Traditional food cultures, cuisines, and lifestyles may be our best teachers when it comes to understanding diet- and lifestyle-related diseases and how to live within planetary boundaries.

Cuisines developed over centuries hold a lot of wisdom—they tend to be balanced in terms of nutrients and energetics and created around seasonal and native plants. Cuisines were developed in relation to the land and its capacity. Many traditional farming practices based upon indigenous knowledge and living in harmony with nature are inherently more sustainable. “Pre-colonial” and indigenous ways of living and cultivating food can provide us with many answers for creating more sustainable food systems.

Visually exploring and understanding different perspectives towards food—from the way it is grown, sold, and processed to how it is eaten—is a powerful way to reflect on our own relationship with food and food systems.