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Nutrition Beyond Measurables
A more holistic consideration of Grass fed beef.
By Teri Clayton
In this article, I will be trying to share a broader perspective of the benefits of grass fed beef. This is by no means a full consideration, but aims to at least point towards a broader view of the benefits of grass fed beef.
From the beginning
Once upon a time we viewed nutrition through the fractured lens of basic units – namely carbohydrates, fats and proteins, this developed alongside a deeper understanding of the need for a variety of essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) were quantified based on the minimal dosage required to prevent symptoms of deficiency. It is already obvious from this, that sticking to RDA’s, for example, is in no way intended to reveal the optimal levels of nutrition required to achieve peak health.
This old story of nutrition guides us in how to ensure we are getting the nutrients required for survival, without developing overt symptoms of disease.
Thankfully, our nutritional story is evolving, as we have developed a good working knowledge of bioavailable nutrition. For example, we now understand that not all forms of vitamins and minerals are equal. Different mineral and vitamin salts, or protein complexes have different affinities for absorption in the human gut, as well as physiological activity.
Those seeking to supplement with magnesium, for example, will find themselves faced with an overwhelming amount of choice between magnesium complexes – ranging from the cheap and popular magnesium oxide salts, through to the pricey but more bioavailable magnesium bisglycinate(1), or neuro-targeted threonate complexes.
Current science is now heading deeper down the nutritional rabbit hole into the stories of nano-particle packages and genetic messaging with micro and messenger RNA, as well as the microbiome and evolutionary adaptation. We are, for example, beginning to understand that the microbiome of each individual is totally unique, therefore each individual will have changeable and different requirements for nutrients to others.
Viewed from the current nutritional ‘basics’ story, it is now well known and accepted that grass fed beef and dairy products are different (and superior) in their nutrient profiles compared to grain fed (2,3,4). Yet there is far more to uncover about the benefits of grass fed beef than basic nutrition, as you will discover!
We will move through this article expanding our understanding of nutrition WAY beyond measurables, so let’s begin on a solid rooted foundation that will allow us to rise up and above the limits of the current ‘nutritional benefits’ paradigm.
So what do we currently know (and can measure) regarding the benefits of grass fed beef?
Nutritional benefits of grass fed beef
- High in bioavailable immune boosting zinc
- Contains brain and eye health supporting omega 3 fatty acids
- Highly bioavailable source of haem iron
- Source of conjugated linolenic acid
- “Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is the only fatty acid shown unequivocally to inhibit carcinogenesis in experimental animals (5)
- High in precursors for vitamin A and E
- Source of cancer fighting antioxidants glutathione (GT) and superoxide dismutase
- Contains Vitamin B12, B3, B6
- Complete essential amino acid profile
- Enhanced micronutrients absorption through the ‘Meat Factor’ (6)
‘Research spanning three decades suggests that grass-based diets can significantly improve the fatty acid (FA) composition and antioxidant content of beef’ (5)
Several studies suggest that grass-based diets elevate precursors for Vitamin A and E, as well as cancer fighting antioxidants such as glutathione (GT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity as compared to grain-fed contemporaries (5)
Viewed through the lens of scientifically verifiable nutrients, the picture is still anything but straightforward. Previously unexplored benefits from animal sourced foods,for example, are still being discovered, including the presence of phytonutrients and something known as ‘The Meat Factor’. The meat factor is described as the ability of muscle meat to enhance the absorption of micronutrients and minerals such as zinc and iron from plant foods. Beef for example can enhance iron absorption from plant based foods through the presence of something called L-α-glycerophosphocholine(6). Muscle meats contain compounds such as phospholipids that are thought to enhance the bioavailability of certain nutrients through the creation of nano-particles.
The more we explore this realm of nutrition scientifically – the more we are led back to the conclusion that nature’s intelligent design leads not towards definitive knowledge, but only towards greater wonder and awe. When it comes to nutrition, it’s a case of the more we learn, the more we realise how much more there is still to know. Every answer we discover yields even more questions. Will we ever know enough in order to unlock and understand a replicable code for perfect nutrition? No, not whilst we are continually adapting, living on an evolving planet in an ever changing and expanding universe!
In natural systems made up of living forms, life is ever evolving and adapting and what works one year, may not work the next, what works for one person will not always work for another and what creates health in one situation could very easily create imbalance and disease in another. Nature doesn’t just move and grow randomly, it is made up of balancing relationships that develop in a unique way, depending upon the environment in which they develop..
