Fixing Food

Overview

These days, a meal isn't just a meal. It's a bubbling, troubling cauldron of ethical, environmental and health dilemmas. Are genetically modified foods okay or not? Is eating meat an immoral act? Should you quit sugar?

A new mini talks fest, to inaugurate at the Sydney Opera House on 14 July, is dedicated to these and other food-related issues. The Fixing Food Festival will kick off at midday, with a panel made up of I Quit Sugar author Sarah Wilson, indigenous food expert Jody Orcher and CSIRO research scientist Professor Grant Brinkworth. They'll be discussing the $64 million question: what should I eat?

Reformed anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas will take the floor at 1.45pm to deliver a solo talk titled GMO: No Way or OK? Lynas is an interesting one — in 2013, he publicly apologised for having prevented GMO trials and has since worked in Africa and Asia with scientists who use the organisms to help independent farmers.

Wrapping things up at 3.30pm will be a talk from British writer Louise Gray, who wrote The Ethical Carnivore after spending a year eating only animals she killed with her own two hands. Along the way, she explored slaughterhouses, halal meat, roadkill and alternative proteins, such as insects.

You'll have to buy tickets to each event separately, with the talks coming in at $39 each. Tickets to the panel are $55 but include a lunch box salad filled with native ingredients, including kangaroo, bush tomatoes, bush nuts and finger lime dressing.

Image: Leticia Almeida.