Whether we like it or not, the world’s love affair with meat has become one of the largest burdens on the planet. Industrialised meat production strains fresh water supplies, is a direct cause of deforestation and grassland destruction, and is linked to massive carbon emissions. Additionally, global food demand is expected to grow by 60 percent as the world’s population reaches 9.7 billion in 2050.

We need to be smarter and much more efficient when it comes to our food production. But change is also needed around the dinner table through new culinary traditions.

A visual feast

Tomorrow’s Meatball is a visual exploration of the future of food and what we could be eating in the not-too-distant future. We examined everything from alternative ingredients and technological innovations to culinary inventions that could shift our unsustainable appetite for meat.

We used the meatball’s shape and size as a canvas for future food scenarios because we wanted to visualise complicated research in a simple, playful, and familiar way. Multiple cultures cook meatballs — from the Swedish meatball and Italian-American spaghetti meatballs to Lebanese kofta.

On the menu

Our research delivered gastronomic insights including The Wonderful Waste Ball, The Nutty Ball, and The Crispy Bug Ball — made from alternative ingredients like food waste, nuts and legumes, and protein-rich insects.

In some parts of the world, devouring a bug-based ‘meatball’ might be difficult to imagine. Yet we need to start adding alternative ingredients to our daily menu, and adapting our palates to these new ingredients, textures and flavours. And why not have a little fun with it?