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LOST IN TRANSLATION: LIFE OF A JAPANESE GIRL IN ITALY ● Discovering Connections with the Wider World Through the Streets and the Sea On a university field trip, I visited Sitges, a town in Catalonia, Spain. White walls, blue doors, and narrow cobbled streets wound uphill. Flags hung overhead. The scenery reminded me of places I had visited before: Lisbon, Sardinia, and the old town of Nice. There was something distinctly Mediterranean about it all. Just walking around lifted

The government’s Be Ready campaign launched last month. It asks households to keep three days of food, water, and basic equipment at home. People took it seriously. Iceland reported tinned food sales rose 40% over the first weekend.Some shops ran short of bottled water, tinned beans, and wind-up radios. Polling released alongside the campaign suggested more than 40% of households lacked three days’ supplies. Reaching for simple cupboard staples is good.What we push back on is

Halloween is the one night we buy food, carve a face into it, stick a candle inside, and leave it lit on the doorstep. It’s a lovely ritual. The real surprise, though, comes the morning after, when it turns out the humble pumpkin has plenty left to give. The numbers are hard to ignore. Hubbub estimates that of the 30 million pumpkins bought for carving each year, around 16 million end up uneaten. Over half thrown straight into the bin. People often claim they don’t know what

Gastronomy is Not About Haute Cuisine I never knew so many people lived in Bra, a town of around 30,000 residents. I kept thinking about this while walking through the streets. BRA’S is a festival and celebrates its local speciality, Salsiccia di Bra, a type of sausage. It is organised by the Piedmont Region, Confcommercio Ascom Bra and the Municipality of Bra. While Slow Food and the University of Gastronomic Sciences prepared for the following week’s Salone del Gusto, local

Most people blame a heavy week for the 3pm slump. Few blame lunch. But the order of what you eat dictates how your brain functions for the rest of the day. A meal heavy in simple starches causes a quick glucose spike. White rice, bread, or pasta digest rapidly. The body responds with an insulin surge. That sudden crash in blood sugar leaves you foggy and reaching for another coffee right when you need focus. You don’t need a restrictive diet or a spreadsheet to fix this. You

Questions I Never Thought to Ask Living in Italy, there have been many moments when everyday life or problems with my body have made me wonder, ‘Why don’t we learn this at school?’ or ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t know this?’ Or perhaps I just forgot some of what I learned in school. By researching things for myself and trying them out, I have gradually begun to understand my own body and the way I live a little better. Understanding ourselves better also helps us care for o

Regional food groups are the unseen connectors behind the food we love, and their survival depends on all of us. Think of the best thing you ate this year. Chances are a grower or maker you'd never heard of was behind it, and somebody made an introduction to get it to you. A small producer with no sales team met a buyer who couldn't afford a mistake, and a third person who knew them both vouched for each. That person is the most overlooked figure in the food system. They are

Questions I Never Thought to Ask Living in Italy, there have been many moments when everyday life or problems with my body have made me wonder, ‘Why don’t we learn this at school?’ or ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t know this?’ Or perhaps I just forgot some of what I learned in school. By researching things for myself and trying them out, I have gradually begun to understand my own body and the way I live a little better. Understanding ourselves better also helps us care for o

It’s 6:15 pm on a Tuesday evening. A child stares at a cartoon tiger in the cereal aisle. Their parent, exhausted after work, scans the box. It says wholegrain. Fortified. Good for your heart. Into the trolley it goes. That reassurance is the real product, and it may be one of the supermarket‘s most effective tricks. Researchers call it the health halo. Words like ‘proteins’ make shoppers see a box as healthier and more likely to buy. The front only has to flatter. Now turn

Questions I Never Thought to Ask Living in Italy, there have been many moments when everyday life or problems with my body have made me wonder, ‘Why don’t we learn this at school?’ or ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t know this?’ Or perhaps I just forgot some of what I learned in school. By researching things for myself and trying them out, I have gradually begun to understand my own body and the way I live a little better. Understanding ourselves better also helps us care for o

