What if changing what we eat wasn’t about persuasion, but about reshaping everyday food choices? With Sarah Lake, CEO of Tilt Collective, we explore how meat and ultra-processed foods came to dominate U.S. diets – and how Tilt Collective is building a future where healthy and sustainable foods compete on convenience, price, and accessibility.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode89

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Sarah Lake, CEO of Tilt Collective

Episode hosted, edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

What do Yorkshire beaches, Sierra Leone’s new food strategy, and New York City school lunches have in common? For Corinna Hawkes, they all shaped her journey toward understanding how systems shape food. In this episode, we trace her path from a childhood fascination with shifting sands to her current role at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Along the way, we ask: what does it actually mean to ‘take a systems approach’ to food? What type of leadership skills are needed to fix food systems today? And why do the best solutions sometimes require slowing down, not speeding up?

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode88

Read the report: Transforming food and agriculture through a systems approach (FAO, 2025)

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Corinna Hawkes, Director of Agrifood Systems and Food Safety at FAO

Episode hosted, edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

"Hunger on our Doorstep" is a two part podcast about food poverty in the UK. It explores the issues and potential solutions through the eyes of three food campaigners with firsthand experience of food poverty in urban communities, as well as others working to tackle the problem. The often bleak picture of poverty, inequality and exclusion painted in episode one contrasts with inspiring stories of the solutions being put into practice across the country in episode two.

This podcast is produced by TABLE with the support and contribution of the Food Foundation, a charity focused on changing food policy and business practice to ensure everyone, across the UK nations, can afford and access a healthy and sustainable diet.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode87

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guests

• Ryan McShane, Food campaigner
• Glory Omoaka, Food activist
• Dominic Watters, Estate2Plate founder
• Jonathan Pauling, CEO of Alexandra Rose Charity
• Dr Effie Papargyropoulou, Researcher at Leeds University
• Ana María Narváez, Coordinator of 2025 The Broken Plate report

Host

• Richard Kipling, TABLE
• Ruth Mattock, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Richard Kipling, Ruth Mattock and Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions and Pixabay.

Why are we drawn to simple fixes for the complex challenge of feeding the world sustainably? Researchers Colin Sage (formerly Cork University) and Garrett Broad (Rowan University) unpack what we're calling "food solutionism"—the tendency to promote single, sweeping solutions, whether high-tech or agroecological, while ignoring context and complexity. They argue for "complicating the narrative early and often", so we can move beyond binary thinking and better understand the trade-offs, limits, and realities behind competing visions for the future of food.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode86

Read the The Blue Sky Thread that prompted this episode

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Guests

• Garrett Broad, Rowan University
• Colin Sage, Cork University

Host

• Jack Thompson, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler and Jack Thompson. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Why does Myanmar, often called the "rice bowl of Southeast Asia," continue to struggle with high rates of malnutrition? In this episode, journalist Thin Lei Win helps us unpack how political decisions, land ownership, and regional power dynamics shape food systems in Myanmar and beyond. We explore how issues like palm oil expansion and rice production connect to wider challenges around climate and biodiversity—and why lasting change remains difficult without addressing structural inequalities. Still, there are reasons for cautious optimism. Thin shares why she’s inspired by a new generation of journalists and activists working toward more just and sustainable food futures across Southeast Asia.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode85

Check out and subcribe to Thin Ink

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Guest

• Thin Lei Win, Food and Climate Journalist

Host

• Jack Thompson, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler and Jack Thompson. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Can humanity feed nearly 10 billion people without frying the planet? That question is at the heart of journalist Michael Grunwald’s provocative argument in Sorry, This Is the Future of Food, his recent New York Times essay and the basis of his forthcoming book, We Are Eating the Earth. He warns that we’re clearing an acre of rainforest every six seconds to grow more food — and even if we quit fossil fuels, we won’t avert climate chaos unless we fix how we use land. In this episode, Grunwald makes the case that high-yield industrial agriculture, for all its flaws, might be our best chance to grow more food on less land.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode84

Pre-order We Are Eating the Earth by Michael Grunwald.

Want to share your reflections on the episode? Send us an email or voice memo to podcast@tabledebates.org

Guest

• Michael Grunwald, Journalist and author

Host

• Jack Thompson, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler and Jack Thompson. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Can we have more honest conversations about the future of food and agriculture? That’s the plea from Ken Giller, recently retired professor at Wageningen University, after four decades of witnessing both progress and setbacks in supporting farmers worldwide. We discuss the dangers of populist narratives that oversimplify agricultural challenges, how to reshape research incentives to embrace complexity and nuance, why he opposes carbon credit schemes for farmers, and more.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode83

Guests

• Ken Giller, Wageningen University

Host

• Matthew Kessler, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

What else should we consider when shifting to natural, whole foods—beyond just their health benefits? Feminist Food Journal co-founders Isabela Bonnevera and Zoë Johnson explore the deeper questions: whose labor makes these diets possible, who can afford them, and how culture and experience shape our food choices. We dive into these issues and uncover how a simple "natural foods" search on TikTok exposes striking gender dynamics.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode82

Guests

• Isabela Bonnevera, FFJ + ICTA-UAB
• Zoë Johnson, FFJ + GPPi

Host

• Jackie Turner, TABLE

Episode edited and produced by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.