The Future of Food and Nutrition

This topic is one that I was passionate about.

Early this year I added science as a conjoint to my design degree. Environmental science and exercise science were now a part of my degree and I was afraid there wasn’t going to be many links between them. This paper allowed me to explore where these three degrees intertwine.

The topic of food and nutrition is huge, I brainstormed a lot of possible subtopics that I can explore further. This was difficult to narrow down until I listened to some podcasts and did some secondary research.

I enjoyed going for walks and listening to podcast on the topic of nutrition and the topic of nutrition concerning our environment. There were some crazy studies and discoveries that got me thinking if this is true and proven then why there is minimal change.

Two major discoveries made my jaw drop. The first one was the power of nutrition, particularly a plant-based diet. Showing that it can cure and prevent chronic diseases, as well as strengthening brightening up peoples mental health. This tells me that a plant-based diet is the cure and is the way to go about a healthy and more sustainable lifestyle.

The second discovery is how large of a threat agriculture is to the Earth’s ecosystem. Doctor Nicolas Carter explained the conservation ratio. The input and output of aminal farmIng animals. The amount of energy required to feed the animal to keep it alive is a large amount, on top of the extra food they are feed to create more meat/fat. The is feed to animals compared to the food and nutrients the consumers gain from the product is an extremely out of proportion ratio.

From the learnings in My environment science paper, I have also been shown the effect agriculture has on our ecosystem. The number of water chemicals and energy is all more than what the environment can handle! Dr Carter believes that if you take the most energy-efficient animal product and source it locally and compared it to the less energy efficient plant product and source it from the other side of the world, your footprint will still be smaller getting to plant-based product.

Listening to all these facts made me want to reflect on my own choices of diet. I am now feeling like I am making a difference by just choosing the VEGE burger are Burger Burger.

Interviews.

When planning the interviews I didn’t struggle with people I wanted to interview or who thought would be good to get in contact with. The problem what getting in contact with them. I got one successful interview and wow. The information that I got from just the one was super insightful! It made me wonder What type of insight I would have ended up with if I how gotten all the interviews I contacted people for.

The interview was with Megan Wang And natural practitioners. She works with clients and uses this machine that test toxins in the body. Clients come to her with problems they are experiencing and she uses this machine and her knowledge to find what toxins in their body of causing this and founds out What aspect of their life can change to get rid of it not just live with it like most medication. I asked her about supplements as my first initial insight was that food was just going to be supplements. Supplements were going to replace food and meals. Megan explains that if you are not physically chewing and digesting different foods your gut health will be poor. Having poor gut health means your digestive system wont to be able to extract the nutrients out of the supplement. she said it will “just go straight through you!” She said that some people have to use a type of spray on their skin to absorb nutrients. This had a huge effect on my Insights as I realised having a diet just based on supplements was not sustainable and it was not the solution for survival with limited food.

Because I struggled to get in touch what experts I decided To listen to people from the general public. This also helps look into a ‘pluralverse‘ insight. I ask and a small number of questions the key ones being: What does nutrition mean to you? What do you think food will be like in the future? What do you hope the food will be like in the future? I gain some great insight and there were common trends to these questions showed on my Miro board.

INSIGHTS

What looking at my insights I thought about the main threats to our future, agriculture and population. I also looked at the importance of nutrition and what a diet full of the right nutrients and accessible looks like. My insight involves abandoning agriculture and having people rely on themselves for their produce. Vege gardens? But doesn’t most people have vegetable gardens? Good question and I also thought this. Thinking about what challenges we are most likely going to face in the future, climate change, land use and population growth, we are going to have to think a bit bigger than just a Vegetable patch. The majority of people are going to be living in apartments. Instead of building out, we will be building up as most of the accessible land will have been used. The technology in these farm hubs will allow apartment owners to control want nutrients they want and in what form. These Micro Farm Hubs will not be threatened to be climate change ad they can change their climate themselves.

When visualising these apartments I wanted to give of the architectural aesthetic when sketching. After a few drafts were generated I got in contact with my brother who has a masters in architecture to help out a sister out. He gave me feedback and helped me generate more ideas. He gave me the idea to colour Coordinate the rooms to show have the building and sit out. He also gave me an idea to utilise the space on top of the building for the community garden. This garden would be used to grow veggies with large roots and trees. He also suggests that the vines around the building could be fruit vines e.g. Kiwi fruit or grapes these could also be up for anyone in the apartment to consume.

Overall I believe that Food in the future will no longer be for pleasure entertainment or just to satisfy your cravings. Food will purely be just to feel our body, help us live a healthy life and keep us alive.

Here is the link to my Miro board for extra insight And in-depth progress.

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_ks9yq6g=/?invite_link_id=698511196298