbouring towns of Bra, home to the Slow Food movement and Alba, home to the world famous Barolo wines. Large parts of Fossano are agricultural and one can see tall, dense, golden maize or corn fields for miles on end. The exponential growth in corn farming in many parts of the world is a topic for another day but, just briefly for the purposes of this post, a majority of this corn is grown using inorganic methods and it serves as fodder for animals, bred in larger numbers to meet the growing demand for dairy and meat. For an area which receives little rain, a crop like corn which requires a lot of water significantly depletes groundwater reserves. In this land of corn, L’Orto Del Pian Bosco, owned and run by Andrea Giaccardi is a lush, colourful jewel. 16 acres of vegetable, fruit, hazelnut fields, 100% organic for more than 20 years, a 60 seater restaurant which serves homestyle, delicious Italian food, a store which sells fresh farm produce and a range of homemade compotes, creams, sauces and chutneys made in the food transformation laboratory. 

It all sounds charming and warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? Even as I am writing this, I am reminded of the delicious plum cake made from the Susina Clara plums, deep purple skin with a ruby red pulp. Charming indeed but, there is nothing fuzzy about building and running a place like this. My time as an intern with Andrea and his family and was deeply insightful. The days were long and full to the brim, spent in the fields doing whatever needed to be done for the day – harvesting, planting, sorting; sometimes on the road delivering farm produce to regular customers and occasionally in the farm store, preparing and labelling bottles of freshly made compotes and sauces. In less than a week, I sorted through more than 100 kilos of onions, planted 400 strawberry saplings for the winter, picked hazelnuts off the ground for 7-8 hours and was an assistant to Andrea while he supervised the crushing of more than 300 kilos of hazelnuts. The work is physically demanding but, what truly matters is Andrea’s tremendous knowledge of soil, biodiversity, climate and the skills to create the conditions in which good food can be grown. He has the reputation of being a pioneer in many ways. More than 15 years ago, he was the first in Fossano to plant hazelnut trees, recognising that the conditions were good for hazelnut farming. Following in his footsteps, several hazelnut farms have mushroomed in the area and have been contracted by companies which produce chocol

The farm restaurant serves a fresh, seasonal menu using whatever is grown on the farm. Other essentials like wine, cheese, meat, honey which are not produced on the farm are sourced from producers in the vicinity who also practise sustainable methods. It means that quality and traceability are guaranteed in nearly everything that is served in the restaurant. Andrea’s farm is increasingly modern, with machines which simplify or automate heavy manual work without damaging the soil or the produce.  While Andrea is the visionary and the ‘chief farmer, naturalist and technical officer’, his wife Emanuela looks after the sales and commercial side of the business and his sister Irene, who retired after a long career as an architect is in charge of the laboratory. They are accompanied by a small team of warm and energetic people, who made me feel very welcome. I thought to myself that they must really enjoy what they do; they never stopped working and yet, they never stopped smiling.

Every now and then, groups of students, from agricultural and food sciences universities come to the farm on study trips and I accompanied one such group as they walked around the farm, fascinated by seeing in practice what they had only read in theory. And that brings me to my own reflection that the agriturismo model, underpinned by sustainable methods does work and it is economically viable. 

I saw 5 principles in action which make L’Orto Del Pian Bosco a role model :

• Andrea has a clear vision, intrinsically aligned with his values and propelled by capabilities which are constantly evolving. He believes deeply that the only way to produce good food is by practising natural methods and even after 25 years in agriculture, he is continuously building new knowledge and skills about soil, climate, crops, farming methods and use of modern technology

• The farm has developed the financial capacity to invest in growth. It was only a few acres and inorganic when Andrea was handed the reins by his father. It is now sixteen acres of cultivated land with numerous varieties of vegetables, fruit, herbs and thousands of hazelnut trees. There is a growing market for organic produce and in most years, the laboratory produces at least 50,000 bottles of jams and sauces. Growth in financial terms is not just about earning revenue but, it enables ongoing investment in good methods, technology and people 

