Products of Tomorrow: how climate change will change our diet

What if we could buy tomorrow’s food? This is the proposal of Products of Tomorrow, a store with products as they will be in the future, affected by climate change.

The Paris Agreement, which limits global warming, should be a milestone in countries’ commitment to the environment. Unfortunately several nations have limited their carbon emissions reduction targets, including the US, one of the world’s largest pollutants.

To raise awareness of the problem, the advertising agency África and The Nature Conservancy Brasil are promoting the “Products of Tomorrow” campaign on Facebook. Ads from a web store with products were based on a realistic perspective of the impact of global warming on everyday life. A SPF 350 sunscreen for when the earth is warmer and an apple made with 3% real fruit, when growing organic food will be almost impossible, are examples of what you find there.

Allie Wist, art director at Saveur magazine made the “Flood” art project, a fictional (based on actual scientific data) photographic essay on a dinner when temperatures and sea levels rise, water flooding coastal cities, increase water acidification and deoxygenation.

Jellyfish salad; Roasted chicken with mushrooms; Salted anchovies, Oysters

We will have to adopt various conservation techniques. With deserts made of agar (algae-based gelatin), aquaculture, a proliferation of bivalves, which act to filter ocean water and canned or preserved foods.

Left: Mushrooms – they are a food source and can absorb toxins from the soil. Right: Agar-agar pudding with carob cream, possible substitute for cocoa.

The problems arising from global warming are already happening now. Higher annual temperatures produce fruits with more sugar and less acid, resulting in wines with 1 to 2 percent higher alcohol content. Winemakers now regularly work with yeasts designed to optimally metabolize these higher sugar rates.

Some regions will be so hot that they will stop producing, while others never considered will enter the circuit. We can stop having wine from Bordeaux in France and then have wines from Iceland, for example.

The hot weather also already affects cocoa production and conservation of chocolate (we talked about this in the post here about chocolate that does not melt).

Unfortunately the food of tomorrow has arrived today.