Comida. Tecnología y futuro de la producción de alimentos

Five thousand years ago, the stele of Pharaoh Djoser depicted weeping children and elderly people cowering from hunger. In Ancient Rome, a farmer could barely manage a ton of wheat a year. Today, that figure has multiplied a thousandfold; but we face an unprecedented challenge: feeding more than 10 billion people on a planet under pressure from climate, water, and biodiversity. Every dish conceals centuries of ingenuity, invisible technologies, and geopolitical balances. A simple fried egg encapsulates civilization well: livestock farming, fire, metallurgy, and the salt trade. We produce 11 billion tons of food annually—3.7 kilos per person per day—and yet 30% of fruit is lost in logistics, and one in four European trucks travels empty. China stores enough grain to feed its population for almost a year and buys land the size of Ireland in Africa; our cows wear GPS sensors; vertical farms increase productivity twentyfold; While saffron fetches thousands of euros per kilo… laboratories are already producing it without the need for traditional farming. This book unravels this global landscape: CRISPR genetic scissors, drones patrolling farms, the nitrogen industry, ghost kitchens for food delivery, the Loess Plateau restored by the Asian giant, and lab-grown proteins. From the preserves Appert invented for Napoleon to today's bioreactors, the history of food is the history of civilization. What we put on our plates tomorrow will be decided today at the intersection of history, technology, and power.