Foodthink Says Milk, often heralded as a symbol of purity and nature, is in fact highly conducive to microbial growth. Its propensity to spoil and deteriorate quickly meant it was originally ill-suited for long-term storage or long-distance transport. Initially, milk was indeed merely a localised food, yet within today’s modern…
Today, many are beginning to seriously consider the value and meaning of rural life, even weaving farm labour and living into their future plans. In an age marked by risk and uncertainty, Foodthink hopes to support young people who care about food and agriculture—particularly those eager to pursue ecological farming—in…
Looking back at 2025, it opened as a year of loss, as we said goodbye to my mother. Returning to the “Valley of the Wicked”, I welcomed a succession of harvests. From spring onwards, I gathered rapeseed—twenty to twenty-five kilos—yielding more oil than I could possibly use in a year.…
This is Foodthink’s final post of 2025. Surprise—no year-end roundup! (The honest truth? It hasn’t been dug out of the drafts yet, so please dial again later…) Why not take a look at the fun we got up to at the recent Guangdong Harvest Festival! Co-Creating Climate Sci-Fi Thanks to…
“‘A glass of milk a day strengthens the Chinese people’ – an advertising slogan most of you will recognise instantly.” In fact, the majority of Chinese people are lactose intolerant, and drinking milk can trigger diarrhoea, bloating and other digestive discomforts. Yet on today’s dining table, milk has become an…
Foodthink Says At the start of the 21st century, small family farms were the primary producers of raw milk in China. Today, however, the sector is dominated by large-scale operations housing herds of over 1,000 cows. An earlier article on this channel, Small Family Farms vs. Large Ranches: Whose Milk…
Foodthink Says Securing safe and nutritious milk is a primary concern for many consumers. At the start of the 21st century, China’s raw milk was predominantly produced by small family farms; today, it comes mainly from large-scale operations housing over 1,000 cows. Over the past decade, farms with herds of…
Three months ago, a young couple who had returned to their hometown to farm in Gansu welcomed a baby, whom they named “Maizi” (Wheat). On WeChat Moments, the mother, Shi Tou, wrote: “We hope our little Maizi, born of the Shi Tou fields, will grow as resilient as our sandy…
Foodthink Says Can you still find “local produce” at the open-air markets on Beijing’s outskirts? The answer to this question lies in the hands of those veteran farmers who continue to save their own seeds. After ten years of farming at Gaia·Wosh Garden on the far fringes of Beijing, they…
Seeds are the vital carriers for the continuation of plant species. Human survival and flourishing are equally inseparable from them; every food we eat, whether grains, flours, oils or vegetables and fruits, begins as a tiny seed. Different seeds yield crops with distinctly different flavours. The reason we can no…
