The event, taking place at the Tribeca Film Center, begins at 6:30PM ET. A panel discussion featuring author and nutritionist Marion Nestle, Chef Michel Nischan of Wholesome Wave, former USDA Midwest Public Affairs Director Alan Shannon, and journalist Kate Bittman will kick off the evening. This will be followed by a screening of the documentary “The Henry Ford’s Farm To School Lunch Across America” and a reception. 

“This documentary is more than a film—it is an invitation. Through Farm to School Lunch Across America, we are shining a light on communities proving that school meals can nourish students, strengthen local economies, and support farmers caring for the land,” Spence Medford, Senior Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer for The Henry Ford, tells Food Tank. “Our hope is to spark a national conversation around school-supported agriculture and inspire more communities to adapt what’s already working.”

The Henry Ford’s program brings together culinary experts and chefs, farmers, food advocates, and policymakers to amplify the importance of fresh, seasonal meals for students across the United States. Through this work, they try to underscore the need for free, regeneratively grown school lunches for all. 

The pilot program, launched in 2024, reached seven schools in six communities to connect farmers, chefs, and fresh food resources during National Farm to School Month in October. During visits, a film crew captured model school meal programs and interviewed chefs, including Alice Waters and Rick Bayless, along with school meal leaders and innovators.

To inquire about attending and RSVP for the event, email farmtoschool@thehenryford.org.

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Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

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Kicking off at 2:00PM EAT at Shah Houses at Ngara, the event will feature clips from “Food 2050” and the screening of Food Tank’s new documentary short “Irish Farmers: A Love Story.” It represents the premiere of both films on the African continent as experts come together to discuss pathways to build more resilient, equitable food and farming systems and the power of storytelling to scale these solutions.

Speakers include Betty Kibaara, Director, Food Team, The Rockefeller Foundation; Danielle Nierenberg, President, Food Tank; David Osogo, Food Systems Visionary “Restoring Nairboi to “A Place of Cool Waters,”and Research Officer, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC); Arpana Philip, Country Director, Enviu; and Haven Worley, Director, “Irish Farmers: A Love Story.”

Learn more about the event and register for in-person tickets now by clicking HERE.

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Photo courtesy of CIAT, Wikimedia Commons

The post Celebrating Our Farmers and Spotlighting Food System Visionaries appeared first on Food Tank.

The book focuses on the power of catch shares, a management strategy to curb overfishing that allocates a portion of a fishery’s catch to an individual or group. 

Rather than pressuring fishers to race into the waters each season, Leland says this system creates more flexibility for them to fish any time of the year. Fishers also see rewards for allowing stocks to replenish. As populations increase, what fishers can catch—and their potential income—grows with it. 

Leland, who serves as the Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, calls this a “built in incentive program.” And she tells Food Tank that this solution represents “a fundamental change” for fisheries management. 

But Keith “Buddy” Guindon, the book’s protagonist, didn’t begin as an advocate of catch shares. Fisheries were collapsing around him in Texas as support for this new system grew, but he staunchly opposed it, believing restrictions would further threaten coastal communities.

As Sea Change explains, conservationists were not the greatest allies of fishers historically. It was “epically true” that the environmental community blamed them for the overfishing crisis, Leland tells Food Tank. “The argument was ‘this is all collapsing because of you’…when in reality they were stuck in a broken system.”

As researchers worked with the fishers to implement a catch shares program for red snapper, however, Guindon couldn’t deny the benefits that he was seeing. Fish populations were not just stable, but growing; and fishers around him were filling their boats while saving on time, labor, and operating costs. In the past, he had warned his children to avoid the industry. But the success gave him certainty that a different, more hopeful future was possible. 

“That creates a whole new way for them to think about the business and what kind of investments they want to make…and that’s better for the community because there’s a much more stable job force in Galveston.” 

Guindon “becomes the biggest champion” of catch shares, Leland says. And he begins pushing for the same approach to be applied to other species and regions, seeing the success spread. 

Leland acknowledges that there are still more challenges in global blue foods systems to tackle, but it’s important to recognize wins like those in Guindon’s community. “Celebrate the progress, recognize where there’s still work to do,” she tells Food Tank, “and focus on solutions that are going to address those continued issues.”

Listen to or watch the full conversation with Amanda Leland on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear more about the unlikely partnerships that led to the establishment of catch shares, how this solution has been scaled globally, and some of the emerging challenges that fishing communities are facing in the face of government funding cuts today. 

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Chad Stembridge, Unsplash

The post From Collapse to Comeback: How Fishers And Environmentalists Are Restoring Oceans appeared first on Food Tank.

When we talk about food and agriculture systems, there’s a fundamental truth that I think we have to remember to re-ground ourselves in: These systems are made up of people.

Whether we’re looking at farms or school cafeterias or global supply chains, food stories are stories of people, of our cultures and communities and our values and visions for the future. I genuinely believe that, by working to understand food systems, we can better understand people. And vice versa: By building meaningful connections with people, we can build better food systems.

And this also speaks to the reasons I love sharing our seasonal reading lists with you. When discussions about large-scale systems and social movements—about food as a tool for power and resilience and change—can feel a bit theoretical or academic, the books on our spring reading list ground us with stories of people.

In “Africulture,” 11th-generation farmer Michael Carter, Jr., braids together the stories of his own family history and 5th-generation family farm with the story of the decline in Black-owned farmland over the past century and the activists working to reverse that trend.

And in “Free-Range Religion,” scholar Adrienne Krone examines the intersections of alternative food movements and religious life through people-focused ethnographic research. Or, take “The Secret History of French Cooking,” by Luke Barr: The great-nephew of food writer M.F.K. Fisher introduces us to the men and women who transformed French cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s.

A few weeks ago, anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese, the author of the forthcoming book “Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness,” joined us for a fantastic conversation at Food Tank’s SXSW Summit to discuss precisely this topic.

“If we’re thinking about what is wrong, we’re pre-oriented toward thinking about solutions—but first, we actually need to know what’s happening with people, both good and bad,” she says. “I think that shifts everything about how we orient ourselves toward other people.”

Here are 20 of the books we’re reading this spring that put people at the heart of food systems:

A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior by Crystal Wahpepah with Amy Paige Condon

A School Lunch Revolution: A Cookbook by Alice Waters

Africulture: How the Principles, Practices, Plants, and People of African Descent Have Shaped American Agriculture by Michael Carter, Jr.

Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods by Lily Kelting (forthcoming May 2026)

Between Feast and Famine: Food, Health, and the History of Ghana’s Long Twentieth Century by John Nott

Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad: The Biology and Conservation of North America’s Favorite Crustaceans by Zackary A. Graham

Feed the People! Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg

Free-Range Religion: Alternative Food Movements and Religious Life in the United States by Adrienne Krone

Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness by Ashanté M. Reese (forthcoming April 2026)

Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester

Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods edited by Liz Carlisle, and Aubrey Streit Krug

Nurturing Food Justice: Expansive and Intersectional Visions by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites by Alicia Kennedy (forthcoming April 2026)

Restoring the Soil (Second Edition) by Roland Bunch

Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef by Brigid Washington (forthcoming April 2026)

School Food Programs in Canada: Models for Success edited by Amberley T. Ruetz and Rachel Engler-Stringer

The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen by Shahnaz Ahsan

The Secret History of French Cooking: The Outlaw Chefs Who Made Food Modern by Luke Barr

The Sovereign Poison: Glyphosate, Poisoncraft, and Regulatory Politics by Tom Widger

Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar by David Singerman

Check out the full list, with descriptions and links for each book, by CLICKING HERE. And if you missed our winter reading list a couple months ago, you can add those books to your to-read list here.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Siwawut Phoophinyo, Unsplash

The post Reminding Ourselves that Food System Stories Are People-Centered Stories appeared first on Food Tank.

 1. A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior by Crystal Wahpepah with Amy Paige Condon

For years, Chef and advocate Crystal Wahpepah has used her platform to uplift the foodways of Indigenous communities. In A Feather and a Fork, Wahpepah brings together 125 recipes developed in collaboration with ethnobotanist and food sovereignty advocate Linda Black Elk, including Three Sisters Veggie Bowls, a Bison Roast with Chokeberry Rub, Acorn Muffins, and more. These dishes celebrate Indigenous food producers committed to preserving heirloom foods and traditions while exploring the many benefits of preparing these foods.

2. A School Lunch Revolution: A Cookbook by Alice Waters

“Education and food are two universal rights. All children deserve to go to school. And everyone deserves to eat nourishing food.” This is the opening to the new book from chef and restaurateur Alice Waters, a champion of procurement practices that support eaters, farmers, and the land. In her new multigenerational cookbook, Waters brings together a collection of versatile recipes that are diverse, simple, and delicious, while asking us to reimagine how we nourish the next generation.

3. Africulture: How the Principles, Practices, Plants, and People of African Descent Have Shaped American Agriculture by Michael Carter, Jr.

Michael Carter, an 11th generation farmer in the U.S. and the 5th generation to steward his century-old family farm in Orange County, Virginia known as Carter Farms. In Africulture, Carter faces the decline in Black-owned farmland over the last century. As he does so, he braids together his family’s history, snapshots of his farm, and anecdotes and profiles of some of today’s leading farmers and activists. And through this work, he offers the possibility of a better future.

4. Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods by Lily Kelting (forthcoming May 2026)

In Against Heritage, author Lily Kelting asks readers to think more deeply about the rise of heritage foods. In her new book, she proposes the idea that their celebration is rooted in a response to the climate crisis and the rise of right-wing populism. Drawing from movements in the American South, Denmark, and India, Kelting argues that the chefs at the forefront of this work are both grounded in nostalgia and pushing forward new inventions.

