Diplomacy through food: under Hillary Clinton’s reign as Secretary of State, state visits to Washington now include dumpling and shortbread making, and a program that links chefs in embassies around the world is in the works: (full story, New York Times)

I’ve got to hand it to the British Airways marketing team: in an effort to beat stigmas against heinous airplane food, they’ve launched a new “Height Cuisine” campaign which uses videos about how altitude affects taste, plus at-home experiments on how taste changes at 35,000 ft.: (full story, Tasting Table)

The Arctic Apple, a genetically engineered apple that does not turn brown when sliced or bruised, could become one of the first genetically engineered versions of a fruit that people directly bite into; is this really the way to increase apple consumption? (full story, New York Times)

The man is watching your eyes in the grocery aisles: to find out what really nabs shoppers’ attention, companies like Procter & Gamble are combining 3D simulations of product designs with retina tracking cameras that can determine which designs got noticed in the first 10 seconds a shopper looks at a shelf: (full story, Wall Street Journal)

Large corporations increasingly own the organic food industry, as agri-food giants like Coca-Cola, Cargill, General Mills and Kraft have gobbled up most of the smaller brands. How much do you know about it? Take this (challenging!) quiz to find out: (full story, New York Times)

On that note, is the organic movement a victim of its own success? As corporate membership on the board that controls organic certification has increased, so, too has the number of non-organic materials (i.e. carrageenan) approved as organic: (full story, New York Times)