When ‘Dubai chocolate’ went viral in 2023 following a TikTok post, few people gave a second thought to the humble pistachio inside it. The viral post led to a surge in demand for the nut, reportedly forcing farmers to increase production at unsustainable rates at the cost of other crops, more water usage to keep up with the yield, a spike in prices and deterioration in its quality.
From pistachio-loaded ‘Dubai chocolate’ to ‘matcha latte’ and berry milkshakes to avocado toasts, social media viral food trends today are shaping consumption patterns at a pace the planet cannot keep up with.
Coffee, one of the most widely consumed products, is experiencing high demand and is steadily becoming unsustainable to produce as rising temperatures and erratic rainfall shrink the zones where it can be grown.
But what if the climate cost of producing something became visible before you decided to eat it? That question led 30-year-old Alisha Butala, a food and climate researcher, to imagine an idea: what will our plate look like in 2050?
“I am just trying to imagine how our plate will look in 2050,” she says. “The food we eat today, some of it may not even be there by 2050, or it will be available in less quantities or become too expensive to buy,” says Butala. She is a research consultant at Future Shift Labs, a think tank working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and various social issues.
To explore that question, Butala is developing Future Thali — an interactive digital tool that reveals the hidden carbon and water footprint of everyday meals. The focus, she says, is to first build a publicly accessible platform that allows individuals to engage with their food choices directly. Planned for launch in late April or early May, the tool will work simply. Users begin by selecting food or beverage items. The platform then displays their combined climate impact, including water usage and carbon emissions.
For example, if you select an avocado toast and coffee, the tool might show that your meal consumed 24,000 litres of water. But the tool doesn’t just provide statistics. It will translate this number into something tangible, for instance, that it equals 12,205 days of drinking water for one person, or several times a family’s monthly water supply. The aim, says Butala, is to turn abstract data into everyday understanding.
The tool then suggests climate-resilient alternatives. If a user swaps an item, for instance, replacing a second cup of coffee with lemongrass iced tea or choosing a millet-based dish over a wheat-based one, the entire analysis recalculates, showing how the environmental footprint changes.
The platform will also offer short contextual snippets. If the coffee comes from Kodagu, for example, it will highlight how excessive demand is impacting soil quality or local farming communities.
“The idea is to create awareness first so that people understand what they are eating and what impact it has. I want the tool to spark a conversation between the consumer and their plate and to spread awareness about how to choose what to eat so that it has less impact on the future,” says Butala, who holds a Master’s in Public Policy from King’s College London and has previously worked with education ministries in Delhi and Maharashtra on behavioural science curriculum.
At present, Future Thali focuses on a curated list of around 30 food and beverage items — from chicken tikka sandwich, avocado sandwich, berries milkshake, tiramisu, matcha, hazelnut spreads, almond and oat milk, iced caramel coffee, to commonly consumed items like butter chicken, masala tea, black coffee, rice and curry, vegetable khichdi. The list also includes crops that are increasingly vulnerable to the changing climate such as banana, which is threatened by climate change and fungal diseases.
The selection reflects both popular urban consumption trends and varying degrees of climate vulnerability, allowing consumers to draw comparisons between high-impact and more resilient or friendly choices.
Butala has broadly categorised the items into climate high-impact and climate-resilient foods. While the former includes commonly consumed staples and trend-driven products, the latter highlights alternatives such as ragi roti, millet rice, jowar and bajra bhakri, moong dal khichdi with vegetables, sprouted moong salad, chana masala, grilled chicken tikka, lemongrass iced tea, ginger tea, local greens and hummus.
For these climate-resilient items, the tool will not only display their footprint but also quantify how much water and carbon emissions a consumer saves by choosing them over a higher-impact alternative.
Importantly, Butala stresses that the tool is not designed to shame or scare people into drastic changes but to nudge them that they understand what easy switches they can do in everyday life to consciously balance your plate.
“I am not asking someone to completely stop eating something,” she says. “But if you are drinking four cups of coffee every day, the point is can you bring it down to two or three and replace two cups with something else? If you are eating chicken burger frequently, can you replace it with ragi wrap, can you reduce the frequency slightly? The whole idea is not to scare people or guilt them, but make them aware and present alternatives,” she says.
Butala is also exploring exhibitions and conferences, such as the recently concluded AI India summit and Mumbai Climate Week, and also international climate-focused gatherings in Europe, as spaces to install interactive panels and spark conversations around food systems and climate change.
She is also exploring partnerships to install interactive digital panels in shopping malls and other high-footfall urban locations to generate curiosity.
“Climate change for an individual often feels like a battle against governments or big corporations, where there is very little one person can do. We are trying to change that narrative. It’s about educating people that their day-to-day climate actions actually matter,” she notes.