Low-hanging fruit

What I talk about when I talk about who I am, how to make sustainable changes in our daily habits and where Upside Foods will be building its next cultivated meat facility.

Happy Friday to my new subscribers and to everyone that has been with me since day one or day 365. Thank you for reading and caring about what we eat. For all my new readers, I thought I would take a minute to say hello and explain who I am and what I’m doing here. (If you already know me, keep scrolling.)

I started this Substack in February 2021. That first issue was titled: When Bill Gates canceled steak. Today, over two and half years later, I’m almost at my 100th newsletter – this is #99. Most weeks, I find my newsletter topic a few days before I sit down to write. I try to find range in what I write about – not too much out-there stuff like cultivated meat, not too much ranting about ultra-processed junk food, not too many probing questions like ‘Are you eating enough fiber?’, and not too much doom and gloom about our food system or the climate. It’s a delicate balance.

The Buffalo fried chicken sandwich at The Butcher’s Son in Berkeley is delicious. It features a slice of blue cheese made by Climax Foods. I wrote about the startup that is using AI to uncover functional ingredients for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Why do I write about food? Maybe because I love it and think about it so often? Because I have to listen to my body like an audiologist? Not all of us are driven like I am. I write about food to learn more for myself, and also for you. I like sharing news and I love having a dialogue with my readers. You’re always welcome to write in or AMA (ask me anything).

I have type-one diabetes, so there’s an undercurrent of that to what I write about. After 35 years, I’ve learned that whole foods are simpler for my body to process and require much less insulin than anything with multiple processed ingredients in it. That’s what guides me.

If you want to know more about my origin story, please check out my book, Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat—it’s on Kindle, audio and in hardcover. It may also be at your local library. Be sure to start with my introduction.

I’m in Burlington, Vermont this week attending the See Change summit on sustainability. The plane flew over Lake Champlain (just gorgeous) and a seemingly endless number of lush green trees. It’s a wonderful approach.

I’m going to keep this week’s newsletter brief. But I’ll close with the idea that there are small changes we can make that create impactful change. Whether it’s a sustainability nudge or just low-hanging fruit, your take-out order can be improved. Most orders wind up arriving with things you don’t need or even want — cutlery, napkins, soy sauce, you name it. 

In a study out of China, they found that by setting cutlery to a default of zero this delivery number went down by an eye-opening amount: 648%. Researchers called this a “green nudge.” The team also awarded “green points” to users that were redeemable for planting trees in China’s deserts. To do both of these things – essentially tiny shifts in behavior –  would result in 21.75 billion fewer sets of single-use cutlery, which would prevent 3.26 million metric tons of plastic waste generated and save 5.44 million trees. You can read about it in Time.

This is small but big stuff that can move the needle.

Other tidbits:

1. If you live in Los Angeles and you’re into food-tech, the HNGRY summit is on Friday, October 20th. It will include voices from Resy, food venture, beverages and Everytable. Use the code TECHNICALLY20 for 20% off your ticket. (I wish I could attend!)

2. Upside Foods, which has a small pilot plant in Emeryville, CA for its cultivated chicken, has chosen Chicago, IL for its next location. The 187,000 square foot plant — what they say will be a “large-scale cultivated meat production plant” — will be located in Glenview, Illinois—about 26 miles from the west loop. Expect design and engineering to take quite some time.

3. While at the See Change summit in Vermont, I learned about a website that only shares good news. No politics, just positive news! (Imagine that?!) It’s called The Goodness Exchange. They also have a podcast called Conspiracy of Goodness. Save this for when you need a lift.

   

   Rule 1 of ultra-processed foods? A cute mascot pushing your junk food.

4. In a recent newsletter I shared that Snoop Dogg was getting into ice cream, apparently he’s also getting into cereal. In a collaboration with Post, he’s come out with “Snoop Cereal.” Sadly this is UPF junk food being marketed to kids. Why is this guy lending his name to Big Food? Sadly, it’s for money. But making it off of supplying kids with poor nutrition is a terrible way to earn a living. Read more in Matthew Rees’ great newsletter.

Where you can find me:

1. I wrote about a new plant-based blue cheese for the SF Chronicle. It’s from Berkeley-based Climax Foods. If you live in the bay area you can find it at The Butcher’s Son in Berkeley, Millennium in Oakland and Blossom & Root in Danville. (If you’re wondering, the blue cheese is delicious!)

2. I’ll be attending the Good Food Institute’s annual conference in San Francisco next week on Tuesday & Wednesday. Give me a shout if you’re planning to be there.

3. My next paid newsletter will be out on Friday, September 22nd and will be about what I see and learn at the GFI conference next week. Expect some unique taste tests!