food_of_the

Eating food, we do it all day every day. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, snacks, and some tea with cookies. We love food and can’t stop eating. And we never will stop eating, because our bodies need food to live and survive. Because of global food production, we have made nature into a resource, one that we modify to our needs (Davis et al., 2016). But the size of the food industry has grown so much that it is now noticeably affecting our climate. Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) approximately account for a quarter of human-induced Greenhouse gas emissions. Which doesn’t even include emissions from the needed transport for global food trade (IPCC, 2018).
A fundamental problem is the mentality of the food industry, mainly in the western world, where there is a constant need for growth and innovation with as main goal to make as much money as possible. The food industry is doing that by producing as much as they can for as little money as possible, despite the serious consequences it has for us and our environment (UU, 2018)
In the future, the food supply and demand will change due to demographic, economic, sociocultural, technological, ecological, and political factors but also the other way around (RIVM, 2017). One very apparent other influential factor is the growing global population. By 2100 the population is expected to have grown to an amount of 11.2 billion people (UN, 2017). To meet the increasing demand, production would have to increase by a minimum of 60% (FAO, 2016). This leads to a dilemma for our future food security, known as sustainable intensification. Because the food supply has to increase, but the environmental impacts should decrease, which is not possible with our current agriculture (Davis et al., 2016).
How exactly our future food will differ from now is uncertain, but what we do know is that the way we consume and produce our food today must radically change to be able to feed everyone. Without new policies, countries like The Netherlands will not be able to meet the targets on the climate agenda (RIVM, 2017). We should look for alternative production methods for our current products, but also for new sustainable products that can be produced on a large scale. We have to adjust our diets and minimize our food waste. Together these and other mitigation actions can help limit the greenhouse gas emission of the food industry (David et al., 2016).
This small cookbook consists of three recipes. Each will give an insight into our future world through food, they give a glimpse into what an everyday meal in our future could look like. Since there are so many aspects to this story, I will only be able to highlight a few. I will discuss ways to reduce food waste, alternatives for meat, and trying out new types of food due to a need for alternative production methods because of changing environmental conditions. Hopefully, this approach will inspire people to be curious and try different and new things and think about the action they can take themselves.

RECIPE 1. wentelteefjes

Good classics will never disappear. A classic that will definitely stay are the “wentelteefjes”. If I were to translate it literally, they would be called turn-around-bitches, but in other parts of the world they are also known as French toast or pain perdu (lost bread). Many countries have their own adaptation of this magical piece of bread. The Dutch like to add cinnamon and some of our famous stroop. This recipe is the perfect way to turn something old and almost ready to be thrown out into something even more delicious than it originally was.

Ingredients – for 6 wentelteefjes
- 6 pieces of old bread
- 2 eggs
- 3 big splashes milk
- A teaspoon of cinnamon
- Butter
- Brown sugar
- Dutch stroop

Method
Take deep plate and a fork. Beat the eggs and wisk them in the plate together with the milk and cinnamon. Get your bread and soak it into the egg mixture. Enough that they are wet, but make sure the bread is not falling apart. Repeat this for the rest of your bread and put them on a plate.

Melt some of the butter in a pan and bake two of the breads nice and slow until they turn crispy and golden-brown. In between you ‘wentel’ (turn around) the bread with a spatula. Repeat this as well for all the other bread. Once they are all done, you can sprinkle as much sugar and poor as much stroop as you like on top of the wentelteefjes. Eetsmakelijk!

RECIPE 2. insect meatballs

If we want to stay below the 2 degrees temperature rise, emission have to be cut drastically. The contribution of the global livestock sector is estimated to produce 14.5% of anthropogenic GHG emission (FAO, 2013). With a growing demand, livestock production has to almost double its amounts from 229 million tonnes to 465 million tonnes in the coming decades. Producing more livestock will financially be possible, but it also requires larger amounts of land, water and feed which come with immense environmental costs. To be able to produce sustainably, we have to find other innovative solutions (FAO, 2013). Alternative products like insects can help to meet the demand by largely replacing meat production and consumption, while also minimizing environmental impacts.