• The farm restaurant, which is the agriturismo, enables circularity. In some sense, it marks the closure of a loop. Organic food is grown on the farm, sold in the farm store and can be tasted in the restaurant in the form of a freshly cooked meal. A visitor to the farm has the opportunity to learn a lot about what a good food system can be by spending just a few hours

• The circular nature of L’Orto Del Pian Bosco and its collaborations with other producers, restaurants and stores contribute in a significant way to the community and beyond. When restaurants in Cuneo, about 25 kms away, use the produce from Andrea’s farm, they are reinforcing sustainable practices and serving good quality food to their customers. The ripple effect of a good food system benefits the entire community which includes the people living in it, other businesses and the surrounding environment

Finally, it is simply the right thing to do. It isn’t always easy or even comprehensible to imagine something at a global scale. But, it is always possible to take meaningful action at the individual level and within a community. It is possible to grow, produce, procure and consume good food in ways that are beneficial to all stakeholders, if we treat growers and producers as equal, if not even more important stakeholders than consumers. As is my wont to say, there is no food without the people who grow it. 

I am grateful to Andrea and his family for hosting me; in his gentle way, he taught me a great deal in a short period of time. I believe it has become important for everyone to receive some education in food – where it comes from, what it takes to grow and produce, why it means so much to our own lives and to the planet. It does not need to be an internship for everyone. It can be revived in our homes, provided in schools or community gardens, through visits to small farms and through urban food experiences which go beyond consumption and shine a light on provenance. We need to reimagine contemporary education to enable all people to feel a sense of clarity and connection to the things that help us lead healthy and happy lives. Food is undoubtedly one of those things.

Just a few months ago, I was standing up in front of a room of professors, fellow students and some friends, presenting the final paper of my program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy. My paper was about the importance of unlocking the potential for culinary tourism in India, as a way to promote more diverse, more local food cultures and in turn, create local opportunities and income. For a country as large as India, how does one demonstrate the  diversity of its food cultures in a few, short minutes? I put up this picture, representing the thali, the plate from 6 Indian states, a mere handful out of India’s 28 states and 8 union territories. 

It was ten o’clock on a sunny but, cold Friday morning and until this point in my presentation, I wasn’t yet sure if I had the full attention of everyone in the room. Suddenly, the energy in the room changed visibly. A few people straightened in their chairs. I heard someone softly exclaim “wow!”, it was the voice of little Federico, 9 years old, the youngest and the most special amongst my guests that day. One of the professors stood up with her phone and asked me politely if she could take a picture of the picture. Of course, by all means, I said. All this spontaneous engagement with just a picture of some food and even before I had said anything about it. Amazing, isn’t it? What makes react us like that? 

Food is a multi-sensory experience

I’m amongst the most fortunate. I’ve always had a secure home, clean drinking water and food. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a great love for food, especially in its eating and exploration. I can also cook but, my greater interest has always been in eating. It is a love I share with my family, close friends and several people I worked with over the years. There are many people like me; food occupies a central place in their life and contributes significantly to their sense of well being and happiness. Along the way, I’ve also gathered some friends who say that they eat because they must. They’ve always politely supported my gastronomic pursuits but, they don’t necessarily identify with them. Why all the fuss, they wonder? They can eat their meals quickly, sometimes on the move, sometimes in the company of their computer or their phone; they have their favourite dishes but, on most occasions, anything will do. 

Indeed, food is subsistence and eating is essential to survival. However, M L Kringelbach wrote in his paper, The Pleasure of Food : underlying brain mechanisms (2015), that it is the pleasure involved in eating that makes it worthwhile. Eating can seem simple but, at its most basic, human food intake is rather complex. When food is available, its preparation and eating involve a multitude of processes. They are carefully orchestrated acts, enabled by significant brain processing. Food is in fact, a multi-sensory experience i.e. involving all the senses, each with different routes into the brain. We have five senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. All of them are engaged in the acts of cooking and eating, from the distant processing of the sight of food and it’s smells, to how food feels when we come in contact with it, the sounds of food and ultimately, its taste.

