I just finished a little course (free to take) on Being a Regenerative Consumer: What you need to know about organic food & farming to have a positive impact for yourself and the planet, offered by Rodale Research. This introduces consumers, like you and me, to organic and regenerative approaches to both food and a bit about medicine as well.
I recommend taking this course if these concepts are fairly new to you, consider taking this little course to learn a bit about what this means for farming, rural communities, our environment, approach to illnesses, and food. Just remember it has a point of view. This concept is so important, I have heavily noted sources for my thoughts on this matter.
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Changing Farming
We cannot individually change the world to our specific preferences, but that does not mean we cannot have impact. What we can do is continue to live our lives as ethically as feasible, influence those around us, and use the power of being a consumer to our advantage. The goal is to make our purchases matter by buying consciously.
Think about this: on average we eat ~1 ton of food (2,000#) every year, which means I have consumed ~65 tons of food to date (1 2021; 2 2011). This is a significant amount of food over each of our lifetimes and either we are following by eating what industry marketers have told us to want, or we are leading by eating the foods we know are nutritious and sustainable.
If that is not enough to convince my readers to be selective in their food consumption, consider that while our bodies interact with the world via our senses, there are only two ways the outside world enters our bodies physically. Through breathing, and through eating. In these two ways we expose our internal biology directly to the outside environment, for good or bad. When thought about this way, the way farmers directly or indirectly pollute our environment is what we breath, to the way farmers grow food that we eat and the liquids we consume.
It seems to me, given how important farmers are to our basic survival, we should want to have some sway over the farmers practices. Given the options of ways to farm, I would always choose for farmers to be both regenerative and organic in their practices.
Changing Medical Approaches
Rodale released a white paper that made a case for “regenerative organic agriculture” as a means for improving our health. They started by acknowledging that many people in the USA are now living longer than their parents and grandparents, even though it has fallen a bit due to the pandemic. But Rodale continues, by saying living longer does not necessarily mean we are living healthier or happier.
Conventional farmers are still using antibiotics, and other human medicines, not to spur animal growth like they once did, but to respond to growing animal health issues due to industrial agriculture (3 2020; 4 2008). That means it is in our food and environment, and there are studies that connect the bacterial and fungal resistance buildup has been related to farmers use of these compounds (4 2021; 5 2019; 6, 2018).
- Of all antibiotics sold in the United States, 80% are sold for use in animal agriculture.
- 58% of those are excreted into the environment and more than half end up in the soil.
They point to a number of issues to make their case, and I combined their findings with a few of my own. The point being made, is that despite all the progress industrialization has brought, it has not improved farming, food, or healthcare, and in fact has caused serious issues that have resulted in propagating poor health for all of us.
Industrialization -> Factory Farming -> Increased Life Style Diseases
- The USDA, and other governmental agencies that have great influence over farming, but they are politically and lobbying influenced entities, that do not have sustainability, nutrition and nutritional density as a fundamental charge to guide policies (6a 2020; 7 2019; 8 2016; 9).
- Since the start of the industrial age, and guided by governmental agencies, farms have been coalescing into very large, mono-culture, mechanized agricultural businesses focused on maximizing yields, shelf life, transport and profit (10 2020; 11 2018).
- Part of shelf life and profit making has been the processing of food idealized for shipping, and a long lived shelf life brought about via chemicals, packaging, and modifying the food to fit into tins, boxes, or plastic containers (12 2019).
- Lifestyle diseases (obesity, diabetes, heart disease) are on the rise; which is equated with smoking, sedentary lifestyles, and food (13 2021; 14 2018; 15 2004).
The UN states: 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 61 per cent of all deaths — 35 million — and 49 per cent of the global burden of disease were attributable to chronic diseases. By 2030, the proportion of total global deaths due to chronic diseases is expected to increase to 70 per cent and the global burden of disease to 56 per cent.
Conventional Farming -> Malnourishment + Pollution -> Chronic Disease
- The normal USA diet is attributed, in part, to industrial farming which has prioritized yields, shelf life, transport, and profit over nutrition; it is also the case that processed food is part of the industrial market and is cheap (16 2021; 17 2018; 18 2013; 19).
- Conventional industrial farming produces food with less nutrition, but also increases workers, and their local communities, exposure to potentially toxic chemicals and environmental pollutants (20 2021; 21 2020; 22 2019; 23 2010; 24).
- The USA has communities where the people are well-fed but malnourished, well-fed but suffering with asthma and other responses to pollution resulting in chronic diseases 25 2018; 26 2018; 27 2012).
Chronic Disease -> Medical Nutritional Advice -> Solution
- Despite the link between farm + people and food + health, the overall USA healthcare system does not prioritize nutritional education for doctors, nurses and other medical professionals (28 2019; 29 2018; 30 2017).
- Further, the health care system under-prioritizes diet-based treatment considerations or plans in providing treatments for diseases (31 2018; 32 2017; 33 2016).
- Even in hospital cafeterias and food service they serve food that does not support health. I believe they need to have actual relationships with local farmers for farm-to-table fresh food (34 2022; 35).
- It is my firm belief that the solutions have to be coupled with Organic Regenerative Farming with Regenerative Healthcare (36 2020; 37 2019).
- Adopt regenerative organic farming practices,
- Improve diets through organic, whole, nutritional foods,
- Support healthy lifestyle changes,
- Teach medical students to use diet and food as part of any medical treatment plans.
Changing Food Scientists Approach
I follow a food scientist, who spends her time on TikTok correcting people who make broad, unsubstantiated claims and share conspiracies about food. She plays an important part in correcting people who are jumping into conspiracies as a result of doing their own on-line research, without really understanding what that research is saying, and not saying .
But often, she also makes statements that I question, even while listening to her and agreeing in part. For instance, many of her responses to people claiming a particular food is toxic, because it contains a chemical that is poisonous, is “you need to check the dose”. Her point is that the FDA, or other governmental agencies, have approved that chemicals use, provided it is under certain, measurable levels.
But her statement is true only if you believe that governmental agency is correct and trustworthy (37 2017; 38 2014; 39), and you isolate that person’s consumption to only once, not a lifetime. Well I do not fully trust government’s policies as being for the greater good, due to financial and political influences.
Plus, food contains a multitude of pesticides, heavy metals, and other chemicals that may in fact be below FDA requirements (40 2021; 41 2021; 42 2019). But, if the food I am eating contains 27 different pesticides, heavy metals and chemicals, where are the studies about the accumulation of all those items over a lifetime? In other words, just because the FDA considers it safe to eat chemical A at 1 teaspoon per serving, what happens if I eat chemical A-B-C-D-E-F…Z at various levels, over a lifetime? Just even common sense will say some of those compounds will accumulate over time and produce harm, while others may interact with compounds and produce disease.
She also says that these components in food are measured in urine, which shows that the body is flushing these toxins out of the body and thus implies it is safe to eat. But since we do not know the intake, it is kind of hard to say it was all flushed out.
- What if my kidney or other organs are damaged?
- What if my body does not filter everything out?
- What about the PFAS chemicals that are not removed and actually do accumulate in our bodies?
Salutation
So my response to all the studies and opinions is: I would rather avoid a known harmful compound, pesticide, toxin or heavy metal altogether, than eat a bit of it every day. Thus, I prefer organic food, and especially if it is pesticide free. But overall my preference is food from a small to medium-sized family farm that is practicing regenerative agricultural and producing organic foods.
To me, it matters how my food is grown.
—Patty
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