American Heart Association
Video
Food EDU’s Foodomics & Society course is designed to help early career scientists, nutritionists and Good Food Fellows explore how foodomics can support human and planetary health. This case study needed to bring those ideas to life through a story grounded in place, people and practice, not a lecture.
Set in Northeast Thailand, the story focuses on wild edible mushrooms that have been foraged for generations for food and medicinal use, while also playing a critical role in forest ecosystems. The film needed to show how community knowledge and scientific methods can work together to understand biomolecular composition, respond to climate and land-use pressures and support long-term livelihoods.
We developed a documentary approach built around three voices, combining community perspectives with scientific expertise. The narrative opens with mushrooms as a cultural and economic anchor, then expands to show the links between people, forests and ecosystem health, before moving into the lab to explain how foodomics helps reveal nutritional and medicinal properties and how these insights can guide decision-making.
Filming was planned to capture the full pathway from forest to market to laboratory. On location, we filmed in the community and forest landscapes of Sakon Nakhon Province, alongside field activity such as mushroom harvesting, cooking traditions and local enterprise. In Bangkok and Nakhon Pathom, we filmed in markets and at Mahidol University’s Institute of Nutrition to show sample preparation and analysis, building a clear bridge between traditional knowledge, food environments and research practice.
The production was shaped for learning. We used a strong story structure, guided interviews and carefully selected visuals so the film could carry key course themes such as community engaged research, the role of metadata and the importance of linking composition science with cultural and ecological context.
- Documentary case study video produced for the Foodomics & Society course module
- Multi-location filming across community, forest, markets and laboratory settings
- Story structure designed to support learning, with clear links between practice, science and conservation
- Featured on Food EDU’s course platform as a key case study for learners exploring foodomics in practice
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