The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) aims to answer crucial nutrition questions: What exactly is in food, how does it change based on production, and how does it impact people’s health? With its global research partners, the PTFI is developing tools to standardize global research on environmental, agricultural, and cultural factors influencing food quality based on diverse components and implications for human and planetary health. In this special series, Nutrition Insight dives into the global initiative with Selena Ahmed, PTFI’s global director based at the American Heart Association, and Mariana Barboza, research program manager for the Innovation Institute for Food and Health at the University of California (UC), Davis.