Ingredients – 2 persons
- 50 grams of mealworms
- 80 grams of shiitake mushroom
- 50 grams of kale
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 onions
- 500 gram potatoes
- 200 grams of chickpeas
- Olive oil
- Salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Cut the potatoes in wedges and mix them with two tablespoons of olive oil, some salt, and thyme in a bowl. Spread them out on a baking tray together with the 2 onions (with their skin). Set the timer to 30 minutes and turn the potatoes halfway.

Fry the garlic together with the mealworms and shiitake mushroom in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil until they are nicely browned. Cover the food with a lid and let it cool.

Get the vegetables out of the oven. Peel the onion and keep the skin (which you can for example reuse to add flavor in a stew). Add the mealworms, mushrooms, and garlic to the onions and mash them until all big chunks disappeared. Now add the chickpeas and extra salt and mash it until it becomes a smooth thick mixture. Shape it into medium-sized balls and fry in a pan with a bit of oil on high fire for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, wash the kale, remove the stems, and cut the leaves is smaller pieces. Dry the leaves and spread them on a baking tray. Sprinkles them very lightly with olive oil and bake for 10 minutes. After, check every few minutes until they are crispy. Add a bit of salt to finish. You are now ready to build your plate!

RECIPE 3. algae pasta pesto

Eating and cooking is for everyone. Although, not everyone enjoys it as much. Some go for the easy route and get ready meals from their supermarket. Instead there should be recipes that are sustainable, healthy and accessible for all. Like this one, a favourite of every student: the pasta pesto. But this one has a twist.

Ingredients – for 4 persons
- 300 grams of fresh algae farfalle (spirulina algae)
- 3 tomatoes
- 25 fresh basil leaves (from your own herbal garden)
- 40 grams of walnuts (light coloured)
- 1 clove of garlic
- 50 grams of parmesan
- 100 ml of virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Method
If you feel like making your own pasta you are more than welcome. But for our easy cooks we will use the fresh algae pasta from the supermarket. But before you cook the pasta, we start by making the pesto.

Pick the basil leaves from the plant and put them in a bowl together with the walnuts, garlic and some salt. Mix it for a bit and then add the cheese. While you are mixing slowly poor the oil in. Stop when it looks like a smooth mixture, and season with extra salt and pepper to taste.

Boil some water with a little bit of salt. Put the farfalle in the water and let it cook for 5 minutes. When the pasta is cooked, drain and serve.

Some ingredients will change in the future due to new technologies, different types of production, availability of resources and ingredients, and more. But some and probably most products will stay, or at least for the coming 80 years. So, what can we as consumers do to consume more sustainably?
We have to re-evaluate our consumerist role in this industry and society. We have to change our habits and behaviors to make sure everyone has food in 2100 and even more important that we care for our planet so that we are not dead by then.
This recipe builds on the idea of using our leftovers as a way to minimize our food waste. This type of cooking allows us to be creative and inventive. It can boost and make us rethink our relationship with food and cooking in a positive way.
We throw away so much of our food, and we don’t even notice. It’s the bits and leftovers we blindly dump into our trashcans. And it is not only the waste of families, it is also the waste of big companies, retailers, restaurants, and more. They throw away perfectly good processed still packaged food. Globally we approximately waste 1.3 billion tonnes of food every year, which is around one-third of our total amount of produced food (UN environment). Every year Dutch households waste approximately 34.3 kg of solid food per person, with 7.3 kg of bread being their most wasted product. Simultaneously, these amounts of waste cost countries hundreds of billions of dollars each year (Voedingscentrum, 2019). Which instead could be invested is places where the money is more needed.
In our western world, we are used to food being available 24/7, coming from all over the world. If we want it, we can go and get it. And because of that in most cases, we get more than we need. We don’t appreciate our abundance of food, for us this is normal, and it shouldn’t be. Instead, we should appreciate our food more, because each day we consume the feast of our ancestors. While there are also still people who don’t have any or at least not enough food. And with a population that keeps growing, these people will still be there in the future.
In 2100 we should buy less, and cook more, with better more sustainable food products. We have to make sure that what we buy is something we will eat and enjoy, something that is worth our money. When we are more aware of what we are buying, we will automatically be more aware while cooking which improves our relationship with food and nature.
We should also use smaller plates in the future, they allow for smaller portions, and
thus, less waste. Smaller packages of food can also help decrease our food portions.
Leftovers from events are a perfect example of food that can be brought to the people who do really need it with a little bit of extra effort. Investing and finding solutions for distributing food to people in need is also a good way to help improve future food equality.
And for the leftovers, you can’t use anymore to eat there might be other possible ways you can use it before throwing it away. So, next time before you are ready to do your groceries, check your kitchen cabinets. Try to challenge yourself to cook something nice with only the products that you already have. This way we will hopefully also regain our fun and imagination in cooking.

