Mapping Food Quality to Improve Human and Planetary Health

Discover

What’s in a Tomato?

Imagine a world where everyone has enough to eat. Where food is safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate.

Where farmers can grow food in ways that nourish local ecosystems and address diet-related diseases in their communities.

Where we leverage food’s power as an essential resource for human and planetary wellbeing.

The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) is helping bring this vision to reality by providing foundational scientific and educational resources to map food quality. With our global partners, we’re building the scientific base to support innovations that nourish communities and our environment.

Knowing Your Food

Mission

The Periodic Table of Food Initiative is providing standardized tools, data, and training to map food quality of the world’s edible biodiversity.

Who We Are and Why

Vision

We envision a world where each stakeholder involved in food and health systems is empowered to lead data-driven solutions for enhanced human and planetary wellbeing.

Generating knowledge on how our food system can become more diverse, resilient, inclusive, connected, participatory, and responsible.

To address our most pressing human and planetary health challenges, we need to know more about what our food is made of. We’re supporting scientific research and interventions that apply multi-omics tools on factors that impact food quality.

Tools, data, and research

MarkerLab is a web-based data visualization platform that makes multi-omics data accessible, interpretable, and valuable for labs and researchers.

Visit the PTFI Research Hub and register your account to access PTFI data with MarkerLab.

Education to nourish people and planet

Food EDU is building the capacity of scientific communities and bridging gaps between research innovation and educational opportunities worldwide.

Growing capacity

A database that captures and quantifies the molecular content of food will revolutionize the agriculture, food and health sectors. Once in place, this publicly accessible database will be the greatest single knowledge asset in the history of food.

Bruce German, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor and Chemist Director, Foods for Health Institute, University of California Davis Science Advisory Chair, Periodic Table of Food Initiative

PTFI Amabassador  Chef Alejandra Schrader

Chef Schrader encourages us to celebrate the biodiversity of food systems by diversifying what is on our plates, especially edible plants.

Chef profiles

Powerful Partnerships

Partnerships are core to our efforts and impact. Our global ecosystem enables us to have exponential impact in achieving our goals while building connectivity and capacity. We have a Center of Excellence on each continent entailing universities and public health institutions that champion food quality research, capacity strengthening efforts, and the translation of science for impact in their regional landscapes. We are partnering with a growing network of National Lab Hubs, with the goal to establish partnerships with each country across the globe. Further, we are collaborating with Research + Impact Partners as well as PTFI Ambassadors to drive change.

Global ecosystem

Learn more

The Map of Food: Why We Need a World Atlas of What We Eat

World Economic Forum

We need to reorient agricultural priorities from producing high quantities of food to producing sustainable and nourishing food that is accessible and desirable for communities. Data-driven innovations will enable food system stakeholders to meet multiple sustainability targets. Learn about how the Periodic Table of Food Initiative is supporting data-driven innovations by mapping food quality in this blog post by Nancy Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Association, featured at the World Economic Forum.

Future of Food with Andy Jarvis

Foodie Pharmacology Podcast

How do we build the future of food in ways that support people and the planet? Listen to an interview on planning for tomorrow through decarbonizing our food systems and protecting nature in and around farms with Andy Jarvis, Director for the Future of Food of the Bezos Earth Fund. Featured on the Foodie Pharmacology podcast.

Access to Food Data Must Be Equitable and Open

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

Access to food data must be open as a public good while the benefits that result from food data must be equitably shared between the users of the resources and the providers of the resources. The Periodic Table of Food Initiative is committed to openly and equitably sharing food composition data as a global resource. Learn about how the PTFI is engaging in consensus-building to develop a model for Access and Benefit Sharing and Digital Sequencing Information (DSI) in this blog post by Dr. John de la Parra, Director of the Global Food Portfolio, Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation. Featured at rockefellerfoundation.org.