Welcome to FP’s first-ever food issue in which we travel across this hungry planet of ours at a time when skyrocketing prices are dictating politics from the Middle East to Madagascar. The special section, which travels from the yuppies who’ve appropriated the miracle food of the Incas to a darkened kitchen in Baghdad where women battered by war came together to celebrate life, explores the food wars of the 21st century, debunks the conventional wisdom about hunger and poverty, shows us 10 ways we really are what we eat, and asks leading experts to predict the future of food.

Eat, Drink, Protest

By Annia Ciezadlo

1 Billion People Are Hungry

By Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

The Baguettes of War

By Anna Badkhen

Street Eats

An FP Slide Show

The 21st-century Food Wars

By Lester R. Brown

How Food Explains the World

By Joshua E. Keating