Dietary health, food safety, nutrition, and food culture.
Foodthink Says From yellow wine and fermented black beans to pickled vegetables and soy sauce, people have long turned to the tangy, aromatic, and mellow depths of fermentation to find the warmth of home and the resilience of life. Across the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, fermentation is woven even more tightly into…
The dream of a lazy foodie is to build a self-sufficient, low-maintenance garden: a sustainable food forest that yields an abundance of produce while demanding minimal labour. Back when I studied permaculture in Taiwan, I was properly introduced to the concept of a “food forest”. I had encountered the term…
Foodthink says *Eating the World: Industrial Britain, Food Systems and World Ecology* was published in 2020 by Chris Ott, a historian at Ohio State University. The book examines the shift in the British diet since 1750 alongside industrialisation: a transition from locally sourced plant-based proteins to the mass consumption of…
Foodthink’s Take Since early June, a video titled “From a City Besieged by Waste to a Shortage of Trash to Burn: China’s Speed Leaves the West Stunned” has spread rapidly online. The prospect of shovelling unsightly waste into an incinerator to burn it all away, then harnessing the released energy…
I’ve always been drawn to this lyric: “We should have our moments of joy, happiness, and clear skies.” I’ve never quite managed to emulate Lao Lang’s unhesitating plea to “give me your pure, innocent smile.” After navigating periods of heaviness, sorrow, and gloom, one comes to truly understand how essential…
I. A Journey That Began with Bananas Bananas have been one of the plants I’ve encountered most frequently over the past year of travel. From Africa to Brazil, I’ve seen and eaten countless varieties along the way—fried in oil, stewed with tomatoes, pan-fried in butter; as long as an arm,…
Two years ago, I moved to a financial news outlet to cover agriculture full-time. I had hoped it would bring me closer to the land and to food itself, forging a fresh connection between journalism and the realities of daily life. Unlike food writers who dwell on flavour, I reported…
From the media dispute between JD.com and Meituan over delivery riders’ social insurance in April, to the new regulations mandating compulsory contributions from 1 September, the working conditions of these riders have increasingly drawn public attention. Yet for many of them, social insurance remains a distant concept, overshadowed by the…
Foodthink Says “Digital pickled greens” primarily refers to the short videos, variety shows, classic dramas, novels, and indeed any entertainment content accessed via smartphone while eating. It is widely believed, particularly among younger generations, that this digital accompaniment serves to relieve the loneliness and boredom of dining alone. Yet the…
On 4 July, US Independence Day, Trump signed the “Make America Beautiful Act”, announcing that his most critical agenda for his second presidential term had passed Congress. This sweeping tax-cut and spending bill touches on every facet of US social policy. While Trump claims the “Make America Beautiful Act” will…
