Author: Jawdah Hannad Basara

When you enter the food lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the first thing you notice is that it doesn’t smell like a lab at all. It has a subtle barbecue scent. On plates bearing the iconic NASA worm logo, Xulei Wu, the lab manager for Space Food Systems, has arranged a spread that includes beef brisket, chicken in salsa, mac and cheese, braised red cabbage, a soft tortilla folded next to it, and a tiny cup of cherry-blueberry cobbler. Coffee is served alongside. To be honest, it resembles the menu of a respectable Texas roadside diner. The…

Rajat Bhageria frequently reminds people that his business is primarily a cemetery. There’s only one way to say it, and he says it almost cheerfully. DoorDash swallowed Chowbotics, the salad robot, and silently killed it. Before going out of business in 2023, Zume, the pizza truck dream, spent almost $400 million. The list is endless, and anyone who has followed the food-tech beat for a few years will recognize the pattern: a glossy magazine spread, a Series B, a slick demo, and then silence. Bhageria’s company, Chef Robotics, has chosen to forego the glamorous aspect. Celebrity chef collaborations and neon-lit…

A strange new dialogue is occurring somewhere between Oxford’s cardiac wards and the tiny glass screens we carry in our pockets. Physicians who previously relied solely on blood panels, stethoscopes, and the laborious calculation of cholesterol levels are now sitting across from software that says it can predict a heart attack ten years in advance. Although it sounds like science fiction, the research is actual, peer-reviewed, and subtly entering hospitals that are typically reluctant to adopt new practices. CaRi-Heart®, created by Professor Charalambos Antoniades and his team at the University of Oxford, is the most discussed of these tools. Compared…

Something has changed between searching for a recipe for banana bread at nine o’clock at night and actually finding one. Before you can give it a name, you can sense it. You no longer see the blog you once trusted, the one with the somewhat disorganized introduction about her grandmother’s Ohio kitchen and the a little too long tale about the time she burned a tray of cookies. It is replaced at the top of the page by a clear, self-assured AI summary that tells you precisely how much baking soda to use. Not a grandmother. No, Ohio. Not a…

These days, the term “the perfect recipe” is frequently used, particularly in kitchens where the cook is also using a phone. ChatGPT entered the conversation somewhere between the popularity of meal kits and the quiet weariness of trying to decide what to eat on a Tuesday night. And there was little fanfare when it arrived. In the same way that people used to Google recipes rather than take cookbooks off the shelf, people have just recently begun using it. The way the supposedly “perfect” recipe keeps coming up is intriguing. It’s not a single dish. The person typing the prompt…

On a Sunday night, when most bad ideas seem reasonable, the idea seemed reasonable enough. The takeout menus had started to look like wallpaper, the refrigerator was almost empty, and in between a half-eaten apple and the third unread email, the idea struck: let the machine decide. Twenty-one meals, seven days, and no human thought. Simply type the request and comply. In a matter of seconds, the first plane touched down. It appeared competent in the same way that a stranger’s resume appears competent before you read it. Almond butter and breakfast oats. A bowl of grains for lunch. Dinner…

You’ll see it now if you stroll down the tea section of practically any supermarket in Karachi, London, or suburban Texas: little boxes nestled between chamomile and green tea, abruptly repackaged with bright yellow labels and terms like “metabolism” and “balance.” The cost of a box is roughly $4. It is more difficult to ignore the pitch behind it, which is reshared on Instagram reels and whispered across TikTok: this is “nature’s Wegovy.” When you think about it, it’s an odd piece of branding. Wegovy is administered once a week. It suppresses appetite at a neurological level, acts on hormone…

Something inside of us silently resists movement for a brief period of time, usually between the last bite of dinner and the couch’s temptation. It’s a well-known surrender. However, a tiny but persistent notion has been circulating in clinics, kitchens, and social media lately: that the ten or fifteen minutes following a meal may be the most underappreciated window in contemporary fitness. Of all things, walking is in its second act. It’s difficult to ignore the change in the discourse surrounding exercise. HIIT classes, cold plunges, and marathon training regimens pinned to refrigerators were all part of the intensity gospel…

A small handwritten list is kept by the proprietor of a pharmacy on a quiet street in Karachi. Every week, the names on it are changed. The majority of them are middle-aged women who have similar questions. Ozempic. Wegovy occasionally, if they are unable to locate the first. When asked about supply, the proprietor shrugs. “It comes, it goes,” he remarks, half amused and half weary of the inquiry. Repeated in pharmacies from Los Angeles to Lahore, that scene depicts an odd shift in how people view weight. The same boring chorus—eat less, move more, and perhaps try the Mediterranean…

This year, a little ritual has been subtly gaining traction somewhere between the espresso machine and the bathroom mirror. For the final thirty seconds of their morning wash, people are turning the shower dial all the way to cold. They quickly towel off, gasp, and swear. After that, they seem to wait for their metabolism to produce something beneficial. It seems like the kind of thing that shouldn’t function. No equipment, no app, no monthly subscription, and a half-minute of discomfort. However, Dr. Frank’s weight loss clinic’s Professor Franklin Joseph has been telling anyone who will listen that this small…