5. Between Feast and Famine: Food, Health, and the History of Ghana’s Long Twentieth Century by John Nott

Between Feast and Famine traces how colonialism, economic change, and shifting agricultural systems reshaped diets and health outcomes in Ghana. Author John Nott follows the nutritional landscape as the country moves from colonial-era hunger crises to those of obesity and diabetes. Bridging the worlds of African history and medical humanities, the book questions assumptions about hunger and public health while complicating ideas about food systems and human well-being.

6. Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad: The Biology and Conservation of North America’s Favorite Crustaceans by Zackary A. Graham

Known by different names, crawfish play an important role in ecosystem health, particularly in the American Southeast and Appalachia. In Crayfish, Crawfish, Crawdad, biologist Zacharey Graham explains the benefits these crustaceans bring to their habitats and why they deserve protection from the threats of development, pollution, and other human-made factors.

7. Feed the People! Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg

Feed the People! aims to complicate notions of industrialized food. Authors Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg acknowledge the harm that today’s food systems have caused to humans, animals, and the planet. But they also speak to the abundance, variety, and affordability that have never before been enjoyed by eaters. The industrialized food system may actually be good, Dutkiewicz and Rosenberg argue — and policies and technology could make it better.

8. Free-Range Religion: Alternative Food Movements and Religious Life in the United States by Adrienne Krone

Free-Range Religion explores how contemporary food movements intersect with spiritual beliefs and practices across the U.S. Drawing on ethnographic research of two Jewish and two Christian organizations, Adrienne Krone reveals that those engaged in alternative food movements are developing new ways to view food preparation and production as religious acts.

9. Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness by Ashanté M. Reese (forthcoming April 2026)

In her latest book, Gather, anthropologist Ashanté M Reese presents a vision of food justice that centers Black communities and the power of gathering. “What can we glean from those who may not ever go to a movement meeting, may not ever go to a protest?” Reese said at Food Tank’s SXSW Summit. “They have valuable things to offer too. So, this book is a gathering, if you will, of all those folks and their practices.” She makes it clear there are no silver bullets to the most pressing challenges today, but there is much to be learned from the strategies of Black communities pushing for systemic change. And Reese argues that these lessons can help us harness the power of food justice already available and help us build brighter food systems. 

10. Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester

Ghosts of the Farm slips between the stories of two women of different generations who dreamed of becoming farmers. The book centers on Miss White, who realized her ambition during World War II, and the author, Nicola Chester, who wanted to produce food but found that her only option was to work with horses. Exploring the shared desires, Chester asks: Was it easier for women to become farmers in the 1940s that it is today?

11. Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods edited by Liz Carlisle, and Aubrey Streit Krug

Corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans make up as much as 75 percent of all calories consumed globally. But Living Roots asks readers to envision a different reality—one that is built on perennial crops and all they have to offer. Bringing together contributions from Indigenous scientists, community leaders, urban visionaries, and more, this collection argues that perennial plants can be used to build a more flavorful and sustainable food future.

12. Nurturing Food Justice: Expansive and Intersectional Visions by Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman

In this open access e-book Nurturing Food Justice Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman bring together a collection of contributions exploring what food justice is, what it’s for, and what it can become. Chapters touch on topics including Indigenous food sovereignty and the land back movement, radical Black ecology, justice in food assistance, and the community-powered tech tools that can help rethink food justice.

13. On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites by Alicia Kennedy (forthcoming April 2026)

Alicia Kennedy’s second book On Eating examines her personal relationship with food as a girl who loved to eat but worried about the connotations between cooking and a life of domesticity. Kennedy reflects on her experiences eating lamb made by her grandmother, picking apples with her mother, and, later in adulthood, opening a vegan microbakery. It is a personal work, but it also offers lessons to help eaters realize that deliciousness and joy don’t have to come at the expense of sustainability and the health of people and the planet.

14. Restoring the Soil (Second Edition) by Roland Bunch

Soil health globally is suffering, threatening the yields and livelihoods of farmers. But Roland Bunch, a leader in regenerative land management, has spent his career demonstrating that the damage can be reversed using green manure/cover crops (gm/ccs). “The potential impact land restoration could have on future food systems is huge,” Bunch tells Food Tank. In this updated edition of Restoring the Soil, he brings in new and updated information on the benefits of gm/ccs and how this approach can be implemented. 

15. Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef by Brigid Washington (forthcoming April 2026)

Called “exceptional” and “fascinating” by culinary historian Jessica B. Harris, this new memoir from Trinidadian food writer Brigid Washington tells the story of a young woman’s journey to become a chef. Washington’s narrative recounts how it felt navigating her hardest days in unpaid internships, interviews with some of the world’s most famous chefs, and learning what is required to navigate the country’s most elite cooking school.

16. School Food Programs in Canada: Models for Success edited by Amberley T. Ruetz and Rachel Engler-Stringer

As Canada prepares to roll out its first national food program, the collection is the first of its kind to analyze school meals with a focus on the nation. The book opens with an overview of policy and advocacy efforts around this issue before turning to case studies and analyses of school feeding programs and policies in Canada and around the world. The contributions serve to connect stakeholders from across sectors while providing a framework to identify the best models for the communities these programs are meant to benefit. 

17. The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen by Shahnaz Ahsan

In The Jackfruit Chronicles, award-winning food writer Shahnaz Ahsan writes of her family’s journey to establish a new life in Britain. And through this narrative, Ahsan explores the place that Bengali food has found in the country. Also woven throughout the book are recipes for dishes including Sour Tomato Broth, Jackfruit Kofta Curry, and Lentil Fritters.

18. The Secret History of French Cooking: The Outlaw Chefs Who Made Food Modern by Luke Barr

The Secret History of French Cooking tells a lively, behind-the-scenes account of the rebellious chefs who transformed French cuisine in the 1960s and 1970s. Author Luke Barr introduces readers to some of the most influential chefs of the era, the cooking techniques that they brought to kitchens for the first time, and the often-overlooked women chefs who fought for their place in an industry dominated by men.

19. The Sovereign Poison: Glyphosate, Poisoncraft, and Regulatory Politics by Tom Widger

Glyphosate is one of the most widely used weedkillers in the world. Yet a growing body of research links it to serious health risks, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma. As concern mounts and calls for stricter regulation intensify, governments continue to fall short of fully protecting communities. In The Sovereign Poison, Tom Widger takes a deeper look at this controversial herbicide, exploring the complex political, economic, and social forces that shape how agrichemicals are governed. By examining glyphosate from multiple angles, Widger reveals what’s at stake for public health, environmental safety, and the future of our food systems.

20. Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar by David Singerman

Under the influence of modern capitalism, sugar has gone from a natural food to a scientific commodity, says David Singerman in Unrefined. Over the past 500 years, it has led to both wealth and suffering. But through manipulation that converted sugar into a pure chemical object, Singerman argues that new forms of fraud, corruption, and monopoly have emerged.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Spring Forward with these 20 Books on Food and Agriculture appeared first on Food Tank.

The six films, which explore topics including land access, alternative proteins, and school lunches, help viewers understand how food choices and farming systems affect wellbeing. Together, the series explores what it will take to build food and agriculture systems that regenerate the land and promote social inclusion and wellness while reducing negative environmental impacts.

“Our food system isn’t failing because we lack solutions, we’re failing because we’ve lost the patience to go deep enough to uncover them, again and again within their own contextual realities,” says Laura Howard-Gayeton, Executive Director of The Lexicon of Food. “This series is a call to share long knowledge, community by community and to unearth the future, without shortcuts in harmony with nature.”

After watching the films, audiences can also dive deeper into the concepts introduced in each episode through The Food Library and test their knowledge of key terms through an online quiz.

Learn more about the series and watch now by clicking HERE.

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Photo courtesy of Barbara Krysztofiak, Unsplash

The post ‘Unearthing the Future’ Unpacks the Food and Farming Systems Impacting Human Health appeared first on Food Tank.

Pretty, an Emeritus Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex, launched Story for Climate and Nature Recovery to explore how people can build agency in the face of today’s most pressing challenges. The channel’s videos, each five to ten minutes in length, cover topics around storytelling, climate, and nature.  

“Transformations are hard. They’re psychologically difficult, physically difficult to do,” Pretty tells Food Tank. But, he asks, “how do we talk about these things without increasing anxiety and stress?”

Too often narratives of nature loss and the climate crisis are overwhelmingly negative, Pretty says. And while there is a time and place for this messaging, he voices caution about relying too heavily on fear.

“We have to choose our moments when we talk about the bad stuff really carefully because it’s scaring people,” Pretty states. “Maybe scaring them is not the right thing to do. Maybe people are scared enough.”

But Pretty believes that stories, when crafted skillfully, can inspire action and lend strength, helping communities tackle challenges that are both old and new. The best ones, he argues, do three things: They map multiple pathways forward, create agency, and bring people together.

“It’s about the journey that we go on and how we acquire that inspiration, that feeling that we’re not alone, that humanity has been doing this forever,” says Pretty, noting that imagination will be key.

“Imagine things,” Pretty tells Food Tank, “because that’s going to give us a sense of a range of possibilities in front of us.”

Listen to or watch the full conversation with Jules Pretty on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear about the buy-in that’s needed from communities to drive systems change, the power of rituals and celebrations, and the vulnerability we need to move forward.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

The post Beyond Doom and Gloom: Transforming Climate Anxiety into Agency and Action appeared first on Food Tank.

In my experience, most people—even those excited about alternative meats—believe that making plant-based meat is a culinary endeavor. Mix the right ingredients, get creative with spices and flavors, and voilà: meatless meat.

Their intuition is failing them. That’s not it at all.

GFI scientist Erin Rees Clayton explained to me that plant-based meat is asking biology to do something outside its nature: Plant proteins are globular; animal proteins are fibrous. Plant oils are liquids at room temperature; animal fats are solids. Replicating the structure and functionality of meat with entirely different ingredients isn’t just a matter of culinary craft; it’s a scientific problem.

