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Dr. Mike Hoffman, lead author of Our Changing Menu: Climate Change and the Foods We Love and Need and Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, unpacks the interconnected relationships between food and climate change and inspires us to think about what we can all do to tackle this challenge.
You already know the facts about climate change. Now, we need cultural evolution. In this podcast, we apply cutting-edge insights from diverse fields to tackle climate change and environmental issues more effectively.
Climate Clear is powered by AreaHub, a climate and environmental hazards platform.
Note: Some expert guests on Climate Clear may be AreaHub advisors.
Alison Gregory: Hello, I'm Alison Gregory and you're listening to Climate Clear, powered by AreaHub. We help you discover climate and environmental issues in a clear, digestible way by talking to experts on these topics all within 15 minutes. Here with us today is Dr. Michael Hoffman, lead author of Our Changing Menu: Climate Change & the Foods We Love and Need, and Professor Emeritus at Cornell University.
He's been involved in climate change efforts for decades and has held many leadership positions throughout his career, including Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell.
Mike, we're honored to have you join us today. You've spent a significant chunk of your life dedicated to raising awareness about the climate crisis. How were you introduced to climate change, and when did it start to feel like a calling to focus on this topic?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: I've been aware of climate change for many years, but I think the turning point for me was reading a book called Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock. He was ahead of the game and that was clearly my aha moment.
So I think that's when it started, and I'm gonna keep this call going for a long time for my daughters and for the youth around the world because it's our future and we need to.
Alison Gregory: Let's talk more about Our Changing Menu, the latest book you co-authored. Food is so incredibly personal and plays a significant role in cultural identity and in many people's lives.
In the book, you use food and the stories about our plate as a tool to get past the psychological distance that many feel when hearing about climate change. What food-related story, if any, resonated with you enough to begin writing a book about the impacts of climate change on food?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: I'm not sure if there was a specific food-related story that led to the book, but like most of us, I like to eat and drink -in moderation.
So any threat to my coffee or bourbon, or my partner's gin or mashed potatoes, it got my attention. I think the real story about where this came from is climate change is affecting everything we eat. And it's a story relevant to our lives, our cultures, our family histories. We enjoy food and we talk about it.
It's a story that had to be told to help raise awareness and action on climate change. We just finished a national survey to really determine if people care about climate change impacts on their food. And the answer is yes, in particular, the effect it might have on food choices. We learn people are also willing to pay more for food that's grown with climate-friendly practices, and the most exciting part, they wanna learn more.
So we've got this book and a website that helps people understand what's going on with their food. They can connect to it. It is so relevant.
Alison Gregory: And it is so relevant. There are many, many impacts that climate change is currently having and will continue to have on so many aspects of life, including certain crops losing their nutritional values, as well as significant economic losses arising from the changes.
Can you explain some of these consequences and how they'll impact the foods we're gonna eat?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: Well, stop and consider what a plant needs to live and survive. It has to have the right temperature, water, carbon dioxide from the air, and soil, but they're all changing because of climate change. Let's look at temperature first, and the big issue here is warming winters.
Because all nut trees and most fruit trees require a winter dormant stage that is induced by cold tempera. Without that, they don't produce nuts or fruit. A few years ago, Georgia (the Peach State) had very few peaches because the previous winter was too warm. Pistachio growers in California were hit and lost several hundred millions of dollars about the same time because, again, previous winter was too warm.
If you look forward to the end of the century, most of the fruit and nut trees produced and grown in California will be in trouble because winters will be too warm. The other changes... Think about wine grapes. Higher temperatures cause changes in aromas, flavors, sugar content in the wine grapes.
And here's a really interesting one: Pollock that are fished in the North Sea by the US fishing fleet.
It's worth about a billion dollars a year. Pollock is used for fish sticks and imitation crab, but the young Pollock feed on the underside of ice on the algae, but the ice is retreating. Less ice, less algae, less pollock.
Another interesting one are blueberries from Peru. In the wintertime, that's where we in the Northeast get our blueberries because they're grown in Peru where it's warmer, but they will run out of water for irrigation in about 20 years because the icecap is melting away.
