How can we eat well to live longer, feed future populations, and sustain planetary health? What's the science behind creating the world's most resilient hybrid wheat?

Food makes us who we are. The ways we eat together change lives and communities. In this Sydney Ideas event, we bring together some of the best brains to cook up new ideas and solutions to shift how we think about food for the better. They serve inspired visions for changing the way we eat, produce and understand why food is so important.

- Alice Gibson, researcher exploring emerging hybrid food environments, with expertise in the prevention and dietary management of chronic health diseases;

- Peng Zhang, who is using advanced biotechnology and genetic techniques to grow resilient and disease-resistant crops such as wheat;

- Sophie Gee (host), English professor, co-host of the popular literary classics podcast The Secret Life of Books, and author of The Barbarous Feast: Writing and Eating in the Eighteenth-Century World (forthcoming, Princeton University Press);

This Sydney Ideas event was presented on 22–23 October at Riverside Theatres, with the support of City of Parramatta as part of Parramatta Lanes, one of Sydney’s most exciting street festivals, transforming the city's streets, laneways and car parks into a playground of Eats, Beats and Art.

This podcast is a recording of a live public event held on 23 October 2025. For more links and resources, including the transcript, visit Sydney Ideas website: bit.ly/3LRYhNV