The two plant-based meat pioneers, Impossible and Beyond, understand this. They weren’t playing with recipes. They hired tissue engineers, molecular biologists, chemists, meat scientists, extrusion engineers, plant breeders, and more. Their goal was not different in degree from the plant-based meat companies that had existed up until that point; their goal was different in kind. They were building a brand-new category from scratch, applying the rigors of science and engineering to food.

Erin expanded on this challenge, explaining her view that the underlying science of plant-based meat is, contrary to my intuition, a lot more complex than the science of cultivated meat: “Virtually no one is trained across the entire plant-based meat production process. Plant breeders can modify and improve crops but often don’t know what happens once those crops leave the field. Protein chemists can extract high-purity proteins but may not understand how different extraction techniques affect flavor, digestibility, or food functionality. Food scientists understand formulation but may not have experience with extrusion. Meat scientists know meat, but they’ve rarely applied their knowledge to plant proteins.”

Pat Brown put it bluntly: “The most important scientific problem in the world,” he said, was “What makes meat taste delicious?” And Impossible Foods was going to find the answer. Pat recruited a team of scientists and treated plant-based meat like an Apollo-level mission.

Allen Henderson joined Impossible in 2014 and worked there for about a decade. He spent his first two years as one of many scientists working on the 2016 burger launch. He told me that most meat and food companies spend less than 1% of their budgets on research, while pharma companies often invest closer to 30%. Pat’s goal, he said, was to out-science pharma. Allen holds a PhD in biochemistry and focused his doctoral and postdoctoral work on protein science. Still, “during my time at Impossible, I learned so much,” he told me. “It felt like we were all living in the protein Renaissance.”

The Impossible team figured out how to mitigate the off flavors from plant proteins. Nature creates many of those off flavors, Allen told me, specifically to protect plants from being too delicious. They don’t want to be eaten. The team built a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer to identify flavor molecules created when meat cooks. They tested heme (an iron-containing compound that contributes to the meaty taste of meat) from 31 different sources, from clover to cattle to soy, finally settling on a process that produces a synthetic soy-based heme.

Even someone as deeply trained in protein sciences as Allen said there was no way around trial and error: “You really don’t know what you’re going to get until you try it,” he told me. Scaling up or down changed everything. Small tweaks could dramatically shift texture or flavor.

The Quest to be the Next Gardenburger

After Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods started raising substantial sums and Beyond went public at a multi-billion-dollar valuation, a flood of plant-based startups appeared, each pitching themselves as “the next Beyond Meat” or “the next Impossible Foods.” Over and over, their pitch decks featured Impossible and Beyond as comparators. And over and over, though with a few notable exceptions, it was obvious they were fooling themselves.

The biggest red flag? The R&D budgets for almost all these companies were tiny or nonexistent, they didn’t have a chief science officer, and they projected product launches within six to eight months. That’s possible, but only if you’re not actually trying to compete with conventional meat on taste. They weren’t. And they didn’t.

Recall that Impossible Foods—founded by one of the world’s top scientists—spent north of $100 million and more than five years before releasing a product. Similarly, Beyond Meat spent tens of millions of dollars and three years on research before launching its first product. Its breakout hit, the Beyond Burger, took seven years and tens of millions more. That Beyond Burger was the only product besides the Impossible Burger that performed well in FSI’s 2019 taste panels.

Another flag: expensive ingredients and clean labels. Many of these companies’ pitch decks for investors would distinguish themselves from Impossible and Beyond by noting that they used healthier proteins like lupine or lentils. They would also display side-by-side nutrition comparisons indicating that their products would have fewer ingredients, less fat, less sodium, and no unpronounceable ingredients. The focus on lupine and lentils guaranteed that the product would cost a lot more. The focus on low fat and clean labels guaranteed that it would taste nothing like animal meat. In other words: the health food strategy of the past four decades.

All of these veggie meat companies with no research budgets and a commitment to non-soy plant proteins, low fat, and clean labels? They were not the next Impossible; they were the next Gardenburger. That’s fine; that was the entire category until Beyond and Impossible were launched. But just be clear: You’re competing for a share of the $1 billion dollar US veggie meat market; you’re not ever going to compete with the $2 trillion global animal meat and seafood markets.

Pat Brown believes the deeper issue is a failure of imagination: People can’t picture plants precisely mimicking animal meat. Their thinking is stuck in the era of veggie burgers and tofu dogs. He told The New Yorker’s Tad Friend in 2019: “Nobody else has caught on to the fact that this is the most important scientific problem in the world, so their results are just a reheated version of veggie burgers from 10 years ago—maybe with a little lipstick on them.”

Publishers Weekly selected Meat as a top 10 new release in science, writing: “This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking.” Find out more at MeatBook.org

Photo courtesy of Kateryna Hliznitsova, Unsplash

The post Book Excerpt | Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food―and Our Future appeared first on Food Tank.

Directed by Josh and Rebecca Tickell, Common Ground, a sequel to Kiss the Ground, centers farmers, ranchers, and advocates using regenerative practices to build resilience in the face of climate and market pressures. The documentary examines the consequences of industrial agriculture and follows producers who are implementing regenerative alternatives on the ground.

Through farmer-led storytelling, the film explores how soil health, land stewardship, and diversified farming practices can restore ecosystems and strengthen farm livelihoods. Ryland Engelhart, Executive Director of Kiss the Ground, tells Food Tank the film has resonated widely. It has “inspired a new generation of wellness moms, environmentalists, farmers, and food lovers to understand the critical role soil health and regenerative agriculture play in our future,” he says.

To expand access to these ideas, Big Picture Ranch, an organic farm and film studio founded by Josh and Rebecca Tickell, produced Common Ground: Redux, a 45-minute, free version edited specifically for use in educational settings. The abbreviated film distills the documentary’s core themes into clear, actionable takeaways for students, educators, farmers, and communities. Engelhart says Big Picture Ranch released this version with the belief that “essential education–especially for students, farmers, and grassroots changemakers–should never sit behind a paywall.”

Common Ground: Redux builds on the widespread reach of Kiss the Ground For Schools, which has been viewed in more than 60,000 schools worldwide and incorporated into curricula ranging from environmental science to social studies. Like its predecessor, Common Ground: Redux is meant to serve as an entry point into essential conversations about the future of food, and the regenerative practices already in use across diverse landscapes and production systems.

Viewers will hear from farmers, ranchers, and advocates who have committed their lives to these practices. Featured voices include Gabe Brown, Rick Clark, Leah Penniman, Kelsey Ducheneaux, Jonathan Lundgren, Ray Archuleta, Brandon Bock, Glenn Elzinga, and Roy Thompson. Their collective experiences help to illustrate both the opportunity and complexity of transitioning to regenerative food systems.

“It shares inspiring, real-world stories of American farmers and ranchers who are finding both ecological and economic success through regenerative agriculture,” Engelhart shares, “proving that healing the land and feeding communities can go hand in hand.”

“Common Ground: Redux” can be accessed online by clicking HERE.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Common Ground

The post Award-Winning Film ‘Common Ground’ Returns in Free, Educational Format appeared first on Food Tank.

I always love hearing food stories—I’m a food systems nerd, after all!—but I especially love it when farmers, fishers, and other folks on the front lines of our food system have platforms to share their own stories themselves.

A highlight of Food Tank’s recent Summits has been “Voices of Farmers,” where we’ve handed over the stage to farmers for an evening of authentic storytelling. In a couple weeks, we’ll be hosting these storytelling events in Dublin, Ireland (more info HERE), and in Adelaide, Australia (more info HERE), too.

Storytelling is at the heart of food sovereignty! This is why I’m inspired by the books on Food Tank’s winter reading list.

In the powerful book Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison, we read firsthand accounts of nutrient-poor meals, privatized food contracts, and systemic neglect in the carceral system—and explore emerging efforts to bring accountability and care back into prison food systems.

Samin Nosrat, in Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love, brings us a joyful guide to using our ordinary ingredients to connect with others. And in her bestselling memoir Accidentally on Purpose, Top Chef winner and host Kristen Kish tells stories of her childhood as an adoptee, her career in the kitchen, and navigating missteps on the way to finding her voice.

Several titles on this list tell stories of specific ingredients and crops themselves, too, from breadfruit trees across continents as an embodiment of resilience to the ways macaroni and cheese intersects with social movements from 1700s English sophisticates to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century.

Here are the books we’re reading this winter, in alphabetical order:

Accidentally on Purpose by Kristen Kish

Al Dente: A History of Food in Italy by Fabio Parasecoli

Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree by Russell Fielding

Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly by Hannah Selinger

Dark Laboratory: How Colonialism Shaped the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe

Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison by Leslie Soble with Alex Busansky and Aishatu R. Yusuf, based on research by Impact Justice

Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World by Richard Sexton

Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us by Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall, PhD

Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement by Hanna Garth

Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand by Jeff Chu

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook by Samin Nosrat

Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food by Bruce Friedrich

Native Food Plants of Texas: an Austin Forager’s Guide Based on Indigenous Knowledge by Cyrus Harp

Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within by Alishia McCullough

Revolutionary Science: The Struggle for Agroecology in the Americas by Bruce Jennings (forthcoming March 2026)

The Almond Paradox: Cracking Open the Politics of What Plants Need by Emily Reisman

The Bottomless Cup by Kevin Boehm

The Chesapeake Table: Your Guide to Eating Local by Renee Brooks Catacalos

The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America by Karima Moyer-Nocchi

Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush

You can check out more details about all these books by CLICKING HERE.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Alireza Attari, Unsplash

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1. Accidentally on Purpose by Kristen Kish

In this New York Times bestseller Kristen Kish—the winner of Season 10 of “Top Chef,” who later went on to host the show—reflects on the path that led to her life on television today. Kish opens up about her childhood as an adoptee in the Midwest, her career in the kitchen, and the relationships and love she found along the way. And through her account of the accidents and missteps she navigated, she shows readers how she learned to find and use her voice.

2. Al Dente: A History of Food in Italy by Fabio Parasecoli

In Al Dente, readers travel through Italy’s foodscape, traversing its many regions and histories. The book documents a country that is home to a brilliant multitude of wines, cheeses, breads, vegetables and meats, while uncovering the reality of economic shifts, poor agricultural conditions, wars, and limited diets in Southern Italy until the 1950s. Parasecoli also includes an archive of recipes that celebrate the country’s food revolution.

3. Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree by Russell Fielding

The breadfruit tree, with origins in the Pacific Islands, has come to play a significant role in the diets of eaters on the African continent and in the Caribbean. In Breadfruit, Russell Fielding traces the journey of the breadfruit tree across these continents, and studies the colonial history and ecological adaptation that makes the tree and fruit what they are today. Fielding reveals how this single tree embodies resilience, sustenance, abundance, and the intricate ties between food and community.

4. Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly by Hannah Selinger

After gaining access to a life she never expected, lush with lavish parties and expensive wines, Hannah Selinger chronicles her exciting rise and imminent fall in the restaurant business. Cellar Rat begins in the grungy hometown pub where she first fell in love with the industry and ends in the Hamptons. This emotional journey follows the realities of what it takes for Selinger to either stay in something that no longer serves her or walk away.

5. Dark Laboratory: How Colonialism Shaped the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe

Tao Leigh Goffe digs into the roots of the climate crisis, analyzing how colonial systems of extraction, exploitation, and control have shaped today’s environment. Vivid storytelling and research connect past policies to present consequences in Dark Laboratory and highlight the ecological costs of today’s industrialized systems. But she also shows that there are alternative ways forward if we can learn from past mistakes and ground solutions in the knowledge gained from island ecosystems.

6. Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison by Leslie Soble with Alex Busansky and Aishatu R. Yusuf, based on research by Impact Justice

Eating Behind Bars exposes how food in United States prisons has become a quiet, powerful form of punishment. Drawing on groundbreaking research and firsthand accounts, the book reveals how nutrient-poor meals, privatized food contracts, and systemic neglect harm the health and dignity of people trapped in the carceral system. Centering food as a human right, the authors connect prison meals to broader themes like justice, while highlighting emerging efforts to infuse nourishment, accountability, and care into prisons.

7. Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World by Richard Sexton

Richard Sexton charts the precarious balance of global food systems, highlighting the tangled web of policy, supply chains, and environmental challenges that threaten access to nourishment worldwide. Food Fight shows how well-meaning regulations, climate pressures, and corporate interests collide, leaving communities vulnerable and hungry. Sexton brings together analysis and human stories and poses a reminder that behind every statistic is a person trying to feed themselves.

8. Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us by Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall, PhD

In Food Intelligence, Julia Belluz and Kevin Hall prove the complexity in the interplay between nutrition, science, and welsh health, and go on to explain that food has the power to both heal and harm. Readers have the chance to learn the truth from a nutrition-perspective about how our larger food environment shapes eating behaviors and the food choices we make every day. This book acts as a guide through floods of dietary advice and works to dispel myths about nutrition in a digestible read on food, diet, metabolism and healthy eating.

9. Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement by Hanna Garth (forthcoming February 2026)

After 12 years of ethnographic research, Hanna Garth wrote Food Justice Undone as a response to the question what is justice, really? Her studies prove that injustice in the food system can’t be healed by well-meaning, affluent, white activists coming into South Central Los Angeles without knowledge of the neighborhood. Its people, history, culture, economics, and foods are specific, nuanced, and deserve solutions tailored to the demographic. Most importantly, she insists, what is needed is structural change, not shifts in individual behavior.

10. Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand by Jeff Chu

Jeff Chu shares the crop of lessons he learned while working the land, and reveals how farming shapes understanding of labor, community, and nature. Chu’s teachers span time and species as he gains knowledge from worms, Chinese long beans, and even egrets. Good Soil is part memoir, part agricultural study, and follows the growth of a novice farmhand into a wise and connected grower. This story celebrates curiosity, humility, and the hard labor behind every harvest.

11. Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love: A Cookbook by Samin Nosrat

Good Things is a joyful guide to cooking, living, and connecting with ordinary ingredients and extraordinary humans. Author Samin Nosrat of the James Beard Award-winning New York Times Bestseller Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat fills her newest book with the joys of go-to recipes, cooking tips, and well-tested-techniques. Her attention to detail, radiant warmth, humor, and care for cooks of all experience levels bring to life a timeless book of food and love.

12. Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food by Bruce Friedrich

Meat looks at humans’ love of animal protein and asks whether it’s possible to fulfill eaters’ cravings while feeding the world more sustainably. In his new book Bruce Friedrich explores the history of raising animals for meat, the science of plant-based alternatives, and the economic and food security benefits of producing meat more efficiently. He argues that it’s not only possible to find a new way to satisfy demand for meat. It’s a necessity.

13. Native Food Plants of Texas: an Austin Forager’s Guide Based on Indigenous Knowledge by Cyrus Harp

An expert forager and scholar, Cypur Harp constructs a comprehensible guide to wild edible plants native to Texas—the same plants fed and aided Indigenous peoples for millennia. Native Food Plants of Texas will serve as a helpful resource for foragers, educators, students of traditional lifeways, looking to understand how humans have relied on nature for sustenance. Expressive and richly illustrated, this book is an essential introduction to many of North America’s wild plants.

14. Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within by Alishia McCullough

In this deeply personal exploration, Alishia McCullough examines the ways food, body, and culture intersect, revealing how nourishment extends far beyond the plate. McCullough gets to know emotional eating, disordered patterns, and cultural expectations so intimately, and writes about how our relationship with what we consume can shape who we see in the mirror. Personal experience stands strong in relation to ideas about embodiment, race, self-care, and an intentional connection with the many food stories that influence what and how we eat.

15. Revolutionary Science: The Struggle for Agroecology in the Americas by Bruce Jennings (forthcoming March 2026)

For generations, campesino communities relied on traditional farming systems in the Americas. Then, industrial agriculture spread and devastated lands, cultures, and any semblance of equality in farming. In Revolutionary Science, Bruce Jennings follows the Latin American scientists, farmers, Indigenous communities, and social movements building and shaping an ever-evolving science, agroecology. Jennings invites readers to investigate the science rooted in cultural respect while sifting through the stories of those who made it a conscious modern practice.

16. The Almond Paradox: Cracking Open the Politics of What Plants Need by Emily Reisman

Emily Reisman explores a vast contrast across continents between divergent ways of growing the plant that has stirred environmental controversy for years, the almond tree. Notorious for their water consumption and extractive neediness in California’s orchards, almond tree culture strikes a harmony in Spain where they thrive off rain. The Almond Paradox uplifts the importance of place-based knowledge while shedding light on the ways that the history of capitalism, science, land use, and policy have shaped our understanding of agriculture.

17. The Bottomless Cup by Kevin Boehm

The Bottomless Cup paints a complex picture of award-winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm’s  life. He has won Michelin stars and Boka Restaurant Group, which he co-founded in 2002, is an incredible success. And he has worked alongside some of the top celebrity chefs. But along the way, Boehm endured a turbulent upbringing and navigated setbacks as he found his place in the world of hospitality. An eye-opening memoir The Bottomless Cup is filled with honesty and humor.

18. The Chesapeake Table: Your Guide to Eating Local by Renee Brooks Catacalos

Eating locally can feel like a challenge. But Renee Brooks Catacalos invites readers into the foodway of the Chesapeake, showing how eating close to home can be easier than expected, and deeply rewarding. Catacalos conducts her own experiments, sourcing from the Chesapeake Bay area, and returns home to write us this guide, illuminating the abundance directly in front of us. This celebration of neighbors and local foods is a call to engage more mindfully in our surrounding food system.

19. The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America by Karima Moyer-Nocchi

In the 18th century, macaroni and cheese was emblematic of sophistication among the English. During the American Civil Rights Movement, Black women helped establish the dish as an American tradition. Through this globe-traversing history, Karima Moyer-Nocchi traces the unexpected journey of macaroni and cheese. Moyer-Nocchi situates the dish within layered social, economic, and culinary landscapes, revealing how a simple combination of pasta and cheese reflects big historical moments like migratory movements and culinary innovations over the years.

20. Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush

In this narrative cookbook about desire and dessert, Tanya Bush weaves approachable baking recipes with inspiring tales of experimentation, pleasure, and self-discovery. She includes dishes like the cardamom cruller with plum drizzle, a sweet treat that goes through flavor changes per season, and a classic almond cake. Bush shares moments in Little Egg, a bright and bustling restaurant in New York City’s Brooklyn where she is the head pastry chef. Perfect for first time bakers and memoir-lovers, Will This Make You Happy is more than a book of recipes; it’s a love story.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Food Tank’s Winter Book List: Reading to a Healthier Food System appeared first on Food Tank.

Transforming the food system is about more than just what’s on our plates—it’s about building a society rooted in sustainable agriculture, worker justice, local culture, and accessible diets that nourish and heal us. In short, telling stories of food means telling stories of people.

This is what Food Tank is planning to do next week during Sundance. At our annual All Things Food and Environment Summit, on Saturday, Jan. 24, in Park City, UT, we’re planning an amazing lineup that connects the dots between media storytelling, visionary changemakers on the ground, and cultural leaders who are inspiring us to move forward.

Following a screening of documentary Food 2050, by The Rockefeller Foundation and Media RED, we are convening a fireside reflection with Jian Yi, Mama’s Kitchen; Sara Farley, The Rockefeller Foundation; David Osogo, African Population and Health Research Center; Matthew Thompson, the Director of Food 2050; and more to be announced. Then, a reception will be introduced by Chef Bleu Adams of Indigihub, and cocktails will be available from our partners at Wheyward Spirits.

