Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Simplistic oppositions help elicit conceptual differences and may set an analytical framework, but can hardly capture the complexity of food systems or aid the design of systemic solutions.
Food systems do not serve everyone. Beyond a moral imperative, inclusiveness is a condition for systemic resilience — and requires a broadened research approach.
World Trade Organization rules must be reformed to allow governments to build and manage public food reserves, providing a critical tool in preventing or mitigating food crises.
‘Loss and damage’ is seen as a new paradigm for international climate action, but has long affected the operational realities of institutions that keep responding to climate-induced food system breakdowns. Without stronger systems for climate prediction and protection, escalating humanitarian needs risk crowding out the financial space for loss and damage prevention.
Why people at any point in history may have considered a particular combination of food and drink as pairing especially well is likely due to reasons of food culture (including social and economic factors), more than the underlying food chemistry.