Koen Van Mechelen (left) and Olivier Hanotte (right) sandwich a large marble bust of a crowing cosmopolitan rooster.In 1999, Koen Vanmechelen, a Belgian artist, decided to cross a Belgian rooster with a French hen. The union of the Mechelse Koekoek and the Poulet de Bresse gave rise to a clutch of chicks that thrilled Vanmechelen with their diversity, and launched him on a path to create the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project. One breed at a time, the CCP accumulated a huge amount of genetic diversity from chickens around the world. That diversity is now reversing out into the world through the Planetary Community Chicken, which uses the accumulated diversity to increase the resilience and productivity of village chickens in Africa. Olivier Hanotte, who triggered the PCC, joined me and Koen to talk about chicken diversity and what it means for art, for science, and for people.
One of the nicest things about publishing our recent paper What is Wrong with Biofortification is that it prompted several people to share results and opinions that support our conclusions. Confirmation bias aside, we have not yet had any substantive pushback. This piece was prompted by one of the responses we received. See those beans? […]
Helena Bottemiller Evich had a story in her newsletter last week that left me open mouthed. Whatever bad things you think Big Food might be capable of, this is worse. An allergic reaction to sesame can be fatal, and sesame is currently the 9th most common allergen in the US. Unlike allergens 1–8, until a […]
Eat This Podcast has been going since March 2013. That’s a long time in podcast world. In that time, it has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award, although it remains a labour of love rather than a search for glory.
I am a biologist with a keen interest in food and agriculture. Eat This Podcast allows me to pursue my interests and share what I find.
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