Then, we’ll present “Voices of Farmers: Growing the Future” in partnership with Niman Ranch, handing the stage over to farmers from around the world for an evening of authentic storytelling. Hosted by a surprise celebrity emcee, we’ll hear from folks including Elle Gadient, a fifth-generation Iowa hog and cattle farmer; Lynsey Gammon of Gracie’s Farm in Utah; Albert Betoudji, a New Roots immigrant farmer in Utah; Paula Swaner Sargetakis of Frog Bench Farms, an urban farm in Salt Lake City; David Chen of Zoe’s Garden in Utah; AJ Kanip of Ute Tribal Enterprises; Hannah Greenshields of The Food Farm on the NSW Central Coast in Australia; David Moscow, Actor, Creator, Host, and Author, “From Scratch”; and Dr. Lisbeth Louderback, Natural History Museum of Utah.

If you’re in Utah, you can find more information about how to join us by CLICKING HERE.

And for Food Tankers around the world who might not be able to join us in person, I encourage and challenge you to make next Saturday, Jan. 24, a day of food system and people-centric storytelling in your own communities!

There’s no shortage of topics to explore. For starters, you can read and watch more about each of the visionaries featured in the Food 2050 documentary HERE.

Or take a moment to head to your local bookstore to grab one of the titles on our most recent reading list, ranging from personal histories to broader cultural analyses.

You can explore how supermarkets shape eaters and the planet in the PBS episode “Shelf Life,” or tune in to chef and creator Brad Leone’s YouTube series “Local Legends,” focusing on sustainable food and community-driven resilience. Or, check out these 18 eye-opening documentaries exploring inspiring efforts of farmers and advocates around the globe.

And finally, I want to make one thing clear: Food Tank stands firmly with all immigrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families through the food system. It has been sickening to witness the intimidation and violence that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has brought to U.S. cities, including the unjustified murder of poet, wife, and mother Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Every person deserves a life free from violence, free from intimidation and discrimination and dehumanization, wherever they were born and wherever they live.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Marc Fanelli Isla, Unsplash

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“In China, we’ve been favoring ultra-processed products over whole foods. That has a huge public health impact,” Yi says in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. “We here in China have consumed way more meat than is healthy for us, or healthy for the ecological system. The sheer size of China means that that overconsumption of meat has a huge environmental footprint and public health impact.”

Today, more than 23 percent of China’s 1.4 billion population is estimated to have cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure. Mama’s Kitchen, a Good Food Fund project that was named a Rockefeller Foundation Top Food System Visionary in 2020, aims to help reverse these trends. It helps reconnect people with food that is healthier for both people and the planet. The organization promotes plant-forward diets rooted in culinary tradition, ecological farming, and community education.

“A dramatic shift to more plant-based or plant-forward diets will see a major improvement of public health…animal welfare…and planetary health,” says Yi.

But Yi emphasizes that the project is not about eliminating meat entirely: “We don’t want people thinking that we are promoting vegetarianism. There might still be meat on your plate, but it is playing a secondary role.”

For Yi, change starts in the kitchen. He says it is not just a place for cooking but a bridge between nature, culture, and daily life. 

“For a long time we’ve been disconnected with food, how food is produced, who produced it, how it came to our dinner table…How can we redefine the role of the kitchen in our family, in our communities, in our country, in our world?” says Yi. 

Mama’s Kitchen brings eaters to ecological farms to “start from the source,” says Wu Hongping, Founder of Veggie Ark Farm in Dali, Yunnan, China. Participants learn directly from farmers and nutritionists about how the food is grown and its human and environmental health impacts. Then, they enjoy a chef-prepared, plant-forward meal with the farm’s produce.

“A truly delicious…nutritionally balanced, healthy meal has the power to touch people’s hearts,” says Melinda Hou, Executive Director of the Good Food Fund. “By the end of the event, people usually walk away with a much deeper understanding of healthy and sustainable eating.”

Yi and Hou say that restaurants are key partners in making this connection from farm to plate. Chef Lee, Founder and Head Chef at Xiao Lou, a plant-forward restaurant in Dali, interacts with local producers daily at the market to purchase fresh produce for his menu. Earlier in his career, he would have only cared about the flavors of his food, he says. But after working with Mama’s Kitchen, he sees the power of chefs to build connections with nature—especially by educating eaters.

“This journey has completed me as a person,” says Chef Lee. “As a chef, we must find a way to cook plant-based ingredients deliciously.”

Since winning the Food System Visionary Prize, Mama’s Kitchen has seen attitudes and habits shift within communities. “At the beginning, acceptance [of plant-forward diets] was usually quite low,” says Hou. But through tasting experiences and hands-on learning, participants became curious and began making changes, including practices like Meatless Monday. 

“Over the past two years, we’ve truly witnessed the transformation,” says Hou.

Ultimately, Mama’s Kitchen positions everyday food choices as a pathway to global change. “You can start from this small place called the Kitchen,” Yi says. “That thing can actually bring meaningful change…to humanity.”

In 2050, Yi envisions a Chinese food system rooted in care and connection, where vegetables are a staple in every diet. Given the scale of China’s economy, this brings Yi hope for positive global change.

“We have a lot of hope that, if we can bring even some small changes in the food system in China, it will be translated into really meaningful changes, globally,” says Yi.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

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I want to challenge us to think big as we start this year and beyond. What are the commitments we want to make not just in 2026 but, say, by 2050?

This is why I’m so inspired by the 10 initiatives named Top Food System Visionaries in a global US$2 million challenge, which are now being spotlighted in the documentary Food 2050 by The Rockefeller Foundation and Media RED.

With the challenges our world is facing, “somewhere we have to give ourselves the oxygen to keep going. And hope is what gives you that,” Sara Farley, Vice President of the Global Food Portfolio at The Rockefeller Foundation, told me on this week’s episode of Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg.

From the stories of these 10 food system visionaries, she hopes folks come away with “hope, hope, and a side order of hope.”

More than 1,300 proposals were submitted when the Food System Vision Prize launched in 2019. The 10 finalists participated in an accelerator program with focused mentorship, implementation support from a variety of stakeholders, and a US$200,000 investment each.

And the documentary follows these activists, scientists, agriculturalists, and entrepreneurs—across five continents and eight countries—who are pioneering solutions to challenges ranging from climate change and soil degradation to food access and nutritional quality.

In Kenya, the vision “A Place of Cool Waters,” led by scientist Dr. Elizabeth Kimani-Murage, is bolstering grassroots organizations to rethink food production and access in rapidly urbanizing areas, with a particular focus on a “right to food movement” in Kenya.

In the Netherlands, researchers Evelien de Olde and Dr. Imke de Boer envision “Re-rooting the Dutch Food System,” which is helping reposition the country’s agriculture system on the cutting edge of the shift toward circular food systems that work with natural processes rather than against them.

In Perú, the organization Lima 2035 is building a holistic three-innovation strategy—equitable water access, local food sovereignty, and reactivating ancient food cultural values—that’s a blueprint for how community-led food leadership can transform cities facing deep inequality.

In the U.S., on the Rosebud Reservation that is home to the Sicáŋğu Lak̇óta people in South Dakota, the 7Gen plan is building Indigenous food sovereignty to not only transform individual lives but community health and climate systems, too. And in New York’s Hudson Valley, Stone Barns is working to catalyze a future where food quality, regional cuisine, and human connection to the land are at the heart of agriculture.

In India, Arakunomics seeks to empower local communities to ensure fair wages for farmers and end nutrition insecurity, and Eat Right educates and empowers the country’s 1.4 billion consumers to choose safer and healthier foods. In Nigeria, FoodNerve is using technology like solar panels and online platforms to nourish a rapidly growing population the traditional agricultural system is not equipped for. In China, Mama’s Kitchen reimagines the modern diet for a plant-forward future where sustainability and public health are prioritized. In Canada, the collective kwayeskastasowin wâhkôhtowin is decolonizing the food system through Indigenous food sovereignty work and youth education.

In a series on Food Tank, we’re spotlighting how these organizations have been able to move these visions forward. CLICK HERE to learn more about how these global initiatives are transforming the way we’ll feed a growing global population in nourishing, regenerative and equitable ways!

On January 14, Food Tank will be in Los Angeles to co-host a premiere screening of Food 2050. Along with special panel discussions, The Rockefeller Foundation and Media RED are also presenting the special Food 2050 Global Humanitarian Achievement Award to Viola Davis, the Emmy-, Grammy-, Oscar-, and Tony Award-winning actress who narrates the documentary.

We are also excited to be screening the documentary at our upcoming Summit, “All Things Food and Environment,” during Sundance in Park City, Utah.

Let’s recommit ourselves to ambitious, long-term steps that can make our visions of a better food system come true!

As Sara Farley told me, “We have our ideas, we have our strategies—and we need a mechanism to really hear what it is the future could be… If we don’t visualize it, if we don’t dream it, it certainly is not going to happen accidentally.”

Watch or listen to the full conversation with Sara Farley to hear more about the intentionality and hope that’s needed to build the future we want to see, food as a connector and act of love, and the idea that “systems change isn’t so complicated that it’s impossible.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post From 2026 To 2050 And Beyond, These 10 Visionaries Are Changing The World Through Food appeared first on Food Tank.

“Growing up as a young kid, there was no guarantee that we could get 3 meals in a day. I used to depend on the school meal. It was a challenge that many people are facing,” Greg Kimani, the CEO of City Shamba, says in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. “If my neighbor cannot have food, we are not food secure.”

This belief reflects a broader cultural value rooted in Ubuntu, an Indigenous African philosophy of interconnectedness. 

“When I was growing up, sharing food was a common thing that we did. It’s about the value of Ubuntu, [meaning] ‘I am because we are.’ It’s the spirit of helping one another. It’s the spirit of sharing,” says Dr. Elizabeth Kimani-Murage, a Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). 

“But the world is urbanizing, and we are losing that culture of Ubuntu,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage.

