Food

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. How do spices get their flavor? – Liam, age 6, San Francisco I love savory and spicy foods. Lasagna laden with basil and oregano. Beautifully golden curries infused with turmeric, or rice flavored with saffron. I can’t pass up a cinnamon-dusted snickerdoodle cookie. And some of my favorite childhood memories center on my mom’s nutmeg-infused sweet potato pie. These ingredients come from many different plants and distinct plant parts, including leaves, seeds, bark and plant oils. Their flavors are created by accumulated phytochemicals – substances the plants make. “Phyto” comes from the Latin word for plant. Plants produce chemicals for different purposes. In my recent book, “Lessons from Plants...

For the 20th time since 1933, Congress is writing a multiyear farm bill that will shape what kind of food U.S. farmers grow, how they raise it and how it gets to consumers. These measures are large, complex and expensive: The next farm bill is projected to cost taxpayers US$1.5 trillion over 10 years. Modern farm bills address many things besides food, from rural broadband access to biofuels and even help for small towns to buy police cars. These measures bring out a dizzying range of interest groups with diverse agendas. Umbrella organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union typically focus on farm subsidies and crop insurance. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition advocates for small farmers and ranchers. Industry-specific groups, such as cattlemen, fruit and vegetable growers and organic producers, all have their own interests. Environmental and conservation groups seek to influence policies that affect land use and sustaina...

You saw it at Thanksgiving, and you’ll likely see it at your next holiday feast: piles of unwanted food – unfinished second helpings, underwhelming kitchen experiments and the like – all dressed up with no place to go, except the back of the refrigerator. With luck, hungry relatives will discover some of it before the inevitable green mold renders it inedible. U.S. consumers waste a lot of food year-round – about one-third of all purchased food. That’s equivalent to 1,250 calories per person per day, or US$1,500 worth of groceries for a four-person household each year, an estimate that doesn’t include recent food price inflation. And when food goes bad, the land, labor, water, chemicals and energy that went into producing, processing, transporting, storing and preparing it are wasted too. Where does all that unwanted food go? Mainly underground. Food waste occupies almost 25% of landfill space nationwide. Once buried, it breaks down, gener...