'Nature is not good to human beings': The chairman of the world's biggest food company makes the case for a new kind of diet

While Big Food as a whole has made many moves over the past few years toward fewer artificial ingredients and more better-for-you offerings, Nestle's outgoing chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has helped position the company in a direction somewhat less "natural"—somewhere halfway between food and pharmaceuticals, where scientific knowledge is applied to food products. The company has invested billions in healthcare companies, upped its R&D spending and partnered with Samsung on a digital health project. Read more at Quartz...

39 celebrities investing in food and agriculture technology

From athletes to movie stars, it seems like everyone wants in on the future of food. Here are some high-profile investors—including Bill Gates, Beyonce and James Cameron—in food and ag tech companies. Read more at Ag Funder News...

National biotechnology panel faces new conflict of interest questions

Members of a panel under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which provides policy guidance to the government, have connections to biotech businesses and nonprofits that critic say could affect the committee's upcoming report on biotechnology in a way that downplays health and environmental worries. Read more at The New York Times...

Baldor, Brick Farm Market form food waste partnership

Baldor Specialty Foods, a produce processor and distributor in the northeastern U.S., wants to divert 100 percent of the organic waste generated by its Fresh Cuts operation, which processes more than 1 million pounds of produce per week. It's working with partners to turn fruit rinds and pits into animal feed; to use trims and scraps to make juices and soups; and to process the rest of its organic waste in a waste-to-water system. Read more at Progressive Grocer...

Canada's healthy-eating guide fights to stay relevant

Canada's Official Food Rules debuted more than 70 years ago as a way to help prevent malnutrition during wartime. It got a makeover during the 70s and added a warning to eat sugar, fat and salt in moderation in the 80s, but Canada's obesity rate has tripled since then. Health Minister Jane Philpott is leading the charge to update it again next year, with hopes of coming down hard on processed food and trans fat. Read more at BBC...