Nairobi’s population is projected to triple by 2050 to more than 10 million people. Historically, the city relied on rural communities for food, but those areas have increasingly urbanized themselves, reducing agricultural production. Dr. Kimani-Murage, who has conducted research on nutrition and food security among the urban poor for more than two decades, has seen firsthand how these shifts have deepened inequality. Today, she promotes agroecological urban farming across socioeconomic divides to “ensure that people can produce safe food for themselves and feed themselves with dignity.” 

In Nairobi, affordability—not availability—is often the core problem, according to Dr. Kimani-Murage. Because many residents cannot afford market prices, the food supply can exceed demand. “A lot of the food finds itself in the dump site, and people go to scavenge on that food,” either feeding it to their families or selling it to others, says Dr. Kimani-Murage.

City Shamba was founded to challenge the assumption that dense urban areas cannot produce food. The organization trains residents in vertical farming techniques to maximize productivity in limited spaces. It provides seedlings and soil, which are often difficult to access. Kimani’s team also prioritizes nutrient-rich Indigenous vegetables, helping households improve nutrition while reducing costs.

According to David Osogo, a Research Officer at APHRC, City Shamba shows that urban areas themselves can be part of the solution to food insecurity and malnutrition.

“Urban farming almost gives you instant results,” says Osogo. “We have seen communities in the informal settlement feed off their tiny kitchen gardens…school children eating lunch and eating hot meals that are directly from vegetables from the farms…chicken from the poultry farms within the schools.”

These community-led efforts are supported by Dr. Kimani-Murage’s vision, “A Place of Cool Waters”—the translation of the Indigenous name for Nairobi—which was named a Rockefeller Foundation Top Food System Visionary in 2020 and featured in the Food 2050 film. It provides grants to grassroots organizations including City Shamba that are rethinking food production and access in urban spaces. This work is also advancing what Dr. Kimani-Murage describes as a “right to food movement” in Kenya.

“It is important that people can take charge of what they’re eating,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage. “We really want to promote the spirit of Ubuntu, encouraging people to share any excess food…so that food is not just seen as a commodity, it is seen as a common good and a human right.”

Since the Food 2050 filming, the initiative has expanded to cities throughout Kenya and gained international attention: In 2023, King Charles III visited City Shamba’s facilities. But Dr. Kimani-Murage’s long-term vision has expanded beyond food—she sees climate action as critical to food systems transformation.

“We have embraced climate action as a key driver of this work,” says Dr. Kimani-Murage. “Food security and nutrition are very heavily impacted by climate change. By encouraging climate action, you are also promoting food security and optimal nutrition.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Food 2050 Visionaries: Nourishing Nairobi with Ubuntu appeared first on Food Tank.

“People are having to get whatever they can on their budget, and unfortunately, what is cheapest right now is a lot of processed foods,” says Wilson.

The Sicáŋğu Lak̇óta, like other Indigenous communities throughout the United States, have seen their traditional food systems dismantled over generations due to land dispossession, mass slaughter of buffalo herds, and reliance on federal food programs. Wilson and other community leaders created the 7Gen plan, which was named a Rockefeller Foundation Top Food System Visionary in 2020, to help restore food sovereignty to their people. 

“Beginning with the mass slaughter of the buffalo, about US$2 trillion worth of wealth has been extracted from our people,” says Native Leader Wizipan Little Elk in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. 

“Food and access to our treaty rations were used as a means of control. In order for us to regain our power, we have to regain our food.”

The 7Gen plan is named after the ancient concept of looking ahead seven generations, which is core to many Indigenous cultures. It serves as a guiding philosophy for decision-making, one that considers the impact on future generations and the long-term well-being of both people and land.

“Our 7Gen plan is how we see everything playing out in the next seven generations,” says Wilson. “How do we prepare for that? How does our food look? Where is it coming from?”

The Sicáŋğu Food Sovereignty Initiative, an integral part of the 7Gen project, plays a critical role in the local food system. Its regenerative buffalo ranch has grown from 50 to 1,100 heads since 2020. When federal SNAP benefits faced major cuts due to the government shutdown and new legislation in 2025, Wilson’s team was able to deliver 12,000 pounds of bison meat and 6,000 pounds of locally grown produce to the community.

The initiative is also helping community members learn how to grow, produce, harvest, and prepare their own food. Its workforce development and educational programs support farmers, ranchers, aspiring entrepreneurs, and youth in building skills and creating livelihoods around food.

As a result of these efforts, Wilson says that his community is increasingly practicing food sovereignty.

“When I first started, [people couldn’t] really articulate what food sovereignty was or understand the importance of it. But now, people are seeing the urgency and that importance,” says Wilson. “More people are going out and harvesting their own food, foraging for traditional foods. More people are serving their own gardens, more people are having conversations around where their food comes from.”

Wilson sees the local food system as not only a source of nutrients but also a way to heal his community’s spirit. This starts with reframing how his neighbors think about and value food.

“Food is medicine, and so we’re really trying to change people’s mindsets and perspective around food and build that connection with food again,” says Wilson. “It’s really supposed to feed your soul, your emotional health, your spiritual health. That concept is what we call Wicozani. All-encompassing health.”

For Little Elk, 7Gen’s success is a story of hope for the broader, global food system.

“Our vision is to create a sustainable, regenerative, culturally appropriate food system for our people in the region by growing our own food, by embracing regenerative agricultural practices, by bringing buffalo back. Those are the kinds of solutions that the entire planet needs,” says Little Elk.

“And if we can do it here, in the third-poorest county in the entire United States, we can for sure do it anywhere in North America. And I believe that we can do it anywhere in the world.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

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“Lima is in fact green. It’s just not green for everybody,” Parsa says in the Food 2050 film, which premieres January 2026 in partnership with Media RED, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Food Tank. “There are two Limas,” and many remote, isolated, and low-income communities in the city pay as much as ten times the price that wealthier residents pay for water.

Parsa founded Lima 2035 with a vision to transform Lima by first enabling equitable access to water. Simple sheets of mesh, called mist catchers or fog nets, have been used for years in hillside communities that lack access to running water. The nets intercept fog as wind blows it through, causing tiny water droplets to stick to its fibers and drip into storage tanks, capturing 200 to 400 liters (53 to 79 gallons) of fresh water per day. 

“Although we do not have rain, the water that evaporates from the Pacific Ocean gets captured in dense fog that becomes somewhat of an airborne aquifer. When fog meets the Andes, the landscape is turned green,” says Parsa. “How do we unlock that water? How do we make it freely available to people?”

With a new “harvesting tower” design by Alberto Fernandez, Lima 2035 is working to expand the surface area that captures fog, reclaiming up to 10,000 liters (more than 2,600 gallons) of fresh water per day for remote and isolated communities. “Once we are able to bridge the water access gap, then many more opportunities become available,” says Parsa.

Lima 2035’s second innovation promotes local food sovereignty. Alison Anaya, farmer and founder of Huertos En Azoteas, creates compact, efficient farming units that transform underutilized city rooftops into flourishing garden spaces. This not only provides fresh, locally grown vegetables and herbs to city residents but also a source of income and employment.

“The majority of the people, they do not have the resources to pay for one vegetable,” says Anaya. These rooftop gardens are “diversifying their diet, teaching them to sow, to have their own garden from which they can feed. And they can also generate extra income for their family.”

Huertos En Azoteas has installed rooftop gardens across Lima’s most underserved neighborhoods, prioritizing schools, community centers, and households led by women. The system uses recycled materials and focuses on water-saving techniques to minimize waste. Since winning the Food System Visionary prize in 2020, Anaya says her team has also developed an app that allows customers to scan a QR code and see detailed information about growing practices, inputs, and harvest timelines.

Today, the model is helping to restore a sense of dignity and self-reliance within the urban food system.

“When you step inside [the rooftop garden], despite being in the middle of the city, there is a surprising color,” says Anaya. “It feels like a small green room suspended above the urban chaos. A place where you can work, observe, and also just pray for a while.”

Lima 2035’s third innovation builds on this by recognizing the city’s rich food culture spanning thousands of years. Lima’s network of 350 archaeological sites, which were sacred in ancient times, is in danger of disappearing amid dense urban development. Architect and Urban Designer Jean Pierre envisions turning these spaces into community hubs, where people can visit a farmers’ market, exchange seeds, or take a gastronomy tour. 

“The only way to preserve these places is by activating them,” says Pierre. “And the answer is food.”

This model has archeological sites participating in urban life, rather than slowly and quietly eroding into neglect, says Pierre. Together with Lima 2035’s other innovations—capturing water from fog, growing food on rooftops—it offers a blueprint for how cities facing deep inequality can build resilience using simple tools, community leadership, and food as a unifying force.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

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Whether I’m traveling or at home, I usually have a book open. Somehow, my stack of books I want to read still seems never-ending—but that’s exactly how I like it!

Every season, Food Tank loves highlighting personal stories, cultural analyses, social histories, and more books that not only illuminate the food system as we know it today but also help us imagine what we can build tomorrow.

In All Consuming: Why We Eat The Way We Eat Now, baker and cookbook author Ruby Tandoh unpacks the social forces that shape our relationship with food in ways we might not realize. Looking at Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s quest to reinvest his fortune into climate resiliency in the book Dirtbag Billionaire, New York Times reporter David Gelles asks how we can reconcile the contradictions of creating a mission-driven business in a capitalist society. Author Nancy Matsumoto argues in Reaping What She Sows: How Women are Rebuilding a Broken Food System that community self-reliance is crucial—and women trailblazers have been and will continue to be indispensable to saving and rebuilding regional food systems.

In cookbooks and other guides—like Recipes From The American South by Michael Twitty, Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America by Sean Sherman, and What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters by Marion Nestle—we’re reminded how changing the world can begin on our plates.

