Rice has become a staple food, a culinary cornerstone of most countries. It doesn’t matter if you are in Japan or Italy. Its adaptability is part of what makes this delicacy to be enjoyed everywhere: whether with a juicy cut of meat, in a creamy risotto, with a spicy curry or simply without anything. At a political rally last month, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso claimed that rice on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, was tastier not because of farmers’ efforts, but because of climate change.
Although it may sound crazy, there is a grain of truth to the claim that climate change affects the taste of our food, sometimes in a favorable way. Science has studied the phenomenon.
What do the studies say? According to research published in April in the journal Science of The Total Environment, the Japanese was not entirely misguided. Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere improve the flavor of rice. After growing it with improved CO2 levels, scientists from Jiangsu, China detected an increase in the volume of starch granules, where the starch is stored in the grain. Since starch makes rice sticky, a prized quality of Japanese rice, the article’s researchers concluded that the taste had improved.
But the researchers say that’s not something to celebrate, as the effect of climate change on crop yields, among many other adverse consequences, is a much more serious concern. “I think the biggest problem is that even if it tastes better, if you don’t have a lot of rice, you won’t win,” explained Pamela Ronald, a rice geneticist at the University of California in this Vice report.
Less properties. If there is too much water from rainfall, as in Bangladesh, where climate change has impacted with increasingly frequent and severe floods, rice crops are stressed by oxygen and cannot breathe. And even if a rice plant grows rapidly in water, its energy reserves will be depleted and it will die.
Scientific evidence also shows that increased CO2 levels caused by global warming mean a loss of nutritional properties in rice, explained Jan Leach, a plant pathologist at Colorado State University. Studies suggest that high carbon reduces the amount of protein, zinc, iron, and B vitamins per grain, all essential nutrients for humans.
And less rice. Okay, we know that climate change makes extreme weather worse, like floods, heat waves, droughts, and storms, things that are bad for rice crops. But not only the abundance of water is negative. There is also a loss of rice production due to drought stress. Heat stress also leads to more illness and changes in the physical properties of vitamins and minerals. In August, the industry indicated that this summer’s drought in Canada, which accounts for two-thirds of the global durum wheat trade, would cause a 32% drop in harvest compared to the average of the last five years.
In Japan, the birthplace of sushi, the environmental impact of global warming is causing rice farmers to fight more weeds, which compete with rice in absorbing nutrients from the soil. To prevent weeds from growing between their rice crops, they make sure to submerge their paddy fields in enough water to cover the grass. That way, the grass can’t breathe or photosynthesize, which means it won’t grow as much. But the crops have been damaged by the higher temperatures and lack of water, so they just wilt.
The taste of coffee, in reverse. In addition to its production, the taste of coffee is also at risk from the adverse effects of global warming. Some American researchers showed in October that the quality of our cup of Joe is sensitive to environmental variables. More specifically, exposing the coffee plants to more intense light can be detrimental to the final flavor.
Contrary to popular belief, coffee plants grow in cool soils at high altitudes. However, they do not withstand frost. Since coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world, Finnish scientists are already working on a new concept to ensure that we can continue to drink our espresso calmly. They have developed a lab-grown coffee from plant cells taken from the leaves of coffee plants, echoing the concept of fake meat discussed earlier on Magnet. Yes, the future is quite gray in relation to the food we consume today. And of course, it will get worse.