Nature truly does know best and we would do well to spend more time learning for no other reason but to live in greater awe and wonder at the miracle of life, instead of ignorantly attempting to control it.
Environmental benefits:
It goes without saying that grass fed, agro-ecologically farmed meat is a huge boon to the health of the environment. Our work is centred around supporting regenerative grazing as a key step in restoring the health of our ecosystems that necessarily involve humans and our nutrient requirements.
Here is a highly oversimplified view of the benefits:
(We discuss in other articles and on-line courses how holistically managed grazing animals contribute to the benefits listed below)
- Improved soil health
- Improved biodiversity
- Increased worm counts
- Increased beetles
- Increased spiders
- etc
- Reduced flood risk
- Increased carbon sequestration
- Improved hydrology cycles
- Improved ecosystem services
- Cleaner water
You can also find out more through listening to regenerative agriculture consultant Caroline Grindrod in the following podcast.
Many will also already be aware of the work of Allan Savory and it’s well worth listening to his tragic story of how he came to understand the importance of grazing animals in preventing and reversing the desertification of landscapes.
Socio-economic perspectives:
There are a plethora of socio-economic benefits to grass fed beef, here again are just a few examples:
- Greater food security
- Nutrient density, reduces risk of malnutrition
- Improved Farmer quality of life
- Increased social resilience
- Support for localised supply chains
- Less reliance on inputs ensures many small scale local producers are able to supply fresh wholefoods nationwide.
What is now also coming to light alongside our evolving nutritional story, is the need to reconsider the role of nutrient dense animal sourced foods in our regular diets. We need to address the issues we are facing with malnutrition, especially in areas with a poorer socio-economic status, whilst also transitioning over to agro-ecologically produced food, (including meat). It is not acceptable to withdraw nutrient dense animal sourced foods from the tables of families and schools, where concerns over stunted children’s growth are growing at an alarming rate (7). This is especially worrying when you consider that most of our systematic decision making is still working from the outdated model that separates nutrition into very basic parts.
In our opinion, there urgently needs to be an effective public effort to increase the availability of nutrient dense animal sourced foods from systems that restore biodiversity and environmental health AND nourish the future generation. If the public doesn’t demand it, it isn’t going to happen.
A broader and deeper perspective
The world as we currently know it relies heavily upon neatly packaged data fed into predictive models, in order to define aims and objectives and devise official guidelines. This approach, whilst being a useful tool, is inevitably based on faulty assumptions, (what we currently consider to be true). This, of course, will be amended and adjusted as human knowledge increases. It also entirely dismisses as yet unmeasured factors and cannot account for known unknowns (what we know that we don’t know), or unknown unknowns (what we don’t know that we don’t know).
When it comes to dealing with the need for dramatic change – as we are – we cannot afford to be working with maps that are full of faulty assumptions, dead ends and blind spots. We need to collect together as complete a picture as possible, that includes quantitative, as well as qualitative considerations. A picture that offers us a glimpse into possibilities that would otherwise not be recognised. This is why we support the use of holistic frameworks that allows the use of a range of tools, (that includes predictive models), within the context of complex, interdependent and evolving systems.
We know that the more we can zoom out and look at the bigger picture the more likely we are to discover, as yet unseen solutions and reveal potential outcomes previously unconsidered.
Thinking of the bigger picture when it comes to human civilisation, it is abundantly clear to us that grass fed beef is vitally important when it comes to creating a better future. We have co-evolved alongside livestock and diverse grasslands are an essential part of ecology. With the little amount we do truly know about how to live in harmony with nature and how to achieve better health, we need to preserve the relationships that nature has evolved into.
It is time to stop making decisions based largely upon data and consider a more complete and humane perspective, with the humility to allow room for what we do not yet know.
Evolution of life
Discoveries in science are now emerging to reveal the extent to which everything upon our planet is interconnected. From the terpenes released from tree leaves that boost the human immune system (8) and the plant messages distributed at superspeeds along underground highways of fungal mycelium, to the sharing of evolutionary codes between microbial organisms within different species (9), a new paradigm in biology is about to go mainstream.
This new paradigm does not simply necessitate an update to current editions of knowledge – but a near total re-write of our understanding of biology as we know it. Human beings are not disconnected and separate from the natural world around us. Our biology does not function independently of it – but in sync with it.