And we learn how to chart a path forward by digging into success stories. From Sam Kass’ The Last Supper, we learn from the chef and former Obama Administration food policy advisor about how we can invest in maximizing nutrition while protecting the climate. In The Accidental Seed Heroes, Adam Alexander celebrates the power of traditional seeds, and in Sea Change, authors Amanda Leland and James Workman share stories of the unlikely partnerships that are revolutionizing the fishing industry for the better.

I hope you’ll dive deeper into our most recent book list of 26 titles that, I think, can help us all plant and water the seeds of change in our own communities! CLICK HERE for the full list, including information on how you can find these books for yourself or as gifts.

Every one of us is intertwined in the food system, no matter our age—so we need to include young folks in our food system storytelling, too!

We’re also highlighting 20 additional books to spark curiosity in young readers about the food on their plates and the plants growing around them. What I love about these books is that they center the joyfulness of discovering where food comes from and how delicious it can be.

I also deeply respect the way that books on this list like A Plate of Hope: The Inspiring Story of Chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen by Erin Frankel, Lucas and Emily’s Food Bank Adventure by Dave Grunenwald, Saturdays at Harlem Grown: How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood by Tony Hillery and other books don’t avoid complex topics but rather find creative, appropriate ways to help young readers understand how food changes lives.

Young folks can be citizen eaters, too, so let’s give them the tools to advocate for sustainability and help shape the world they’ll inherit. Check out our list of 20 books to help kids in your life connect with food systems by CLICKING HERE.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Muaawiyah Dadabhay, Unsplash

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1. A Magician’s Flower by Marika Maijala

Two friends, Willow and Aspen, find an unknown seedling in their greenhouse and embark on a quest to help it grow. With the seedling securely fixed in their bicycle basket, they head for the seashore in hopes that it will thrive in the salt air. Through this adventurous tale, young readers see the joy of exploration and embracing nature.

2. A Plate of Hope: the Inspiring Story of Chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen by Erin Frankel, illustrated by Paola Escobar

A Plate of Hope tells the story of how world-renowned chef and humanitarian José Andrés turned a love of food and cooking into a mission to help feed the world. Driven by the belief that no one should ever go hungry, José Andrés founded World Central Kitchen, which provides critical meals in crises around the world. This moving story helps readers connect with the food system while fostering an appreciation for the storytelling power of food.

3. Activity Book – Livestock and Climate Change by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization

The latest Activity Book from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization shows readers how animal farming works and the impact it can have on the planet. Free to download online, it explains how livestock can both contribute to and be affected by climate change, and outlines how readers can become agents for change.

4. A Spoonful of the Sea by Hyewon Yum

In this picture book, author Hyewon Yum shares a heartwarming story of a relationship between mother and daughter, as the young girl is served a bowl of miyeokguk (seaweed soup) on her birthday. Inspired by this Korean tradition that has spanned generations, A Spoonful of the Sea celebrates cultural heritage, motherhood, and the deep bond between women and nature.

5. Emeka, Eat Egusi! by Candice Iloh, illustrated by Bea Jackson

In Nigerian American author Candice Iloh’s debut picture book, readers meet Emeka, a young boy who loves jollof rice and doesn’t want to eat anything else. When his mom asks him to help her cook egusi, a popular Nigerian soup, he discovers the joy of trying new flavors. This heartwarming story both celebrates Nigerian cooking traditions and encourages readers to try new foods.

6. Garden Sleeping, Garden Growing: In and Around All Year Long by Diana Magnuson

Set on Michigan’s shores of Lake Superior, Garden Sleeping, Garden Growing tells the story of Aunt Noriko and her niece Dehlia as they tend to their garden throughout the year. Through colorful illustrations and engaging scientific facts, Diana Magnuson invites readers to appreciate the seasons and cycles of nature that keep gardens alive, while giving thanks for all that gardens provide us.

7. Growing Green: A First Book of Gardening by Daniela Sosa

This gardening book offers 15 projects that young readers can implement at home to grow their own fruits, vegetables, and herbs. It has ideas adapted to a variety of spaces, from windowsills to backyards, and activities using recycled and repurposed materials. With simple, step-by-step instructions and colorful illustrations, this book is a practical guide for young readers to cultivate a love for gardening.

8. I LOVE Blueberries by Shannon Anderson, art by Jaclyn Sinquett

I LOVE Blueberries tells the story of two friends, Jolie and Margot, as they work towards their goal of setting up a blueberry growing station in their classroom using hydroponics. By following the duo’s comical journal entries and colorful sketches, readers uncover lessons on growing blueberries and bringing community members together to support a classroom project.

9. Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by Megan Clendenan, illustrated by Brittany Cicchese

Just in Case introduces young readers to the priceless treasures hidden in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Readers will learn about why the vault was built, how it protects the seeds inside, and why seed saving matters for eaters today and generations to come.

10. Lucas and Emily’s Food Bank Adventure by Dave Grunenwald, illustrated by Bonnie Lemaire

Lucas’ grandpa brings Lucas and his friends Emily and Jack to their local food bank, where they meet volunteers and help pack lunches for people experiencing homelessness. The story engages with important themes of food insecurity while centering around community and the value of volunteering. Readers will come away feeling inspired to make giving back to their community a family tradition.

11. Magic in a Drop of Water: How Ruth Patrick Taught the World about Water Pollution by Julie Winterbottom, illustrated by Susan Reagan

Ecologist Ruth Patrick was a champion of environmental protection and a leader in making the world aware of water pollution. Starting with her interest in science as a young child, this story chronicles the empowering tale of a female scientist who made an everlasting imprint on the world.

12. My Pollinator Garden: How I Plant for Bees, Butterflies, Beetles, and More by Jordan Zwetchkenbaum, illustrated by Kate Cosgrove

My Pollinator Garden explains the diverse plants and pollinating animals native to North America, and how they rely on each other to survive. Packed with examples and vivid illustrations, this book helps readers understand the relationship between pollinators and flowers. Its simple narrative invites young readers to help pollinators thrive by planting their own pollinator gardens.

13. Skippy Farm Dog of the Year by Laura Adams and Anna-Maria Crum, illustrated by Anna-Maria Crum

Inspired by the story of Skippy, a Georgia farm dog named the 2024 American Farm Bureau Dog of the Year, this narrative honors the role that dogs play on family farms. Told from the perspective of Skippy, who was trained to help farmers with disabilities, readers learn how she helps herd cattle and adjusts to life with her new farm family.

14. The Soil in Jackie’s Garden by Peggy Thomas, art by Neely Dagget

Jackie and her friends discover the joys of planting their own garden, while uncovering fascinating facts about soil and composting. In this engaging read, colorful illustrations complement information about pollinators, plants, and soil to inspire readers to get their hands dirty in their own gardens. The book can be paired with an educator’s guide from the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, which includes six lessons on these topics for K through 2 learners.

15. Welcome to Our Table: A Celebration of What Children Eat Everywhere by Laura Mucha and Ed Smith, illustrated by Harriet Lynas

Authors Laura Mucha and Ed Smith take readers on a journey around the world to learn what children eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in different countries. This book combines vibrant imagery with stories and traditions behind certain dishes. The diverse foods highlighted in this book encourage young readers to explore cultures different from their own and to be curious about where their food comes from.

16. When Fall Comes: Connecting with Nature as the Days Grow Shorter by Aimée M. Bissonette, illustrated by Erin Hourigan

The latest in author Aimée M. Bissonette’s When Seasons Come series, this poetic book welcomes the arrival of fall. Readers follow the story of a family who hikes along a nature trail in autumn and watches the wildlife around them preparing for winter. Packed with imagery of animals busily readying for the change of seasons, this book helps readers connect to the natural world while uncovering parallels between humans and wildlife.

17. When Tree Became a Tree by Rob Hodgson

Tree, this story’s endearing protagonist, guides readers through her life as an apple tree. Through her witty narration, readers learn the stages and seasons of an apple tree’s life. Its simple storyline and colorful illustrations make it an entertaining read for young readers while teaching them about the life cycle of trees.

18. World Kitchen – Celebrations: Recipes from Around the World by Abigail Wheatley, illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat

This richly illustrated cookbook includes recipes for celebratory dishes from around the world. Each recipe offers a short story from a family that prepares the dish for their special occasion, followed by easy-to-follow instructions and ingredient lists. This book gives readers a fascinating look at food traditions in different countries, while encouraging them to try those recipes at home.

19. You Are a Honey Bee! by Laurie Ann Thompson, illustrated by Jay Fleck

The Meet Your World series invites children to learn about the animals in the world around them. In You Are a Honey Bee, a part of this collection, author Laurie Ann Thompson describes the activities that keep bees busy with interactive movements for readers to act out. By illustrating how bees take care of their hives and families, the book shows young readers that the habits of bees are not so different from our own.

20. Your Farm by Jon Klassen

In this bedtime story, author Jon Klassen offers a gentle illustration of farm objects, ending with bedtime as the sun sets. With a rhythmic tone and poetic prose, this story invites readers to use their imaginations to envision a peaceful farm as they prepare for sleep.

21. When the Rain Comes by Alma Fullerton, illustrated by Kim La Fave

Set in a Sri Lankan community during the rice planting season, When the Rain Comes tells the story of Malini, a young girl who is getting ready to help plant for the first time. When monsoon rains suddenly sweep into her community, Malini is determined to save the rice seedlings and the oxcart carrying them. Narrated in emotive free verse, this tale portrays the courage of a young girl while depicting the intensity of the monsoon season in Sri Lanka.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Borba, Unsplash

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1. All Consuming: Why We Eat The Way We Eat Now by Ruby Tandoh

All Consuming is a cultural history of food, from the first television cooking show to the first TikTok food critic. Ruby Tandoh, author of Cook As You Are, explores the sociopolitical factors, such as social media and Michelin stars, that have reshaped our society’s culinary literacy. All Consuming takes a critical and curious look at the tastemakers that influence our consumption patterns and our relationship to food.

