Iron deficiency is one of the most common forms of nutrient deficiency around the world. Severe iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, affects nearly 50% of women of reproductive age in regions like South Asia, Central Africa and West Africa (in contrast to 16% of...
Opinion
Every week The Feed interviews the movers, the shakers and the makers in the New Zealand food industry. Check out the interviews on The Feed Weekly podcast or in a Q&A format below. And if you’ve got a story to tell or an opinion to share, drop us a line at editor@thefeed.co.nz
My bag of political carrots
I bought a 3kg bag of carrots at Costco at $4.99. That's a lot of carrots considering I live alone. But the deal seemed good - but would it turn into 24 carrot gold? I knew I could save precious pennies over the next two to three weeks - just eat more carrots. After...
Spicy food might burn in the moment, but it likely won’t harm your health in the long term
Many cultures integrate hot peppers into traditional dishes. AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File Paul D. Terry, University of Tennessee Everyone has a different tolerance for spicy food — some love the burn, while others can’t take the heat. But the scientific...
What the papers had to say about the Weet-Bix saga
As the wheat dust settles at the bottom of the box in Aotearoa’s latest breakfast-based battle for the soul of the nation, we here at The Feed have cast our eyes over the media landscape and asked ourselves and our friends on news desks across the country: “what was...
Fish tales: Kai Ika bringing fish heads to those that need (and want) them most
With Aotearoa's fish stocks under pressure from over-fishing, the way we consume fish becomes a vitally important issue. Many New Zealanders, particularly Pākehā, eat only the fillets of the fish and tend to discard those delicious and nutritious parts that the late...
Final call: Clipper’s final destination
New Zealand’s most internationally successful bar is coming in for a final landing, four years after opening its doors on Ponsonby Road, Auckland. A brief but sparkling jewel in the crown of Auckland hospitality – loved by its regulars, 22 of them at a time and...
Why we love the Negroni: iconic drink sells itself (and Campari)
Why should you love the Negroni? Well, picture this: It's the cocktail world's equivalent of a witty, mustachioed Italian philosopher with a monocle and a penchant for spontaneous haiku. It's that one eccentric aunt you describe as an acquired taste, but you can't...
Roll up, roll up: it’s election time
Big news this week as Edmonds, the backbone of Kiwiana baking, took a slump at the supermarket, announcing they were deleting their frozen pastry range, just as Labour slumped in the polls. Quite the coincidence as Chris Hipkins happily devours flaky sausage rolls by...
Sourdough: the real bread and butter politics
On a Wednesday night, as everyone else is shutting up shop and heading home, a small group of us pile into central Auckland bakery Bread & Butter. The operation effectively runs 24 hours a day with staff shifts covering both commercial baking contracts and the...
Lucky Taco – The Book
The New Zealand culinary scene is pretty lucky. We have a delicious array of authentic cuisines available for us to discover and enjoy. Sadly, Mexican food is still not one of them. Sure, you’ll find some outliers, Tacos Tocayo in Tauranga being one of them, but...
American Eats: the Long Island bacon, egg and cheese
American food gets a bad rap from outsiders and a lot of that negativity is justified. Even the whole grain bread you buy in the supermarket tastes like unimaginative cake. Cheese is mostly ultra-processed and has the consistency of fruit leather. It's best not to...
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in shellfish can cause serious illness
Traditional harvesting sites, or mahinga kai, continue to be used throughout New Zealand to provide food and to share skills and cultural practices between families and generations. But our new research shows that wild foods concentrate antibiotic-resistant bacteria...
Southland’s Food Flag is Flying High
Southland's food flag is flying high and so is Lauraine Jacobs. We welcomed Aotearoa's queen of food writing (and thinking!) to share her Southland explorations of the New Zealand food story. I have always said the best position to view things clearly is at 35,000...
A for Awards: A new gold standard.
What’s really behind a medal anyway? I should know. I judge them, after all. Mostly for spirits and the occasional liqueur. I think it’s important that a medal should mean something. Something hard to achieve or that recognizes valour and effort. Sometimes I walk into...
It’s time to rethink how we grow and ship food
Alan Renwick, Lincoln University, New Zealand Supermarket customers around New Zealand are noticing gaps in the grocery aisles that have nothing to do with the global pandemic or Ukraine war. It’s clear domestic food supply chains have been increasingly challenged by...
Matariki: An Aotearoa New Zealand food story emerges
Lesley Chandra, head chef and owner at Sidart. It’s remarkable what just two years and a public holiday can do for catapulting an under-valued part of our cultural and food story into mainstream acceptance. We should be jumping and whooping from the rafters to see the...
‘A waste of money’ what the press are saying about the Countdown rebrand
News comes to us this week of Countdown’s plan to spend $400,000,000 rebranding their supermarkets as Woolworths, a name most of them were trading under as long ago as 2009. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a rebrand for a company that has no meaningful...
How to grow apple trees underground – gene editing for climate change
In an ongoing series of profiles of science leaders from Plant&Food, Vincent Heeringa talks to Dr Revel Drummond If scientist Revel Drummond was in a television commercial, he’d probably reprise the role of Madge, the Palmolive lady: “GMOs? You know you’re soaking...
Not so cut and dry July
I don’t believe food virtue gets us anywhere when it comes to healthy dialogue or constructive conversation about the way we consume – whether it’s plant proteins, seafood, MSG or alcohol. It’s Dry July and the presses are pumping with stories about celebrities...
EatKinda eyes export as cauliflower ice cream goes bananas
Change It Up: In the latest of our innovation series brought to you by Everybird Coffee, Ben Fahy meets the couple behind ice cream sensation EatKinda Back in 2019, Rocketlab’s Peter Beck chided New Zealand entrepreneurs for aiming too small. Why just create a million...
The trouble with our food: an extract from Emily King’s new book Re-Food
We live in a world shaped by the spaces around us that are influenced by private companies and also the public sector. Food is a major part of this. Think of the places we buy our food. But there is a wider network of influences on us at play, and these come together...