Right away you can tell that Food Forever: Recipes for a Healthy Planet is much more than a cookbook – it’s the culmination of 15 years of thinking and experimenting with food and sustainability by Netherlands-based chef, Lars Charas (pictured below).
Lars Charas receiving the Gourmand award for best digital e-cookbook in the world (May 2017).
Something of a vision, it looks ahead to a future where there is still plenty of food but we are forced to make different choices about what is on our plate to ensure everyone on the planet has food forever.
The human diet once consisted of 1,000 different ingredients, but currently just 30 ingredients account for 98 per cent of the food produced in the world. Yet there are 60,000 edible foodstuffs available. “A solution is to eat more diversely, and to use the food resources on this planet more efficiently,” says Charas.
(Fine Dining Lovers, 19 Dec 2016)
Food Forever contains 70 recipes that aim to translate sustainable and healthy diets into reality. But it also aims to inspire and educate – it gives powerful insights into the global and local sustainability challenges food systems are facing through brief articles and interviews, it provides a roadmap on where the future of food is heading, as well as guidance on how to build resilient food cultures. … Most importantly, it is a powerful call-to-action for chefs, culinary schools and others to get involved in shaping the future of food.
Over sixty chefs, scientists, designers and journalists from 25 countries contributed to the book. Karen’s interview opens Chapter 2. This chapter aims to inspire “playgrounds for change” by stimulating fresh ideas and debates through 30 interviews with scientists, top chefs, and other thought leaders around the world on topics such as sustainability and health, change, collaboration, pragmatic solutions, systemic blocks, tradition and diversity.
Karen spoke on the importance of finding inspiration for practical solutions and the critical role chefs play in making new, sustainable diets engaging and fun. We need chefs to be interested in transformation and sustainability, but also to be role models, designers and communicators, to create a playground in which innovative ideas about change can flourish.
Author, designer, concept developer, and trendwatcher, Lars Charas believes chefs are powerful agents of change because they are the shepherds of food cultures and influence what and how we eat.
The launch of Food Forever coincides with the launch of the Feeding Good movement in October 2016. A movement aiming to create playgrounds for chefs, culinary educators and consumers to experiment and positively transform food cultures.
Read more about the Food Forever and the Feeding Good movement here.
Read the National Geographic article on Food Forever (22 Apr 2016) here.
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