Topic description and stories

The task of ensuring affordable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all is one of the major challenges of the 21st century.

Opinion: GM crops already feed much of the world today – why not tomorrow’s generations too?

24 May 2016

Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) discusses how genetically modified crops could help solve the problem of food...

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Neighbourhoods with more takeaways amplify social inequalities in unhealthy eating and obesity

11 May 2016

People who live or work near to a greater number of takeaway outlets are more likely to eat more takeaway food and to be overweight, but new research...

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Fish and chips

Opinion: Local takeaways create a double burden for obesity

11 May 2016

Thomas Burgoine and Pablo Monsivais (Centre for Diet and Activity Research) discuss how takeaways can make social inequality worse.

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DSC02863 (cropped)

Overweight individuals more likely to make unhealthier choices when faced with real food

14 Apr 2016

Overweight people make unhealthier food choices than lean people when presented with real food, even though both make similar selections when...

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Max burger (cropped)

It’s time to change the way we think about changing what people eat

11 Apr 2016

The Chancellor's recent announcement about a tax on sugary drinks is a step in the right direction towards fighting obesity, but we will need to use...

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Nancy's Fruit Salad by John Hritz

Healthy vs unhealthy food: the challenges of understanding food choices

11 Mar 2016

We know a lot about food but little about the food choices that affect the nation’s health. Researchers have begun to devise experiments to find out...

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Vice-Chancellor calls for increased collaboration with Africa

10 Mar 2016

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) Global Gathering 2016, an international conference focused on the development of...

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Opinion: Obesity: stop accusing the poor of making bad choices

09 Mar 2016

Pablo Monsivais (Centre for Diet and Activity Research) discusses obesity and the influence of socioeconomic circumstances in shaping food choices...

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Carpenter bee (Xylocopa flavorufa) visiting coffee flower (Coffea arabica)

Pollinator species vital to our food supply are under threat, warn experts

26 Feb 2016

A new report from experts and Government around the world addresses threats to animal pollinators such as bees, birds and bats that are vital to more...

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How 'more food per field' could help save our wild spaces

28 Jan 2016

Increased farm yields could help to spare land from agriculture for natural habitats that benefit wildlife and store greenhouse gases, but only if...

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Millet: the missing piece in the puzzle of prehistoric humans’ transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers

14 Dec 2015

New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in...

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Pigs eating swill at Stepney City Farm

Feeding food waste to pigs could save vast swathes of threatened forest and savannah

10 Dec 2015

New research suggests that feeding our food waste, or swill, to pigs (currently banned under EU law) could save 1.8 million hectares of global...

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