It is through our senses that we explore and engage with the world around us. There is abundant research and excellent reading material about how our brain rapidly processes information from our senses when we see, smell, touch, cook and eat food. It enables us to develop a perception of what we call ‘flavour’ and in turn, a decision about whether we like something or not. Our memory too, plays a significant role. My attempt in this blog is to describe simply how all our senses are ‘at work’ , through everyday experiences with food. 

Our senses at work with food 

Let’s go back to the picture of the 6 thalis. Just the sight of the food has evoked a response, an emotion, perhaps a memory of something familiar or an experience from the past. We begin to engage with food as soon as we see it, we begin to process it with our eyes. The food in those plates is colourful, vibrant, pleasing to the eye or perhaps overwhelming to someone who sees quite a bit of food on every plate. There is a bright, green banana leaf in the Kerala sadhya, different from the large metal cloche in the Kashmiri wazwan, different from the other plates. There is some sort of artwork at the bottom of the Maharashtra thali and we wonder what it symbolises.  Even if some of the food is unfamiliar to us, we make educated guesses about the setting in which such a large meal is being served, maybe a festival or some other special occasion? If we like what we see, it makes want to reach out, to touch the food, we begin to imagine its texture and taste.

When I look at one of the plates, just the vibrancy tells me that it is likely to be a tasty and a healthy meal. How do I know this? Well, yes, some of the food is intimately familiar to me because it is food from India. Our senses may be distinct but, they are always working together and they are complemented by our memory, including by what is known as our ‘taste memory’. Growing up, we were told – the more colour on your plate, the more healthy your meal. It is the easy way to get young people to eat vegetables and fruit which are full of necessary nutrients. In our Maharashtrian home, there was always a koshimbir, salad in lunch or dinner. Depending on the season of the year, it would be grated beetroot or finely chopped carrot or tomato or cucumber, always tempered with some kind of spice, probably a whole chilli, some curry leaves, maybe some grated coconut or crushed peanuts. During the summer, mango was ubiquitous; bright orange aamras, sweet mango pulp or raw mango pickled in oil, red chillies and mustard seeds. So, even before I eat a spoonful of aamras today, I know it is going to be sweet, slightly fibrous, probably cool. We know that pickle is going to be delightfully tangy and spicy. That is our sight, memory and taste memory at work…together. We also “intuitively” determine portion sizes for different foods. For example, a bowl of aamras is good and frankly, when mango is in season, it is probably two bowlfuls. But, that would not be right for pickle. Pickle must be eaten in small amounts, no more than a small spoonful, just enough for good digestion. It isn’t really our intuition though, it is mindful decision making based on our evolution and experience.

Let’s step out of the thali picture now and imagine some real food. Any food. Even a beverage like say, coffee. When we step into a cafe in the morning, we smell the freshly brewed coffee before we see it and before we sip it. The sight of food is often preceded by its aroma. Our nasal pathways intercept smells, transmit a signal to our brain and contribute quite significantly to our perception of flavour. We have a fascinating ability to recognise and profile numerous distinct smells, to know a dish or an ingredient before we see it. As I write this, I am reminded of the aroma of besan laddoos, sweets made with gram flour, ghee, powdered sugar and cardamom. My mother would make them occasionally, always in the afternoon when she had a bit of free time. They stayed well and were good for mid-meal hunger pangs. The most important thing with besan laddoo is to roast the gram flour just right in the ghee. If it is undercooked, the sweets end up with a raw, unpalatable taste and left too long on the heat, the gram flour burns. So she would roast it attentively in a large kadhaai, continuously stirring with a spoon. At some point, she would call out from the kitchen and ask, “can you smell the besan yet?” and only after she knew that the aroma had wafted out into the living room, she would turn the gas off and quickly move on to the next step of rolling the laddoos. 

I think of other familiar smells of food – the smell of ghee in dal, lentils which have been tempered with cumin seeds and dry red chillies, the smell of fresh fish fried in mustard oil, the sweet smell of ripe bananas and tulsi, basil in sheera, semolina pudding cooked that way only on the day of a festival or a special ceremony at home. A few weeks ago, I was in Mumbai, right in the middle of this year’s scorching summer. Our home is a 15-20 minute walk from the nearest beach and while standing by the window on one of the days, I recognised the distinct smell that one can recognise if you’ve lived any part of your life near the sea. It was the smell of drying fish, a few kilometres away in Khar Danda, home to a large fishing community. They were stocking up for the monsoon when fishing trawlers have to stay out of the sea for a couple of months. I wasn’t near the fish and yet, I knew. If you’re still reading, perhaps you’re thinking of the aromas of the foods you particularly enjoy…fresh bread or cake or a favourite homestyle stew?

Sight, smell and then, sound. There is sound in cooking, like the sizzling in a pan when you cook something in smoking hot oil. There is also sound in eating and the signals from sounds tell us something of relevance. Think of an apple or a salad made with lettuce. When we bite into a ‘crunchy’ apple or a ‘crisp’ lettuce, we decide that they are fresh, they are good . It is the much the same with pappadum or think even of TV advertisements for potato chips or chocolates made with wafers. When we anticipate the texture and taste of a fresh apple, we’re often anticipating the ‘crunch’. Do we relish a soggy potato chip or a wilted lettuce which has lost its crunch? Now, some of us might ask, is it a crunchy sound or does it have a crunchy texture? It is an important question and it brings us to touch – one of the most interesting sensory aspects of eating.

We touch food when we put it in our mouth. In fact, ‘mouth-feel’, a term often used while tasting something like say, wine, is an important contributor to the perception of flavour. But, there is also vital sensory information in how we bring food from the plate to the mouth. In so many communities and cultures around the world, it is customary to eat with hands, like here in India. I’ve always eaten with my hands and most of us do, especially and always when eating at home. Eating with cutlery i.e. a fork and a knife is a learned skill for many of us in my generation and earlier generations, a skill that must be learnt in order to eat with ‘civility’ when one is eating outside the home, with less familiar people and definitely when one is eating with people who only eat with cutlery. When we eat with our fingers, increasingly unknown to many of us, we are following the principles of Ayurveda. Ayurvedic texts suggest that the our hands are at the centre of tactile sensations and each of our five fingers represent the elements – fire, air, water, space and earth. When we bring our fingers together to eat, we stimulate the elements, become conscious of the temperature, texture, smell and taste of food and prepare our bodies for good digestion. In the same way that we glean information from the sight and smell of food, we do so when we touch food with our fingers. Undoubtedly, I ate well during my time in Italy last year but, I also always looked forward to cooking and eating an Indian meal in my apartment…with my hands. As we often say to each other in India, food tastes better when you eat with your hands. And to me, it tasted even better when my university companions enthusiastically ate with their hands as well. Eating in the companionship of other people is a joy in itself but, more about commensality another time! 

So, sight, smell, sound, touch and finally, taste. When we qualify a dish as ‘tasty’, we usually mean that we think it is well made and enjoyable. More simply, we like it. Taste is one of our five senses and there are at least five basic tastes – salty, sweet, sour, umami and bitter. Salty is the taste of sodium, chloride and mineral salts. Sweet is the taste of natural sugars found in fruit or honey. Sour is the taste of acidic, citrus ingredients like lemon. Umami taste is found in protein rich foods like meat or cheese. The bitter taste is perhaps one of the most interesting. Translated simply, it means an unpleasant taste and some research has indicated that through human evolution, we developed a distaste for bitter things because it enabled people to avoid accidental poisoning. However, in some Asian countries including India, bitter foods like karela, bitter gourd and even neem are eaten with relish, cooked in different ways – fried, steamed, stuffed using spices, a touch of oil or ghee and some seasoning. Mainly, they have a place in our cuisine because of their immunity enhancing properties. Several communities in India celebrate new year during the months of March and April, when it is spring. On the occasion of Gudhi Padwa, which is new year in Maharashtra, we always started the day by eating a little leaf of neem, often followed by a spoonful of bitter neem chutney before a big, festive lunch. As children, no amount of protesting saved us  from the atrociously bitter neem. Year after year, our parents calmly said, “Eat it quickly. It is good for health. One neem leaf will make sure that you don’t fall sick during the hot summer months”.

