Food For Thought: How Tech Is Changing What We Eat

The world’s population is currently at 9 billion, and this number is only getting bigger and bigger. No wonder experts are constantly worried about the strain all of us put on our food supplies. But, thankfully, advances and developments in tech are helping businesses increase their production of food and keep up with the growing worldwide demand.

Not only is tech increasing produce, but it is also changing food in a number of ways. Here are just a few of them.

GMOs

What are GMOs exactly? It stands for genetically modified organisms and includes plants that have been bred so that they are resistant to pests and other diseases. This may sound great, as it means that we no longer have to use chemicals and pesticides on some plants. However, there is one big downside. As the tech develops, more and more food ingredients are able to be GMOs and are produced in factories using various machinery like a tube conveyor, test tubes, and gene-splicing methods. It doesn’t exactly sound natural, does it? And that is why a lot of consumers refuse to buy any food products that contain GMOs. Studies show that most customers would rather buy 100% natural and organic food instead of ingredients that have been cooked up in a factory.

Tracking Food Waste

Tech isn’t all bad for our food, though, especially when it comes to the fight against food waste. Thanks to social media and new apps, people are trying to reduce all the food waste that is produced by every household each year. In fact, 40% of food bought in the United States is thrown out. As you can tell, this needs to be changed right away! One of these apps that are trying to change all that is Leloca. It gives restaurants the chance to cut down on their waste by offering special discounts within a limited time frame. So, if a restaurant has a lot of ingredients left over towards the end of its service, it can offer 50% off all meals to help lower its daily food waste.

Innovative Farming

These days, there isn’t much spare farmland available to use for crops. Most of it has now been taken up, and there is no space into which farmers can expand and meet the ever-growing demand for even more crops. But, thankfully, there is a new solution that is proving valuable. Underground farming is now a very big deal in the industry, especially in London, which already has a large hydroponic farm in tunnels that were once used as air raid shelters through the war. The farming industry has now realized that it needs to come up with some ingenious ways to keep up with the world’s food needs, and thinking of inventive new ways to get around this problem are the only solution.

Tech is constantly changing the way we live our lives, and one area you might not realize this is food. But, it’s fair to say, that tech is going to take the food industry very far in the coming years!