Fewer than half the calories grown on farms now reach our plates

 

Augustine Bin Jumat/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

In 2020, the world produced more than enough calories to feed the global population, but only half of those calories reached people’s plates due to rising meat and biofuel production.

When do we run out of food? The world produced enough calories in 2020 to feed 15 billion people – but only 50 per cent of those calories ended up reaching people’s plates. This proportion is now very likely to have fallen even lower because of the declining efficiency of the global food system.

Rising production of meat – especially beef – and biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are the main reasons for this increasing inefficiency, according to Paul West at the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. Shifting to healthier diets and reducing biofuel production could increase food availability when do we without requiring more farmland.

Source:

Michael Le Page 2025 Fewer than half the calories grown on farms now reach our plates | New Scientist 25 August 

Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture

 

An illustration of a Neanderthals, they group preparing food Image courtesy of Luis Montanya/Marta Montanya/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

A comparison of cut marks on bones reveals that Neanderthal groups living fairly close to each other had their own distinct ways of butchering animals

What did Neanderthals eat? They were not to only called species that cooked their food, long before Homo Sapiens were active, they cooked their food using spices.

Neanderthals may have had traditional ways of preparing food that were particular to each group. Discoveries from two caves in what is now northern Israel suggest that the residents there butchered the same kinds of prey in their own distinctive ways.

Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, weren’t the first hominins to prepare and cook food. There is evidence that Neanderthals, for example, which inhabited Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago, used flint knives to butcher what they caught, cooked a wide range of animals and spiced up their menu with wild herbs.

Source:

By Chris Simms 2025 Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture | New Scientist 17 July