Lexicon of Food

Today’s media is filled with news about our evolving relationships with food and agriculture. As news stories unfold, the words we use to talk about food and farming also evolve. Sometimes the words follow the developments happening in our food systems, but sometimes the terms we choose help to establish the mileposts for our visions of what sustainable, resilient, or regenerative food systems looks like.

The Lexicon of Food app is the first news stream filter to break down the news about food into four digestible streams. The app also further categorizes new stories by the terms we use to talk about the current status and the future of food. Understanding how different people, organizations, and cultures talk about food is often as enlightening as what they are saying. The Lexicon of Food app allows the user to do both at once: get the food news you care about while seeing how language is used as a lever for change.

Its four key streams are based on the Lexicons f4 partnership with Food at Google: plant forward diets, the circular economy of food, biodiversity, and food is medicine. Custom feeds from top food news sites Civil Eats, Food Tank, and Food+Tech Connect are also included. A simple interface allows users to save articles for later reading and to share them with friends, family, and colleagues.

The Lexicon of Food app is more than just a way to get your news. It’s a tool for changing the way we talk about the most central element of our existence—food.