A new frontier in understanding food: Mapping food quality to improve human and planetary health

Ahmed, S. (2025) A new frontier in understanding food: Mapping food quality to improve human and planetary health. 6 p.

Imagine a world where we truly understand what’s in our food— where everyone has access to healthy, safe, and delicious diets from sustainable food systems. Diets that not only nourish but also celebrate biodiversity and cultural traditions. This future harnesses the power of food as a vital resource for both human and planetary well-being.

Food analysis has followed a similar trajectory. Traditionally, scientists have measured only 30 to 150 known nutrients and broad categories like total protein or total dietary fiber—akin to our once limited view of the cosmos. But just as the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy, breakthroughs in multi-omics technologies are expanding our knowledge of food composition beyond the nutrition label.

High-resolution omics tools—metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics, and genomics—have transformed medicine and drug discovery for decades. Now, these same cutting-edge technologies are being applied to food, allowing us to detect thousands of specific lipids, fiber components, proteins, bioactives, and toxins. This deeper understanding of food composition can begin to reveal how food shapes our health in ways we are only beginning to grasp. We’re not just measuring food—we’re discovering it.