Shifts: Personalized nutrition, food politics and regenerative architecture
Ipsos Strategy3’s Trevor Sudano sets the table for the issue with a look at three key forces reshaping Americans’ food and drink habits: personalization, politicization and sustainability.
Customized diets: Personalized nutrition could dramatically shift what we eat, when and why. Utilizing factors like genetics, metabolism, lifestyle and food preferences, each of us could better understand how our bodies react to food and use this knowledge to optimize our health and meet our goals.
Beyond customizing meal plans, this shift could upend our current understanding of dietary recommendations and food labeling, challenge pharmaceutical and supplement industries, and create challenges for restaurants and food service providers. Not to mention, your next dinner party could be a logistical nightmare.
Politicized food: In increasingly polarized societies, food is not immune to political debate. Farming practices, land use, ethical consumption, and subsidies and incentives are just a few of the food politic debates making waves.
In addition, with an increasingly connected global society and greater migration, food and culture are inexorably linked and being shared more widely across borders. Discussions on food assimilation, appropriation and even racial and ethnic discrimination are ongoing. Bon Appétit, Condé Nast’s food magazine, went through a very public crisis on several of these fronts in 2020.
Sustainable soil: Regenerative agriculture is a promising approach to food production that focuses on restoring soil health and biodiversity.
By prioritizing practices like cover cropping and reducing tillage, regenerative agriculture aims to enhance soil fertility, sequester carbon and improve water retention. This shift toward regenerative methods has the potential to create a more resilient and sustainable food system, benefiting both the environment and consumer health. It will also serve as an interesting case study for how other industries might need to adapt business models for a more regenerative (versus extractive) economy.
← Read previous | Read next → |