A food historian spent a month at the Library of Congress trying to answer the question of why we have historically been, and remain, so focused on dietary protein. Here is what she found.
Kitwe Food and Farmers’ Market, Zambia.
Samantha Reinders/African Centre for Cities
Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, is the winner of the 2021 World Food Prize for her work identifying small fish as valuable nutrition sources for developing countries.
A helicopter drops water on a forest fire in Alaska.
Michael Risinger/U.S. Army National Guard
A new study finds more deciduous trees like aspen are growing in after severe fires in the region, and that has some unexpected impacts.
Longleaf pines support one another through mycorrhizae – mutually beneficial relationships between certain fungi and the trees’ roots.
Justin Meissen/Flickr
We may think of plants as passive life forms, but they can cooperate, share resources, send one another warnings, and distance themselves from their communities when survival depends on it.
Multiple queens ensure colonies have a steady output of workers.
Ryan Reihart
The spread of tawny crazy ants may be driven, in part, by their need for calcium. The calcium-rich limestone bedrock of the lower U.S. Midwest may provide ideal conditions for populations to explode.
These compounds occur naturally in a number of healthy foods, including legumes and whole grains.
foodism360/Unsplash
Anti-nutrients naturally occur in food and can block the amount of other nutrients available for your body to use. But their effects aren’t all bad, which is why they’re undergoing an image makeover.
Weathering of rocks like these basalt formations in Idaho triggers chemical processes that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Matthew Dillon/Flickr
To avoid global warming on a catastrophic scale, nations need to reduce emissions and find ways to pull carbon from the air. One promising solution: spreading rock dust on farm fields.
These grasshoppers, like many insects around the world, are declining.
Dave Rintoul
Storing more carbon in soil helps slow climate change and makes croplands more productive. But there are two kinds of soil carbon that are both important, but function very differently.
To understand how healthy a food is, we often look at fats and proteins, vitamins and minerals. But this approach overlooks one property that’s a key part of a food’s health potential – its structure.
Don’t shun processed or ultra-processed foods entirely. Not only do they save families time and money, many processed foods have been unfairly maligned and can be nutritious as well as economical and convenient.
(Shutterstock)
Processed foods can be nutritious as well as economical and convenient. So let’s stop demonizing processed foods, and ease up on those who turn to them for convenience and price.
Legumes are a good source of calcium.
Saschanti17/Shutterstock
Scientists have long thought most nitrogen in Earth’s ecosystems comes from the air, but new research shows it also is released as rocks weather. This could boost plant growth and help sequester carbon – but not fast enough to avert climate change, as some pundits have claimed.
Mushrooms for many are just an addition to a slice of pizza, but the fungi are now gaining a reputation for their nutrients.
Subbatina Anna/Shutterstock.com
Mushrooms, long popular on pizza and in cooking, are getting more attention for their health benefits. Here are some reasons you might want to add them to your grocery list and not just your pizza.
Multiple reports have convincingly demonstrated that agroecology is the most promising pathway to sustainable food systems on all continents. But governments aren’t doing enough to support it.