As the neolithic agricultural model based on the production of wheat, oats, barley, corn and rice (as opposed to the polycultural forest garden model) spread across the world it was accompanied by a decline in peoples’ health : Dental problems, smaller skeletons, mineral deficiencies, repetitive strain injuries and more **.
What is known as the ‘green revolution’ in the 1950’s encouraged farmers to adopt high yield varieties and become increasingly dependant on synthetic chemicals to maintain yields and reduce losses. The impacts of these synthetics on the environment and human health are well known. Less discussed is the energy used to produce these synthetic chemicals. The Haber-Bosch process used to fix atmospheric nitrogen consumes between 1 and 2 percent of the total global energy production.
The quest for higher yielding varieties has also led, in some important crops, to a dilution effect. The ratio between carbohydrates and essential mineral salts has changed to higher levels of carbohydrates and lower levels of mineral salts.
Plant breeding over the last few decades has tended to produce crop plants that are lower in polyphenols than heritage varieties. These molecules are anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory, they protect brain health, they have anti-cancer properties and protect against heart disease. Good things to have in our diets.
The rise of supermarkets and their desire to promote “consumer choice”, meaning having a selection of different products/brands, has increased food waste in many countries. These retail outlets have also promoted, for a long time now, ultra processed foods. These are known to present a whole variety of health risks, they are strongly associated with the obesity crisis we have all heard about. These ‘foods’ and the lack of diversity in our diets are among the most important reasons why our microbiomes don’t work as well as they should.
You have no doubt heard of our intestinal microbiome, formerly called the human intestinal flora. We are witnessing a revolution in our understanding of our bodies and minds. We now know that a healthy microbiome, with a wide diversity of microorganisms, is essential for many bodily functions. We should not underestimate its importance. In our microbiomes, there are archaea, bacteria, viruses and yeasts. This set, and especially the bacteria, protect us against pathogens, they participate in the development of our immune system and they help us digest food. There is continuous communication between our guts and our brains through several pathways.
A rich diversity of these mutualistic symbiotes is essential for good health. They protect us from many things, as much as they can, pollution for example. We know that hunter-gatherers have greater diversity than most of us. Among the Hadza, for example, diseases such as colon cancer, colitis and Crohn's disease do not exist.
Current agricultural systems are principally monocultures. A field is sown with one unique crop which is followed by another. Plants other than the maincrop are killed off as much as possible. This approach creates high energy demands, ploughing (for the most part), destruction of soils and wildlife resources.
All in all it’s not a pretty picture and unfortunately it gets worse. Farmers are being hit hard by climate changes, these vary from wildfires, flooding and drought through to reduced yields, sterile pollen and lower levels of key nutrients in the crops. The agricultural world is one that is highly conservative, stick with what works is a common mantra. This is normal as each year a farmer is taking certain risks ranging from deciding when/what to sow to adverse weather conditions.
Food
Adult humans tend to be nutritionally conservative and continue to eat more or less the same foods all our lives. Globally we eat about 200 different plants but almost half of our protein and calories come from corn, rice and wheat. In certain contexts, restaurants etc, people can be more adventurous with their food choices.
Another aspect which is strongly conserved by people are their ideas about where (and how) food is produced. The farmyard scenes in children’s books colour what people will see as real food production. It is done on farms and in market gardens and we all know someone who has an allotment or at least we have seen these little gardens somewhere. We have lost the idea that food can grow all over the place and can by harvested by passers-by as was the case for most of our history, when we were hunter-gatherers. If asked most people believe that big farms produce most of our food yet “smaller farms, on average, have higher yields and harbour greater crop and non-crop biodiversity at the farm and landscape scales than do larger farms”.***
Climate change is a symptom of the crises in our agro-industrial-social systems it is not the cause of them but will feedback and make these crises worse. In the future, which is coming fast, climate change is going to force changes in agricultural practices. This is already the case in some places and the local farmers have been changing their approach to adopt what is generally called agroecology. Many farmers in these countries are switching back to traditional crops such as teff and away from wheat.
I have already written about the importance of encouraging a transition from monoculture fields to agroforestry systems. This includes systems such as sylvo-agro-pasturalism where agroforestry systems include mixed grazing. Such a transition would transform the landscape, increase biodiversity, improve soils and diversify farm produce.
There is a lot of buzz around urban farming at the moment, there are numerous examples of urban farms that have existed for many years now and the trend is increasing. This relocalisation of food production is to be encouraged, that said cities that would be capable of sustaining their population using urban production are rare if not non-existent. This is why the creation of many more direct links between the farmed areas around cities and the urban population must be a priority.
More generally we need to change our vision of where and how food is produced. This doesn’t just involve relocalising food production but also the recreation of “edible commons”. We must start planting perennial vine, tree and bush plants in and around our villages and urban areas. Those areas currently occupied with plants that don’t produce food being replaced with similar plants that do. The garden trend that has dominated for too long, growing ornamental plants in non productive gardens must cease. These areas, house gardens, parks and open spaces must now be planted with mixed orchards or even better with forest gardens. Other areas must be opened up for the many people who are on waiting lists for allotments.
Any Permaculture design includes a wild area. We have always spoken of the importance of giving back areas of land to wildlife. This isn’t the rewilding trend so popular at the moment, of planting areas with native species. The Permaculture approach is to mark out areas that will simply be left to develop as they wish. Another aspect of the rewilding movement is that it is being done on land that could grow food. In Permaculture, as I have said, wild areas are accorded a high importance. We also create semi-wild and semi-managed areas, this model would be well adapted to many of the areas being rewilded. The Permaculture semi-wild areas are full of biodiversity and they are productive for us.