When you talk about carbon dioxide, it's just amazing because there's so many effects. We already mentioned nutritional quality declining, but in veggies, for example, vegetables, there's gonna be increases in sugars, antioxidants, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, and I jokingly say, maybe kale will taste better. And you think of food choices, where they come from...
Natural vanilla comes from Madagascar. Most of it is under severe stress there because of climate change. Coffee and chocolate, same thing. Stressed wherever they're growing. Sesame oil is a positive story. It comes from Tanzania, but production's actually increasing cause it loves the new conditions
Here's another one: scotch. It's not my favorite, but it's a favorite of a lot of people and it already loses about 2% of volume through the oak barrels by evaporation. They call that the angel share, but as temperatures warm, it's gonna lose more and more. So there goes a lot of scotch. And you just have to think of spices and craft beers and all of those things are changing because of a changing climate.
Alison Gregory: Those were great examples of some of the changes that we're already starting to see. As we think ahead, you've mentioned in various talks and in your book about foods of the future, the species that may thrive under warmer or more acidic conditions, or the food that we may have to transition to in our diet. In addition to the examples you just gave of some things, such as the sesame seed that's thriving a bit, can you think of any foods that may start becoming more common on our plates in the future?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: Well, if we start with the oceans, as they warm, many of the fish that we're used to consuming now will be starting to decline more and more, but squid and octopus will abound.
So there's a good chance we're gonna see more squid and octopus on our plate than we do today. Some other new directions food is taking are algae and seaweed. They are both nutritious and relatively fast-growing and a good source of protein. We will see, in all likelihood, different wines because breeding and using more resilient wine grapes to produce our wine, we may just have to get used to new types and that's okay.
Hopefully, our diet will get more diverse with some new grains. We have already seen quinoa, but amaranth and buckwheat are out there. And currently, we rely on globally a few grains. So we need to diversify and we'll see more of those different grains on the table or in our cup. And I hope, I really hope, that we see heat-tolerant coffee and chocolate in the future so that it continues to be available to all of us.
And regarding insects, they have the potential to help address the shortfall in proteins that we're going to see. They're relatively efficient to be produced and use far less resources to produce than animals and even some plants, and they're actually being considered to be put in pet food.
Alison Gregory: Well, I'm more hopeful about the heat-tolerant chocolate and coffee than have about the insects starting to become an important part of our protein consumption. Turning now to technology, are there any developing technologies or improvements within these industries that seem promising and that you're keeping your eye on?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: Well, there's a lot of things happening, and I will go right to genetically engineered crops. A National Academy of Sciences put out a report not long ago, and equivalent reports came from most equivalent organizations around the world.
That consumption of genetically engineered crops posed no more risk than those produced with traditional plant breeding methodologies. So when it comes to human consumption, they're considered safe, and I use the analogy of piano keyboard with something like 20,000 keys, and the genome in a corn plant.
I think the number is actually 32,000. Imagine 32,000 keys on a piano keyboard, 32,000 genes in the genome of corn plant, and by gene editing, removing one of those 32,000 genes or one key. It's very precise. Scientists aren't hitting the plant genome, so to speak, with a hammer. So that technology, in particular, has to be in the toolbox to continue to feed the billions of people on.
But there's so many other technologies. Almond growers in California are using precise watering or irrigation technique to just water the trees and not the ground around it. There's something called climate-smart agriculture, which is actually something being adopted globally. And I had a farmer one time look at me and he said, "Mike, it's not climate-smart agriculture. It's common sense agriculture." Because farmers know what's going on, they know what to do. But it focuses on soil health, which is essential to healthy plants, but also a healthy soil holds carbon, absorbs water better when it rains, and keeps that water there when it's when there's a short-term drought.
Alison Gregory: Those were great examples. Thank you so much, and I'm so glad that you highlighted the health of soil and the important work happening from a soil science perspective. Is there any story from anyone in the book that is particularly impactful that you would like to share?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: Well, we have several stories about people, more or less on the frontline of climate change, around the world.
