Try this. Close your eyes. Add ten years to your age. Now, think about sitting down to dinner in your house. Who else is there? Where is your house? What kind of music are each of you streaming into your personalized experience domes?

What happens when a lot of us try to think about the future is we drift into fanciful science fiction. However, the fact is a lot of those ideas we think are so distant are already here. Printable foods, robot nutritionists, and edible packaging all exist right now.

In this episode of Eating Tomorrow, we uncover the not-so-obvious, quiet trends that have the potential to drastically impact the future of food. We examine the human values, assumptions, and traditions that define a “good food.” And, of course, it would not be an episode about the future of food without talking about artificial intelligence.

What are the trends on the horizon that could disrupt the future of food? What assumptions do we make about food and what it means to us?

Main Course

• Stare into the mirrors that food has held up to our culture. Food as good medicine with Chef Kim Brave Heart. Food as sustenance. Food as wellness. Food as fast and good and cheap.
• In the future, will we have too much or not enough? We dive into the complexities surrounding obesity with Kelly Adams, who champions nutrition as medicine.
• The future is promised and so the futures are here. We meander through some of the potential disruptions to our food systems and our understanding of the role of food in our lives with Seth Harrell, foresight consultant and food futurist. Traverse all of your body’s senses, explore the limits of free will, and eat your trash.
• Listen for the Soy Bonus: Soy used in edible packaging. 

Extra Helpings

• More studies are revealing that metabolic health is crucial for long-term nutrition, check out the Metabolic Matrix, a science-based systematic framework to insure metabolic health.
• Molecular tagging could be a future replacement for barcodes on food, clothes, or products. This technology uses DNA molecular bits, or “molbits” to determine the genetic integrity of store-bought items.
• In the future, is there a difference between shopping for clothes, and shopping for… lettuce? MUJI doesn’t think so.
• Is the future of food… sans-alcohol?

Next up on the plate: