--- title: Five Best Ideas: The Dark Side of Cheap Eats description: There's a dark side to cheap eats, should drones pollinate our plants and more. canonical: https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-13T17:00:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:04.747Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Dark Side of Cheap Eats og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Dark Side of Cheap Eats twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Dark Side of Cheap Eats by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 13, 2017 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 13, 2017 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Everybody loves cheap eats, but there’s a dark side.**](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/12/512905725/cheap-eats-cheap-labor-the-hidden-human-costs-of-those-lists) By Diep Tran at _NPR_ **2\.** [**We’re trying to save the bees, but if we can’t, should drones pollinate our plants?**](http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0209/Robo-bees-Should-pollinating-drones-take-over-for-honeybees) By Eva Botkin-Kowacki in the _Christian Science Monitor_ **3\.** [**In a Trump administration, here’s how robots will shape the future of war.**](https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-02-10/how-drones-and-robotics-may-shape-future-conflict-under-president-trump) By Jeb Sharp at _PRI’s the World_ **4\.** [**This is how to make public transportation safer for women.**](https://howwegettonext.com/how-to-make-public-transportation-safer-for-women-b68678a2edb2#.oglrwgf7u) By Christine Ro in _How We Get To Next_ **5\.** [**State police across the country are using big data to make roads safer.**](http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/02/09/troopers-use-big-data-to-predict-crash-sites) By Jenni Bergal at _Stateline_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/"},"headline":"The Dark Side of Cheap Eats","datePublished":"2017-02-13T17:00:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:04.747Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/","keywords":["Innovation","Food","robots","Drones","big data"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4669052/the-dark-side-of-cheap-eats/","name":"The Dark Side of Cheap Eats"}}]}] ```