There's a consultant who's working with coffee growers in Central America, actually helping farmers switch from coffee to cacao to produce chocolate because cacao is more climate change tolerant than coffee.
Another one. We interviewed a sheep farmer at the headwaters of the Colorado River in Wyoming.
3,500 sheep. 50 sheepdogs. Just sound like an amazing place to live, and he's doing and has been recognized for his efforts to do the right thing, to produce and graze those sheep sustainably. So he rotates the sheep off of one area to another, up the mountain, down the mountain, so that they're not expressing the land so it can grow back.
And it's an amazing story about an individual doing the right thing to provide us the wool and the meat that some would consume. But at the end of the interview, he told one of our co-authors, Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, who was doing the interviews, he said, "Thank you. No one's ever asked me about how it's like, what it's like, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to share my story."
Alison Gregory: That's a great ending on that story too, calling out people who are doing something that's helpful. Mike, you wrap up the book by telling people about what they can do. One of the first steps that we always like to highlight is just to get informed. At AreaHub, we help people discover the climate and environmental hazards in their area so they can take the appropriate steps to protect themselves and their families.
In your case, what do you recommend to everyone listening today? What can we do to lower our carbon footprint, better our food choices, and help alleviate climate change and its impact on food?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: There are many things we can do. To address climate change, we all need to become climate change literate to understand what's going on and how to confront it, and then help others learn to share that knowledge.
But by becoming informed, you can make better decisions in your life. And surprisingly, talking about climate change is extremely important. Two-thirds of us in the US rarely talk about climate change, yet it is the most pressing challenge we face. But by talking about it, you can actually improve engagement. People get involved. Talk to your neighbors about climate change. See what happens. They might be concerned too, and you're gonna have a great conversation.
Of course, adopting a plant-based diet is important, but in our book, we don't say you have to stop eating red meat, for example. Treat it as a delicacy, not a staple, like most of the rest of the world, and that would make a huge difference.
The other big thing we could do in the world of food is reduce waste. Most of that happens on the consumer end. Don't purchase more than you need. Be careful of the purchase by date and then just step back, look at your entire carbon footprint, where you work, where you live, play. Do you really need to travel that much?
We can do the small things, we can continue to compost and recycle, but right now, we've gotta look at the opportunities that can really make some big changes in our greenhouse gas footprint. And also pause, back to the world of food, and think about who grows that food? How'd it get to your table?
It's just not a location. It's people trying to make a living, which is getting harder and harder because of climate change, but to feed us. And think of the family in western Africa, growing cacao making $4 a day, or the farmer in Kansas facing droughts, storms, growing wheat for us.
And finally, get involved. Don't sit this one out. You are needed.
Alison Gregory: Those are phenomenal points and a lot for us to consider. Thank you so much. That was really a helpful summary. Lastly, is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to mention? What is the one message that listeners should take away from our conversation today?
Dr. Michael Hoffman: One thing I haven't touched upon, and they're also in our daily lives, are all the plant-based products we depend on and use daily. Let's start with cosmetics. A lot of 'em are plant-based, as are perfumes. Pet food, the changes we've talked about in human food are changing in pet food. What you're wearing, think of the natural fibers, cotton, silk, flax made into linen. They're under stress as well. Natural dyes, medicinal herbs. Many of these are multi-billion dollar industries, and they're changing.
Now, I say this a little bit in humor, but there's another book to be written on this topic. I'm not sure I'm going to do that, but it's an incredible story of everything around us and things we use every day.
My final message to everyone might be, or is, it's time to find your greater purpose, which means a more meaningful reason to live or work, and I can't imagine a greater purpose in someone's life than to help this grand challenge of climate change and tackle it.
Alison Gregory: That's inspiring and you've given us so much to think about. Thank you for bringing such an interesting and valuable perspective to all of us.
Dr. Michael Hoffman: I sincerely thank you for the opportunity.
Alison Gregory: You're listening to Climate Clear and we encourage you to check out AreaHub to learn more about your area's climate and environmental health. And of course, check out Our Changing Menu available on Amazon or anywhere you get your books. Thank you for joining us and stay tuned for new episodes soon.