At NYC Climate Week, I’m asking what we might build if the future had to be worth tasting. This reflection explores the invisible systems inside every bite—and how better data, technology, and imagination can help us create food that restores more than it extracts.

My lab is a lab of acrylics, and the data is a canvas. On being a scientist who refuses to believe the world is finished.

Food has always made for great cinema. The drama of a kitchen, the politics of a harvest, the intimacy of a shared meal — these are stories that cut across every culture and every era. But when your career sits at the intersection of food science, AI, and food systems, watching a food film becomes something more layered. You notice what the story gets right about how ingredients actually behave. You catch the moments when the narrative romanticizes supply chains that are, in reality, fragile and deeply unequal. 2025 gave us a lot to work with. This roundup pulls from narrative films, documentaries, and streaming series that made waves this year — assessed not just as storytelling, but as windows into the real science, culture, and economics of how we grow, cook, and eat.