Our current diet consists of less basic products and more meat, dairy, and a lot of processed and pre-packaged food, preferably in large portions (RIVM, 2017). Firstly, this diet is high in sugar, fats and oils and results in overweight and obese, but can also have other health implications. Secondly, they are not sustainable. To still make sustainable intensification possible alternative diets are needed. Well known examples are vegetarian and vegan diets, but also Mediterranean, pescatarian diets are good options. What they have in common: there is no meat. They are both more sustainable and associated with health benefits (Tilman & Clark, 2014).
I want to discuss one particular diet in more detail, which is the insectivore diet. Another name specifically for the concept of humans eating insects is entomophagy. An estimated amount of 2 billion people already eats them daily. It is mostly western countries that still have an aversion toward this type of food, we find it disgusting and primitive. Nevertheless, eating insects has a positive effect on the environment, our health, and livelihoods (FAO, 2013). They are especially rich in protein, which makes them such a good alternative for our hamburger of chicken wings. Mealworms even contain similar amounts of proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals as the ones in meat (FAO, 2013).
Just as important is that they are easier and more sustainable to cultivate. Insects are super-efficient in converting their feed into body mass. Crickets will gain 1 kilogram of body weight per 2 kilograms of feed they get, as opposed to the 6 kilograms livestock needs to gain the same amount of body weight. On top of that, they produce fewer greenhouse gases, take in less space, need less water, and live on human and animal waste products than livestock (FAO, 2013).
In developing countries, the industrialization of insects can improve people’s livelihoods. Where insects are already part of nature, the poorest can easily help with tasks, such as gathering and selling. This will provide them with money, and even an improved diet. Naturally, they can be found in many different habitats, including forests. However, climate change is affecting their availability. But a growing interest can make a place for innovation in insect production methods on a global scale (FAO, 2013).
However, in 2100 we will still eat meat. The meat industry will become remarkably smaller, but its position as status quo will change. The meat that we will have, will be produced biologically, on a small scale, and on local farms. But in conclusion eating insects sound like the ideal new diet. However, next to the fact that many people find eating insects gross, we as consumers are critical about food science and technology. This is mostly due to fear, uncertainty, and suspicion. It will also make us doubt the safety of products, while technology can actually help to improve its safety (RIVM report). Transparency can help to reduce fear, because people will know exactly what they are eating. Labeling can be one way to do that. Designers can also contribute by creating smart food packages, that can also help to reduce waste, by making sure all of the product gets out, and being able the recycle the package. Engineers can create apps that give information about a certain product or can monitor what you eat and its implications for your health (RIVM, 2017).
Another way to make them more accessible is that next to being healthy and sustainable, dishes with insects should look and taste good. Processing them into familiar food will automatically create a more visually appealing presentation that can trigger people’s curiosity and once they tried it, it might change their mind about the product.

Agriculture has clear effects on our global climate, but our changing climate also affects our agriculture. Weather conditions and land availability will change. A plausible high-end scenario for the Netherlands is that by 2100 the sea level at the coats will have risen with a maximum of 1.05 meters (Katsman et al., 2009). Some reports even suggest rises of approximately 2 meters (IPCC, 2007). Even if we have succeeded at drastically cutting down our CO2 emission and heightened our dikes, large lower-lying parts of the Netherlands will become flooded. The Randstad which include the main big cities of our little country will fill themselves with water. Our agriculture and economy will suffer as a consequence. We will have to start and rebuild certain part of our life in the east of the Netherlands. Most likely many Dutch people will become part climate migrants. We will probably go to the east even further, to countries like Germany. (Schuttenhelm, R, 2019)
Then the question is how can we produce nutritious food in other ways than we are used to? We will be running short on agricultural land, so good alternative methods for producing food are urban farming and vertical farming. Urban farming will also close the gap between producer and consumer. Food has to travel less to our homes, which prevents a lot of pollution by a decrease in need for transportation. Vertical farming specifically takes up way less space.
But then what would be an example of a sustainable product that we could produce there? A really good solution for this, and the focus of this recipe, is eating seaweeds and algae. Just like insects, algae are very nutritious, they contain many of the essential amino acids our bodies cannot produce themselves but do need. They are also able to survive and grow under multiple, possible extreme, weather conditions. Which makes them perfect for a future with many uncertainties regarding the weather conditions. They can even reduce atmosphere CO2 but transforming it into oxygen through photosynthesis (FAO, 2008).
Since algae are not yet widely used there are only two types permitted in legislation for food production: spirulina and chlorella. They thrive in alkaline lakes, but can also grow in saltwater, growing them in water from our North Sea is a perfect solution (FAO, 2008). We can use flooded land or grow then in vertical farms using fish tanks. We need products that can survive.

