High tech production systems can produce highly nutrient dense foods. Food processing is a technology, it’s an enabler. It’s the formulations that are usually the conundrum.   Every component in food has an important role to play. There are thousands of biologically active compounds above and beyond the few dozen essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. These all work together to impact our health. We are only starting to scratch the surface on understanding how these all work together. A huge part of this is the interconnections between our heath and our microbiome. Whenever we eat, we are feeding both ourselves and our microbiome.    Dr Anneline Padayachee is a nutrition scientist at the University of Queensland who has been studying the relationships between the nutrient density of our diets, our farming systems, our health, and the health of our microbiome.  Her work focuses on not just understanding these relationships but also linking the cultural, emotional, and political aspects of what we eat to human behaviour. The role of nutrient density in our food has been ignored for centuries. The first three food revolutions, from the ancient Egyptians to the Industrial revolution and the green revolution of the mid 20th century all focused on providing cheap and abundant food made from ever cheaper ingredients. This has resulted in the massive acceleration of in chronic health diseases such as diabetes, cholesterol, and heart disease. We are now entering food revolution 4.0 which is nutrition and health innovation where health must be the focus of product development. Nutrient density in food is absolutely essential. This is irrespective of whether the foods are eaten straight off farm or processed using emerging technologies.  I recently caught up with Anneline to hear more about her work. You can listen to his conversation here.