The vision over decades now for people like me and my peers has been as above. Villages, towns and cities full of vegetation, principally crop plants. These built areas are surrounded by farmland that produce for the urban area. The gardens, open spaces and parks planted with forest gardens. Included in this vision is urban small animal husbandry, running sheep and goats instead of lawn mowers, hens, rabbits and fish production. A lot of what I have just discussed is being put into place by millions of people all over the world. It is what I call the quiet revolution, people just getting on with it in their local areas.
Something that is also vitally important is that we have a good look at the what we grow and eat. The whole subject is a total mess, food fads have come and gone, nutritional advice continually changes. The food distribution system through supermarkets skews prices towards processed foods which can be sold at close to their marginal cost. Stocks of fresh fruit and vegetables have to be renewed at regular intervals which makes them more expensive than the processed foods. People from low socio-economic status families spend proportionally more of their income on food than people from high socio-economic status families. They are pushed towards buying the cheaper processed foods which are of lower nutritional quality and in the majority of cases are bad for our health. Too many people are forced to buy the small packets and containers of food which are proportionally more expensive than the bigger packets and containers. Food banks are being overwhelmed by the demand placed on them. It’s all a stupid mess.
In my line of work I frequently have to discuss food choices with my clients, each time the discussions reveal how confused the subject has become for people. Are there any fixed points from which we can discuss food and diet?
We are all different and we each have different specific needs. For example two identical twins born in the same way in the same place to the same mother (of course!) have different microbiomes. Only around 30% of the population of microbes (type and proportion) are the same. Some people can digest milk easily some not at all. Some people can digest leguminous plant seeds, chick peas, beans, lentils etc, for others it is difficult and the cause of flatulence.
When we eat and how often has a strong impact on the gut. Continual snacking disrupts the gut ‘clock’ and can lead to dietary induced obesity. Time restricted feeding does the opposite and can reset the gut clock and our circadian rhythms.
Changes in physical activity tends to change the type of microbes in our guts. Changes in diet does the same, the microbiome has a certain adaptability it is in fact continually changing.
Our diets lack diversity. This negatively impacts the diversity of microbes in our microbiomes. Such a lack of diversity is associated with higher levels of a number of diseases and the quality of our life when we get older. The current food production and distribution system encourages us to eat diets that are insufficiently diverse. The system also tends to reinforce our personal dietary conservatism.
Our diets lack sufficient fibre which is essential for good gut health.
We have 3 hydroxycarboxylic acid (HCA) receptors. As do our Great ape cousins, the rest of the global mammal population that has been studied only have 2 HCA. Our 3rd receptor signals the presence of fermented foods to our immune systems. It enables us to eat fruits that have started to decay. This links in to the health advantages of lacto-fermented foods to which we all seem genetically adapted. These foods have anti-inflammatory properties and encourages good gut health.
The quantity of calories consumed is not directly related to weight gain or loss. It depends on the individual, we are all different. When eating the same number of calories, a cake say, some people will have a blood sugar spike which is followed by a sugar dip. This encourages overeating, another individual will have less of a sugar dip and will not feel hungry again so rapidly.
So where does this leave us? We need to put aside, for the most part, any preconceived ideas we have about what is a good or bad diet. We also have to reconsider when and how often we eat. We have to bring it back to the fact that we are all different and we have different needs. In general the only good reference is our own bodies. I am what I eat and what and when I eat should be good for who I am. We, each one of us, need to slow down and to start listening to our bodies.
Local production for local needs is a mantra that we hear a lot, ultra local production is another that we hear about more and more. Being able to go into a garden and choose what I need to eat is essential but this also means that food growers must cultivate a much wider range of crops. For years now I have proposed the idea that a food grower is responsible for the health of their clients. In an ideal world such a person will interview me and help me do an assessment of my dietary needs. They will then produce a hamper of fruit, vegetables and aromatic herbs adapted to who I am. Should this seem problematic for the food producer to start off they could use the Zoe programme** created by the scientist Tim Spector. This tests how an individual responds to a variety of foods over a two week period.
Food producers should also reintroduce edible wild foods their client’s diets, these plants are often seen as being weeds and are destroyed. This seems strange as they are highly nutritious plants that appear all by themselves in our gardens. This is something that appeals strongly to me as a food producer, plants which grow by themselves and are good for us to eat mean less work for me and a wider variety for my clients. In order to valorise and promote these plants I harvest them and then they are included in the meals produced in our restaurant. It has been fascinating for me to notice that over the last 6 years very few people have asked what a ‘wild salad’ is! Despite the fact that people are eating plants that they, in all probability, have never eaten before, yet were common in the diets of their foreparents. I used to run survival courses and we would harvest and eat wild food plants, it was always fun to watch people take big portions which they couldn’t finish. These plants are rich and the body responds by cutting the persons appetite well before they have consumed what for them would be a normal quantity of food.
The other question is when and how often to eat. This is partly resolved when we start to eat what is good for us, as individuals. The body will be better able self-regulate it’s appetite and we will feel hungry less often. This means that my lifestyle should allow me to eat when I feel hungry and not enforce times of day when I must eat or go without. Take breakfasts for example, many of us are obliged to eat just after getting up because we are off to work and won’t be able to eat before lunch time. Yet many people aren’t hungry at this time, they get hungry later which means that I should be able to take meal breaks when I need to eat. We often eat big meals in the evening when this is really the opposite of what we should do. Digesting food is a complex and energy intensive process and negatively effects sleep quality.
**https://joinzoe.com/
*** https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00699-2