Empathy & food is something Empathy Action wants to do more with in the future.

Team members Becky, Ben & Sandy visited the FOOD: Bigger than the Plate exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum for inspiration on future programmes.

Empathy Action’s interest in food is not a new thing (we serve up a slum lunch as part of The Poverty Trap day programme). We are looking to do more empathy work in this area as the future of food is a highly topical issue – think climate change, sustainability, workers’ rights, food waste and poverty (e.g. it’s estimated that a whopping 1/3 of food produced globally is wasted while 1/9 of the world’s population goes hungry). It affects us all.

The following is an account of our time here (written by Becky) and walking through an imaginative take of Future of Food by the V&A Museum.

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It’s hard to sum this place up … but if there were just three things our team learn, they might be these:

1. Beautiful things can be made from merde (the French).
2. Heston Blumenthal is not shy! (see pictures beneath).
3. A toilet can function without water and be hygienic. And (best bit) make good use of its waste.

That’s just for starters. In fact, everything is covered here from all manner of surprising angles through over 70 installations which revisit each stage in the food cycle in creative and innovative ways.

Sandy put it interestingly like this: “I was surprised to see the V&A take on the issue of food… I usually associate it with fashion and design. It was fascinating to see the world (& problems) that we have created through our innovations and design at every stage in the process of producing food.“

There’s so much to digest, but by no means are we spoon-fed. For example, we watch a 13-minute film on farming which lays bare the unpalatable truths of high-tech industrial agriculture, process by process. The monotonous, mechanical rhythms underscoring the documentary say it all. A brief trailer is here, but bear in mind that it is not easy viewing.

However, it is clear that the future does not have to be all doom and gloom. We do have choices: from following maps pointing to the Fallen Fruit of London to a novel look at how we value those who put in the ground work.

The exhibition, fascinatingly, ends with a table. A huge 11m long table that showcases projects which examine how the eating process can be transformed (e.g. for particularly affected groups of people, like Alzheimer’s sufferers). The generous table also reminds us how important it is to share food in order to inspire discussion, debates, laughter and connections.

There is food for thought – and many thoughts about food. There are many challenges that tomorrow poses around how we will feed the world, ourselves and provide for the next generation and we love the idea that we can face these with a table… or with our together-ness.

We are consumed by the idea that food is a powerful tool, and that we can all be agents for change in a world beset by challenges. The global food chain is ripe for reinvention – and it is already happening. Continuing to gather together, around that great big table, to foster empathy so that we can make the best choices is still key.

Our appetites have certainly been whetted. And as the co-founders of the exhibition say, “Nothing is off the table.”

FOOD: Bigger than the Plate is on until Sunday, 20th October. A podcast about the exhibition is here. If you are interested in helping us with creating more empathy using food, we’d love to hear from you.

THE FUTURE OF FLUSHING We take for granted our loos and the flushing system. What if this can be a new ‘clean’ source of power. We learnt about something called Loowatt which provides a safe sanitary system in areas lacking plumbed sewerage, but the excreta is used as a fertiliser and it provides “clean” energy too. A fresh way to charge up your mobile.

MADE FROM CORN HUSKS. Beauty and benefits can come from food waste too. Like a veneer made from the husks of native Mexican corn varieties. As well as looking lovely, the project is rebuilding biodiversity and creating another source of income for farmers whose livelihoods have been threatened by large-scale farming since the 1990s.

TRADING. A revealing examination of trading – we all like pretty packaging, but what exactly lies behind it one artist tells a different story on a popular product.

THE BANANA’S JOURNEY. The epic journey a banana takes from its tree in Ecuador: 14 days travelling 8,800km through multiple nations and via 33 pairs of hands to the shores of Iceland (will it be one of the lucky ones to be eaten and not dumped?).

MULTI SENSORY. Our taste buds are sustained with some choice canapés provided by the LOCI Food Lab – who knew that mould from Marlow soil could be so delicious (and nutritious).

HESTON’S CHEESE: Cheese is made with bacteria and microbes. One mini exhibition sought to create a series of “microbial portraits” with celebrities. Biodesigner Helene Steiner said “If you think about handmade cheeses, handmade food, you put your hands in there, like bacteria often actually are co-creators of your food. So I think it’s not actually for the yuck factor, it’s more like looking at the diversity and beauty of food and how bacteria helps us to produce them.”