Incidentally, Ayurveda has a broader definition of taste with the inclusion of two other fundamental tastes – pungent or spicy such as the sharpness from ginger or chillies and the astringent taste which is the sensation of dryness from some foods like pomegranate or grapes or specific raw vegetables. 

Principally though, taste has two functions. It enables us to evaluate the food, to check for toxins and nutrients, helping us decide what to ingest and it prepares the body the metabolise food after it has been ingested (Science of Taste, 2013).

Are we alive to our senses when we eat? 

Many of us may be thinking, we know this and we are fully engaged when we eat. Some of us may have learnt something new. Some of us may be wondering, this is all quite interesting but, do we really need to know? Yes, we do. 

The world in which we live and work has changed considerably over the last twenty five years or so, with technology having played the most significant role. It has connected the world in an unprecedented manner, enabled the creation of new services, drawn us into relationships with our gadgets and in many ways, influenced us to design our lives that rely on door-step convenience for nearly everything, including and especially how we bring and consume food. Food has become a matter of convenience, encouraged and enabled by numerous online food delivery platforms, cloud kitchens and armies of delivery agents. But, food is not about convenience. It takes tremendous effort and knowledge to grow, it nourishes our bodies and our minds, it brings people together, it connects us to our histories, our cultures, to the rest of the natural world. 

It is important to remember that every moment and every bite of food carries within it the possibility of pleasure. The brain is built for pleasure and it is through learning to appreciate the extraordinary in ordinary experiences, that a life well-lived can be constructed (Kringelbach, 2015). So when we permit ourselves to be alive to all our senses when we eat, we are able to make the most of it – more flavour, more health, more insight, more joy. 

Imagine a little cottage in the Nilgiris biosphere reserve, atop a hill with breathtaking views of two shimmering lakes, lush tea plantations, carrot and potato farms. As you check in, one of the first things you’re told is to wake up early and peek out of the window to see the sun rise over the lakes. I first went there more than a decade ago and it has remained vivid in my memory, not only because of the resplendent natural beauty but, because of the food. I went back recently and was delighted to find that nothing has changed. Delicious meals, made with what is in season and served in small portions. Nearly all of the food is grown in the property’s kitchen garden. Milk and eggs too. What is not grown on the property is brought from local farmer’s markets or nearby farms. A small team of soft spoken, efficient people from the local area look after the rooms, the gardens, the kitchen and double up as hiking guides and as drivers to bring cars up the last stretch where the road is far from ‘pukka’. Red Hills Nature Resort in Coonoor, is the extension of Vijay Kumar and Banumathi’s home and they have been hosting guests for more than 20 years. To do this as thoughtfully as they do is not just a matter of doing good business. Vijay said it was his way of putting back into the earth and into the local economy. 

On the one hand, this sort of a travel experience is not unique – natural beauty, great local organic food, comfortable stay, polite and efficient service, reasonable price. But, in a country as large and as diverse as India, places like this are still far and few in between and we need more of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. Here is why. 

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture – this is the 2nd goal of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For those less familiar with the UN SDGs, they are also called Global Goals and they were adopted by the United Nations in 2015, as a universal call to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and prosperity for all by 2030. 

I am particularly interested in SDG 2 because of my keen interest in food and its intimate and multidimensional relationship with social, economic and environmental sustainability. We live in a world which produces enough food for all and yet, millions of people remain hungry. The United Nations FAO State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report 2020 and the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021  both indicate that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030.

Hunger is a complex problem and in order to understand hunger, it is useful to understand its various forms and underlying reasons. 

Food deprivation is defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as the habitual consumption of too few calories to provide minimum dietary energy which an individual requires to live a healthy, active and productive life; for their gender, age and stature. Undernutrition goes beyond calories and signifies deficiencies in any or all of the following – energy, protein, essential vitamins and minerals. And malnutrition refers to problems caused by undernutrition (deficiencies) and also, overnutrition i.e. imbalanced diets involving too many calories relative to an individual’s requirement. 

