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Harvard University

Food

Food nourishes us, inspires us, and brings us together. The Harvard community is exploring nutrition, sustainability, and the science behind the things we eat.

The Harvard School of Dental Medicine shares advice for keeping your teeth healthy between holiday meals.

Experts in the edible

Teaching science concepts through cooking
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Kate Strangfeld

The Graduate School of Education alum started Bite Sized Education to engage secondary students in science. Her goal is to empower students to “think like a scientist” through food and cooking.

Ingestible insights

Harvard researchers are exploring the effects that certain foods and types of eating have on our health.

Learn more about what you should eat

Two cartoon heads, one with a soda inside it and one with a broccoli

Why we crave junk food

Harvard Medical School’s Uma Naidoo, the author of the books “This Is Your Brain on Food” and “Calm Your Mind with Food,” explains why we crave junk food and how to cultivate healthier eating habits.

Why we crave junk food

Chocolate

and its effect on postmenopausal weight loss

A bar of chocolate
Chocolate

Ultra-processed food

and its influence on obesity and disease

Nuggets and fries
Ultra-processed food

Vegan diet

and Alzheimer’s improvements

A colorful salad
Vegan diet

Avocados

and their effect on heart disease risk

avocados
Avocados

Late-night eating

and its role in depression and mood

A person looking into a fridge at night
Late-night eating

Further into food

Sustenance solutions

The Harvard community is exploring solutions for the biggest problems facing farmers, consumers, and the planet.

The need for food

Reserachers at Harvard Chan School found an increase in food insufficiency following the decrease in SNAP benefits; Graduate School of Design students looked at food insecurity solutions in Mississippi, ranked as America’s hungriest state; Harvard alum Leah Gose worked to improve how communities respond to hunger, starting with her hometown of Atlanta; and Historian Joyce Chaplin explored the long history of who gets to eat.

The risks for food

Research shows that changes to seasonal rainfall patterns are accelerating food shortages across the globe; Harvard alum Marcos Barrozo worked to lower emissions from Brazil’s cattle industry; the Wyss Institute is exploring medical technology to help the peach industry fight brown rot; and the Schools of Engineering and Public Health are teaming up to reduce food waste and foodborne illness in a novel way.

The future of food

Graduate School alum John Ahrens cultivated lab-grown fish fillets to address the global demand for seafood; Wyss Institute’s Luke MacQueen spent years creating an animal-free meat that tastes and feels like the real thing; the founders of Circe created the world’s first gas fermentation-derived chocolate in response to the worldwide shortage of cocoa; and David Weitz’s lab is exploring converting food waste into sugar alternatives.

Food at Harvard