2. Agroecology in Practice by Jeffrey W. Bentley and Paul van Mele

Agroecology in Practice is a field guide for farmers, agriculture professionals, policymakers, and environmentalists. Researchers and agricultural scientists Jeffrey W. Bentley and Paul van Mele share tips, tools, and innovative examples from across the globe for implementing agroecological practices and regenerating farmland.

3. Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Dairy Farm by Ryan Dennis

In Barn Gothic, third generation dairy farmer Ryan Dennis shares about growing up milking calves and watching his father and grandfather struggle to keep their dairy farm alive in a changing world. As corporate corruption rendered 40,000 dairy farms obsolete between 2003 and 2020, Dennis draws on personal narrative and poignant business insights in this story about fighting to preserve agricultural life.

4. Care and Feeding: A Memoir by Laurie Woolever

Care and Feeding is a behind the scenes look at the male-dominated field of restaurant work and food publications, told by Laurie Woolever’s wry candor. Woolever recounts the adventures and misadventures of being a woman in the food industry and in the world at large, reckoning with her own purpose-givers of care and feeding.

5. Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave it All Away by David Gelles 

New York Times reporter and bestselling author David Gelles tells the story of a “dirtbag” in the truest sense: a legendary rock climber who founded the global brand Patagonia, became a billionaire, and committed all profits back to environmental and climate resiliency efforts. Gelles recounts Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard’s story of building and managing the brand, diving into the contradictions of creating a mission-driven business in a capitalist society. 

6. Dirty Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family by Jill Damatac

Jill Damatac writes a love letter to food as the ultimate comfort in her memoir Dirty Kitchen, a story about her life as an undocumented Filipino immigrant in America for twenty-two years. Damatac recalls cooking her way through her native Philippines, her time studying in the U.K., and her return to the United States with a new perspective and sense of self. Dirty Kitchen shows how food can be the answer to questions of identity, tradition, and belonging in spite of colonial trauma.

7. Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet by Stuart Gillespie

 In Food Fight, Stuart Gillespie explains how the global food system has become the cause of severe public health and planetary crises. With careful analysis, Gillespie shows that colonialism and capitalism affect how and what we eat–and offers a hopeful look at the future of food justice and consumption.

8. Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh

In Foreign Fruit, Katie Goh traces the history of the orange alongside her own heritage from east to west to east. In pursuit of investigating the orange, Goh describes growing up queer in a Chinese-Malaysian-Irish household and a homecoming to Malaysia, where she begins to unpeel the layers of her own identity and personhood as well.

9. Formulating Development: How Nestlé Shaped the Aid Industry by Lola Wilhelm

In Formulating Development, author Lola Wilhelm examines how large food corporations have shaped the global food aid industry. Drawing from Nestlé’s historical archives and the records of humanitarian aid agencies, Wilhelm considers the complicated relationships between the food industry’s biggest companies, human health, and agricultural advancement.

10. From Scratch: Adventures in Harvesting, Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging on a Fragile Planet by David Moscow and Jon Moscow

Creator and star of the show From Scratch, David Moscow, takes readers along for a culinary travelogue in his new book. Moscow explores the inside of food ecosystems in over 20 countries, as he talks to hunters, fishers, foragers and many more people along the food supply chain to investigate – sometimes literally – how the sausage is made. From Scratch will show just how interconnected the environment, culture, and community is through food.

11. Gathered: On Foraging, Feasting, and the Seasonal Life by Gabrielle Cerberville

In the upcoming illustrated field guide Gathered, Gabrielle Cerberville, known for her viral presence online as “The Chaotic Forager,” takes readers along on a foraging adventure that will teach them how to find, identify, harvest, and prepare wild food. Structured by seasonality, Gathered is a case for re-wilding our diets and learning to eat in accordance with the natural world.

12. Ginseng Roots: A Memoir by Craig Thompson

Craig Thompson follows up his 2003 autobiography Blankets with a new graphic memoir about growing up as a child laborer in the Wisconsin ginseng farming industry. In Ginseng Roots, Thompson chronicles the 300-year-old global ginseng trade and the individuals who make it up, from ancient Chinese ginseng hunters to migrant farmers in the American Midwest. Ginseng Roots is a reflection on a lost childhood, class divide, industrial agriculture, and finding a sense of home. 

13. Mushroom Day: A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Fungal Lives by Alison Pouliot

In Mushroom Day, ecologist Alison Pouliot brings readers along for an hour in the life of 24 different fungi species. At dusk, the bioluminescent ghost fungus whispers the secrets of the dark forest, while at dawn the porcino mushrooms prepare for the Italian foragers’ arrival. Pouliot takes readers underground into the unique fungal world and their fascinating relationship to plants, lands, and people through vivid prose and evocative illustrations from artist Stuart Patience.

14. My (Half) Latinx Kitchen: An Unforgettable Multicultural Culinary Journey, Spice up Your Cooking Game by Kiera Wright-Ruiz

Part cookbook, part journey of self-discovery, My (Half) Latinx Kitchen is Kiera Wright-Ruiz’s celebration of the flavors that make up her identity. From South America to Asia to the United States, the recipes and heartfelt essays in this book represent the integration of traditions from a first generation voice.

15. Reaping What She Sows: How Women are Rebuilding a Broken Food System by Nancy Matsumoto

In Reaping What She Sows, James Beard Award winner Nancy Matsumoto poses the ultimate question “how should we eat?” in a time when grocery prices are high and supermarkets are short on products. The answer: relying on our own communities. Matsumoto highlights the women trailblazers who are saving and rebuilding local and regional food systems, from a Black women-led rice cooperative to indigenous kelp hatchery owners.

16. Recipes from the American South by Michael Twitty

From critically acclaimed chef, author, and cultural historian Michael Twitty comes the new cookbook, Recipes from the American South. Recipes will take readers from Louisiana to the Chesapeake Bay, highlighting more than 260 of the region’s most iconic dishes. Twitty lends his well-researched and lyrical storytelling to complementary essays that explore the cultural influences that impact Southern cuisine.

17. Saturdays at Harlem Grown: How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood by Tony Hillery, illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Tony Hillery, founder and director of the nonprofit Harlem Grown, adds a new book to his nonfiction picture book series about the real-life urban garden in Harlem teaching children how to grow their own food. Saturdays at Harlem Grown tells the story of a teacher, a student, and the community they grew from their garden seeds. 

18. Sea Change: Unlikely Allies and a Success Story of Oceanic Proportions by Amanda Leland and James Workman

Sea Change is a hopeful vote of confidence for revolutionizing the fishing industry. Amanda  Leland and James Workman share the stories of the individuals fighting against overfishing and the quick band-aid fixes to the boom and bust fishing economy. And throughout the pages, they demonstrate that leaning on unlikely partnerships can lead to surprising and sustainable solutions.

19. Strong Roots: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Ukraine by Olia Hercules

From chef and and co-founder of the #CookforUkraine movement Oli Hercules comes a sweeping memoir of life, family, and food in Ukraine from Soviet rule to Russian invasion. Making it her mission to preserve family recipes and stories that connect her family to the land, Hercules’ memoir is a documentation and declaration of Ukrainian identity and resilience.

20. The Accidental Seed Heroes: Growing a Delicious Food Future for All of Us by Adam Alexander

 The Accidental Seed Heroes celebrates the tiny seeds at the center of our worldwide food system, combining lessons on traditional seed varieties with new sustainable plant science. Building on his past book, The Seed Detective, Alexander argues that protecting traditional seeds goes hand in hand with creating innovative new produce that can feed humanity and protect the planet.

21. The Last Supper: How to Overcome the Coming Food Crisis by Sam Kass

Senior food policy advisor to the Obama administration Sam Kass shares what he has learned about investing in accessible and effective food policy in his new book The Last Supper. Kass breaks down how to maximize nutrition while minimizing environmental damage and protecting against climate change through updates in culture, legislation, business, and technology.

22. The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit by Priyanka Kumar

The Light Between Apples gives a glimpse into the rich history of the 16,000 apple varieties that once existed in America – only one fifth of those now remain. Kumar traces the story of the apple from its roots in Kazakhstan to its home in Spanish orchards in the Southwest, and blends childhood memories with science to paint a vivid picture of how at its core, an apple can rewild our relationship with nature.

23. Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America by Sean Sherman (forthcoming November 2025)

Sean Sherman, also known as the Sioux-Chef, is a three-time James Beard Award winner and a leading figure in the Indigenous food movement. In his new book Turtle Island, Sherman curates more than 100 ancestral and modern recipes from Indigenous peoples across North America, as well as deep narrative histories of how Native food pathways can teach us to connect with our natural world.

24. What if Soil Microbes Mattered?: Our Health Depends on Them by Leo Horrigan

 On behalf of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Leo Horrigan examines the potential for alternatives to conventional chemical farming. What if Soil Microbes Mattered? looks at how these organisms can restore the biodiversity of soil that has been damaged by chemical applications. Through this exploration, the book — available as a PDF — presents regenerative farming methods that pose the potential for rebuilding healthy soil to better nourish our land and ourselves.

25. What to Eat Now: The Indispensable Guide to Good Food, How to Find It, and Why It Matters by Marion Nestle (forthcoming November 2025)

Twenty years after her trailblazing What to Eat, Marion Nestle is asking the same question in a radically changed food environment in her new book. With over 30,000 products in a typical American supermarket and a rapidly changing news cycle, choosing what to eat can often be a daunting task. In What to Eat Now, Nestle cuts through the noise and establishes clear pathways for eating simply, sustainably, and ethically. 

26. Will Work for Food: Labor across the Food Chain by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares

Will Work For Food is an argument for centering fair labor practices in popular discourse about sustainable food and agriculture systems. Authors Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares combine thorough labor justice research and anecdotes from laborers across the food chain to outline action steps that can help us build systems that are better for workers and eaters alike.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

The post Food Tank’s Fall Reads for Food, Farming, and Our Future appeared first on Food Tank.