What if the food that helped make us ill, the jab that treats it, and the ‘friendly’ ready meal you eat alongside the jab were all part of the same loop? It's not a conspiracy theory. It's just incentives. For decades, ultra-processed food (UPF) has been built for shelf life, cravings and profit, with nutrition coming last. Last November (2025), a Lancet series linked diets heavy in it to obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic problems. Then came the weight-loss jabs. Wegovy

LOST IN TRANSLATION: LIFE OF A JAPANESE GIRL IN ITALY Growing up in Japan, I only really had two uses for honey: taking a spoonful when I had a sore throat, or drizzling it over yoghurt. When it came to pancakes or French toast, honey always seemed a little too strong, so I would choose maple syrup instead. My criteria went no further than ‘honey or maple syrup?’, and I cannot remember ever looking at the name of a flower when choosing a jar of honey. I wonder what kind of fl

We live in a world where the sun never really sets. Food no longer answers to daylight. Late-night deliveries and midnight fridge raids mean we can eat whenever we want — but our biology hasn’t caught up. Technology adapted instantly to a 24/7 world, but the human body didn’t. We just like to pretend it has. This tension sits at the heart of how we eat today. Deep in the brain sits a tiny master clock - the suprachiasmatic nucleus - governing sleep, wakefulness, and digestion

Gastronomy is Not About Haute Cuisine Is the Strength of ‘Made in Italy’ Simply a Matter of Good Branding? Before coming to study in Italy, I often came across articles in Japan arguing that Italian businesses had succeeded in reaching global markets directly from small towns and in building ‘Made in Italy’ into a powerful brand—and that Japan, supposedly less adept at branding, should learn from them. Yet after living here and working for an Italian manufacturer, I realised

Sunday mornings are for slow coffee and big ideas. Here’s a simple one: school dinners are a political choice. The UK government just updated its School Food Standards for the first time in a decade. By September 2027, schools must serve actual food: whole grains, vegetables, lentils, and chickpeas. This policy targets the real enemy: ultra-processed products. It demands real ingredients on school lunch trays—something Movimento Metropolitano (MoM) has advocated for years. Go

LOST IN TRANSLATION: LIFE OF A JAPANESE GIRL IN ITALY One of the most significant dates in Italy in August is Ferragosto, on 15 August. Its name comes from the Feriae Augusti, a period of rest introduced by Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Later, in the Christian calendar, 15 August became the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and today it marks the peak of the Italian summer holiday season. It coincides with the Obon period in Japan; many shops close, and people

Why soaring supermarket costs could be forcing a rethink of the weekly shop. When a basic weekly shop feels like a luxury purchase, consumer habits begin to shift. The Food and Drink Federation forecasts UK food inflation could peak near 6.4% next summer. A standard £100 basket heads towards £147.50. British households face a prolonged squeeze. Energy costs, climate patterns, and trade barriers keep supermarket prices high while quality stays the same. This pressure doesn’t a

LOST IN TRANSLATION: LIFE OF A JAPANESE GIRL IN ITALY I had the opportunity to spend a month of my summer doing an internship in Mantova, a city in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. My favourite view in the city was the one I would see from Ponte di San Giorgio on my way from where I was staying into the city centre. As I reached Ponte di San Giorgio, the stretch of land that had continued up to that point suddenly gave way, and the view opened onto the lake on both sid

September arrives. The clock ticks faster. People drop short-term diet fads. They look for food that genuinely supports digestion, immunity, and well-being over the new season. Fermented products like kefir, kimchi, and kombucha have moved straight into the mainstream, valued for microbes as mush as flavour. Supermarkets and industrial food science offer quick fixes like shelf-stable sauerkraut for instant gratification. The city demands speed. But fermentation moves at its

At the heart of this conversation with Andrea Rasca , he shares his unique perspective on the future of food and the driving forces behind MoM's mission. He cuts through the noise and gets straight to the point about how we can make real change. We often hear the phrase 'lifelong passion’, but passions are rarely born in a vacuum. Walk me through the formative moments that sparked your interest in food. Was it a particular person, a place, a meal? You're right, passions ra