What does food have to do with belonging, especially in the age of COVID-19? I did not realize, before coming to the United States, how belonging to a community was an essential part of my life. I discovered it the hard way, as many expat, by how much I missed it. I felt like a…
“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi We all have a piece of the truth, but what is worth a piece of a puzzle when we only have one over billions? I like this quote very much, not only for the humbling thought it brings, but also because of its implication: if we work together, try to combine our…
What I Have Learned Working in a Diverse Workplace
What can I share about diversity that can help change our system? What legitimacy do I have, as a white woman, working in one of the most prestigious universities in the world, in the culinary space, where being French gets me a lot of nice comments on my accent? I have a story I humbly…
The Time has Come for a Cooking Revolution
Food literacy, unlike nutrition, is not a conceptual knowledge. It is the ability to find, prepare, and eat food in a way that keeps us healthy, both mentally and physically. The COVID-19 crisis reveals trends that were long underway. As the food literacy crisis in the US and most western countries hasn’t waited COVID-19 to…
To Change the Food System, Talk to Chefs
The FAO just endorsed Chefs as agents of Change. Why? A recent USDA report shows that 33% of calories eaten by Americans come from Food Away From Home (FAFH), and the authors to conclude: “Because FAFH is associated with overall poor diet quality, policymakers, health practitioners, and researchers have suggested several policies to curb the…
Vegetable meat: how to recreate the taste of beef?
Americans consumed 11.2 billion tonnes of ground meat in 2014 (USDA). This is by far their main source of protein, especially in the form of hamburger. About half of the ground beef consumed in America is eaten in restaurants. The average American eats three burgers per week — the highest in the world. About 70%…
What do French think of plants in their plates?
A recent IFOP / Lesieur survey examined the place of plants in the French diet. And the least we can say is that what the French think of their diet is not the reality. Ninety-nine percent of the respondents are plant consumers: 98% of the French report consuming fruits or vegetables, and 95% pulses such…
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star
The Physiology of Taste, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1826)
What’s in the Nutrigenomics business
Personalized analysis of the genome is a rapidly expanding market. Initially focused on the determination of some risk marker genes, especially cancer, the offer now extends to nutrition in the broad sense. Progress in sequencing has lowered the price of an individual’s entire genome sequencing from $ 100 million in 2001 to $ 10 million…
School lunch in the United States: from politics to field
The evolution of “plethora diseases” in Europe follows a similar path to that of the United States, and the very strong influence of “the American diet” in the globalization of the food market naturally leads us to study their model. Few scientific studies have examined the comparison of European and American school lunch model, which could yet help…
Can colored nutritional labelling improve our shopping?
Several attempts to simplify nutritional information have been made in Europe. In France, an in-store experiment has measured the impact of 4 different systems
About Tajine and meal delivery service
I am waiting for my third Blue Apron delivery, one of the numerous meal delivery services available in California. Last week, I cooked Blue Apron’s version of a Tagine, with beef and lamb, and it makes me think about what I expect of this kind of service. At first, I was shocked by the ingredients:…
Food is in the Air 