The Global Hunger Index (GHI), jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at a global, national and regional level and it refers to four component indicators:

1. Undernourishment i.e. insufficient calorie intake, as defined by the UN FAO
2. Child wasting : children under the age of 5 who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition 
3. Child stunting : children under the age of 5 who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition and
4. Child mortality : death rate of children under the age of 5, a reflection of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments

Overall, the world has witnessed decades of decline in poverty and hunger i.e. significant improvement. However, since 2015, there is a visible increase in one component of hunger – undernourishment. The UN estimates that nearly 690 million people are hungry i.e. 8.9% of the world’s population, up by 10 million people in one year and nearly 60 million people in the last 5 years. If urgent action is not taken, nearly 840 million people could become hungry by 2030, with extremely alarming levels of food insecurity in as many as 47 countries in the world.

What is causing food insecurity for so many people?

As the GHI report explains, food systems encompass everyone and everything connected to the production, distribution, consumption, recycling and disposal of food. Food systems include:

1. The natural system of water, the earth, the climate in which food is grown
2. The technical system comprising of the crops grown or the livestock raised 
3. The logistical and distribution system to enable the movement of food from producers to distributors and consumers, including the recycling and disposal of food 
4. And the social and economic system which is made up by the relationships between producers, distributors and consumers

Since food systems are also social systems, they reflect the inequalities found in all societies and as a result, food security is vulnerable to all events and systemic shocks and disruptions. Many factors contribute to hunger – poverty, inequality, poor governance, poor rural development, lack of investment in agriculture but, the GHI research shows that 3 major forces driving hunger are overpowering all others. I find it helpful to remember them as the 3 Cs – conflict, climate change and the covid-19 pandemic. 

Conflict has a disproportionately large impact on food security. More than 50% of the people facing hunger live in places which are affected by conflict and violence. Conflict increases food insecurity because of its impact on agricultural production and because people are displaced. Crops are destroyed or taken, inputs are destroyed or prevented from reaching farmers, land becomes inaccessible or unsuitable for agriculture, equipment and infrastructure are damaged and agricultural labour reduces due to death or injury or displacement. In most situations, displacement leaves people vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition because they are driven away from their homes, unable to work, isolated from the markets and financial credit. Conflict causes fear and uncertainty and as a result, it also reduces economic investment and weakens health care systems. 

In the last two years, a prominent reason for increased hunger is the covid-19 pandemic. It is estimated that the first year of the pandemic distorted decades of development. It worsened food security in many ways – loss of livelihoods, disruption in supply chains and massive increases in food prices. The most vulnerable under-nourished people simply cannot afford a healthy and nutritious diet because it is too expensive. Small scale producers have been hit hard and the vast majority of them are in the developing countries of the world, which already have a concentration of people who experience hunger and food insecurity. The eventual impact of the pandemic is not yet known; some estimates say that an additional 80-120 million people could become food insecure.

Looking into to the future, climate change and food production have an intrinsic relationship. The impact of climate on food security may or may not yet be visible to many of us. But, the climate is changing and particularly affecting countries and regions which are most sensitive to rainfall and temperature extremes and which have economies highly dependent on agriculture. The UN estimates that by 2050, an additional 78 million people could become chronically hungry, relative to a situation without the climate crisis. Closer home, a recent study conducted by the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore indicates that by 2035, rising temperatures will significantly reduce the yield of rice, ragi (millet), jowar (sorghum), soybean and groundnut amongst others. On the other hand, production of crops which thrive in a high carbon dioxide environment like cotton and sugarcane will increase.

The statistics are overwhelming but, we need to pause for a moment and recognise that these are not mere numbers – they are real people, like you and me, human beings who do not know where the next meal will come from. 

It is not all dark. The solutions exist – across policy, governance, peace building efforts, climate action, financing, law, and ultimately, locally led implementation with involvement from all actors, including citizens like us. As people of the modern world, we live, work and consume in ways that were unimaginable to the people before us. Hence, we have the capability and responsibility to make sure that no one gets left behind, least of all when it comes to food. Do you agree?