If we all contributed to climate mitigation by for example eating more sustainable, less wasteful and trying out new things we might be able to enter a more sustainable future. Addressing the possibilities of ways to change our agriculture (production, consumption and more) only show a fraction of what we can do.

But regarding food we do not only need information about what type of innovation there are today, but to see the wide array of imaginative possibilities, that might not even be possible yet. Food that pushes us to be creative and think further. To really rethink our relationship with food and nature and to come up with better ones.

Davis, K. F., Gephart, J. A., Emery, K. A., Leach, A. M., Galloway, J. N., & D’Odorico, P. (2016).
Meeting future food demand with current agricultural resources. Global Environmental Change, 39, 125–132.
Food and Agriculture organization of the united nations. (2016). Climate change and food
security: risks and responses. Retrieved March 26, 2020, from http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5188e.pdf
Gerber, P.J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. &
Tempio, G. (2013). Tackling climate change through livestock – A global assessment
of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome.
Habib, M. A. B. (Ed.). (2008). A review on culture, production and use of Spirulina as food for
humans and feeds for domestic animals and fish. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Huis, A. van. (2013). Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
IPCC (2018). Global warming of 1.5C: Summary for Policymakers.
IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report.
Katsman, C.A., A. Sterl, J.J. Beersma, H.W. van den Brink, J.A. Church, W. Hazeleger, R.E.
Kopp, D. Kroon, J. Kwadijk, R. Lammersen, J. Lowe, M. Oppenheimer, H-P. Plag, J. Ridley, H. von Storch, D.G. Vaughan, P. Vellinga, L.L.J. Vermeersen, R.S.W. van de Wal and R. Weisse. (2009). Exploring high-end scenarios for local sea level rise to develop flood protection for a low-lying delta. Submitted to Climatic Change.
Pachauri, R. K., & IPCC (Eds.). (2008). Climate change 2007: Contribution of ... to the fourth
assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 4: Synthesis
report: [a report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. IPCC.
RIVM. (2017). What is on our plate: safe, healthy and sustainable diets in the Netherlands.
Retrieved March 27, from https://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/2017-0024.pdf
Schuttenhelm, Rolf (2019). In face of rising sea levels the Netherlands ‘must consider controlled withdrawal’. Retrieved March 27, 2020, from https://www.vn.nl/rising-sea-levels-netherlands/
Tilman, D., & Clark, M. (2014). Global diets link environmental sustainability and human
health. Nature, 515(7528), 518–522. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13959
UN environment
https://www.unenvironment.org/thinkeatsave/get-informed/worldwide-food-waste
Utrecht university. (2018) Agricultural intensification a house of cards: challenging the
current agricultural system. Retrieved March 20, 2020, from https://www.uu.nl/en/background/agricultural-intensification-a-house-of-cards-challenging-the-current-agricultural-system?fbclid=IwAR3xlFJqrIsRSiB3_7R7Ca_2zXlx7yrxMwz4PMS3cAtbyHAOGAZ2GmzC
8KE
Voedingscentrum (2019). Synthesis report on Food waste in Dutch Households in 2019.
Retrieved march 27, 2020, from
https://mobiel.voedingscentrum.nl/Assets/Uploads/voedingscentrum/Document
s/Professionals/Pers/Persmappen/Verspilling%202019/VC_Synthesis%
20report%20on%20food%20waste%20in%20Dutch%20households%2020
19.pdf