The Food Issue: The Science of Feast, Fuel and Farm

Proponents of genetically modified crops say the technology is the only way to feed a warming, increasingly populous world. Critics say we tamper with nature at our peril. Who is right?

What's the best way to control ecological pests? Feed them to the world's greatest predator—us

New brain research is revealing why fats and sugars may be driving more and more people toward obesity

Reviving native bee species could save honeybees--and our agricultural system--from collapse

Enlisting bacteria and fungi from the soil to support crop plants is a promising alternative to the heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides

Food is a primal, everyday part of our lives—yet rich with mystery

Digestion is far too messy a process to accurately convey in neat numbers. The counts on food labels can differ wildly from the calories you actually extract, for many reasons

Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina introduces the September 2013 issue of Scientific American

It is the dark force, we're told, behind the obesity epidemic, the death of the family farm and Tang. But humans have been “processing” food ever since we learned how to cook, preserve, ferment, freeze, dry or extract. Processed food has powered the evolution of the species, the expansion of empires, the exploration of space. Here are highlights

Rigorously controlled studies may soon give us a definitive answer about what causes obesity—excessive calories or the wrong carbohydrates

Nearly two million years ago our ancestors began to barbecue. And those hot meals, Richard Wrangham argues, are what made us human