Fresh vegetables on a fork with Earth in the background.

Food and Nutrition:
What Everyone Needs to Know

Chapter 25

The Intertwined Future of Food and Nutrition

Vegetables on Earth with fork illustration.
  • Nutrition, Future of Food
  • Food Technology, Innovation
  • Alternative Proteins, Alt Proteins
  • Agshittification, Age of the Chicken
  • Food Revolution, Ecotechno

Abstract

This chapter explores existential questions surrounding food, science, technology, and social evolution, examining the current and future landscape of food production and human diets.  It traces paradigm shifts in nutrition, from single nutrients and scientific reductionism to diet patterns to nutrition ecology. It discusses food as a weapon and human right, questioning whether we need to produce more in 2050.  It highlights Fourth Agricultural Revolution (4AR) technologies (vertical farming, AI, robots, alternative proteins, plant-based meat, molecular coffee, chocolate, cultivated meat, air protein) and contrasts personalized with public health nutrition. It contemplates whether humans will continue toward environmental decimation and widespread antibiotic resistance (i.e., agshittification), urging a plant-based food revolution to cut chronic disease, curb climate change, and evolve beyond the Age of the Chicken. It closes envisioning an ecotechno future based on science, technology, and human innovation that prioritizes public health, animal welfare, and ethics to create a healthy, sustainable food future for all.

Core Topics This Chapter Addresses

Guiding Questions

  • What is the future of nutrition—and is fully personalized diet advice and quantified health truly the holy grail? 
  • Is food a human right or weapon of war—and will we have enough to feed people in 2050?
  • What will the diets of tomorrow look like—and will there still be chocolate and coffee?
  • Will indoor vertical farming contribute to healthy and sustainable plant-based diets—or is the future of food skyscrapers full of pigs?
  • Will we still eat animals, or is alt protein where it’s at (and what exactly is that)?
  • What is agshittification, and will sapiens evolve beyond the Age of the Chicken?

The Food Revolution Is Now

Welcome to the food revolution, where the diets of tomorrow will look nothing like those today, a few millennia out. This chapter is essential for food enthusiasts, futurists, scientists, and philosophers considering how to build a better world, one bite at a time—a perfect subject for student projects, debates, and future-facing journalism.