When one truly begins to understand the impact of HOW we grow our food on the capacity for the harmonious evolution of life, it becomes immediately obvious why we must learn how to produce our food in greater harmony with nature.
The optimal habitat for ruminants are glades that open out on the edges of wooded areas, enabling these rich habitats to support a myriad of creatures and apex predators and their co-evolution into cycles that create ever greater homeostasis and balance.
These glades can be created by humans, but also, (according to Paul Stamets), the great invisible fungal architects (such as the honey fungus) that bring down trees, converting wood into water and rich deposits that will fuel the growth of rapidly growing meadow species upon which ruminants rely. This process of glade formation, leads to nutrient rich deposits being laid down into the soil before the whole system heads into another cycle of succession that can grow and sustain climax species once more.
Long term effects on animal and environmental health
Farming grass fed beef leads to a genetic lineage that has to work in harmony with nature and is well adapted to specific environments to promote disease resistance, nutrient utilisation and adaptation to climate conditions.
Systems that rely upon supplementary feeding of cattle and selecting cattle for rapid growth – leads to a weakening of the connection between livestock genes and their environment.
Through allowing animals to genetically adapt to naturally present conditions instead of synthetically created ones, we support animals to move towards greater resilience and health.
Effects of Choice and Human Free Will
When making a decision, every individual human being upon this planet, will arrive at their own choice via a totally unique route. Even when the outcome is the same, the way they make the decision is unique.
People make decisions using an array of tools, sometimes leaning entirely on a type of feeling, or reason and at other times seeking a balanced choice that draws from a complex set of considerations. These tools include researching statistical information, ‘gut’ feeling, previous experience and learning, opinions, objective and reasonable thought, advice/guidance from others, social conditioning, emotions/feelings, a sixth/intuitive sense, conscience, and many others.
Even if someone is making a choice whilst relying solely on quantitative, factual information, predictive models, or fixed algorithms to inform them – the final decision willdecision, will inevitably be coloured by the unique considerations of an individual. The computer may say ‘NO’, but a human being will have their own responses, thoughts and feelings about this, even if they go along with the decision of the computer. All decisions made by a human being are coloured by the human capacity to make a free will choice.
When someone selects a meal or snack from a cafe, shop or even vending machine, there will be many factors, (conscious or otherwise), that govern which food is finally selected.
Can you recognise some of the factors that may have coloured your choices in a cafe/restaurant, such as:
- Looking for the most value for money?
- Looking for the most filling option?
- Looking for the food that is most convenient to eat?
- Anticipation of a feel-good rush when eating the food?
- Feeling shame when looking at unhealthy options?
- Catchy marketing phrases/slogans repeating in your mind?
- A sense of pride/achievement in choosing a healthier option?
- Logical assessment based purely on number crunching, i.e. price or calories?
Though people’s final choices often appear simple – human decision making is complex, nuanced, contextual and most importantly entirely unique. It is therefore not appropriate for anyone to define what is the right, or the wrong way to make decisions – because everyone has to work with what works well for them. Many people for example would not feel comfortable letting a computer make a decision for them – because they may sense that this approach itself is inhumane and wrong.
Free will choice and the life learning that comes from decisions we each make, is a key part of human development and maturation. When a child decides to touch a hot oven, they soon realise that was a bad idea, learning not to do it again and also (the more powerful lesson) that making a good decision is important – because the consequences of bad decisions can be painful.
Many young adults often learn that drinking too much alcohol is a bad idea and will vow (and often fail) to never drink again. The learning is two-fold –
- They learn that drinking too much alcohol causes uncomfortable effects
- They realise that the choices they make are important to their wellbeing (and the wellbeing of others).They therefore take greater care in the future when making decisions.
If humans did not have the capacity to make choices, or experience the effects of those choices – they would learn very little and their lives would feel pretty meaningless. It’s in the realisation that we can make good or bad decisions that we are driven to contemplate our choices, develop greater self-awareness and better our lives – which is good for everyone. Humans thrive in a meaningful life, when they discover, through learning, how they can make things better.
Underlying intentions and factors that influence decisions can lead to a totally different outcome – even when making the exact same choice! Let’s try to understand this with some imaginary examples:
Let’s compare two people who make the same choice but experience a totally different outcome due to having different intentions.
- Person 1 – Choses to eat a processed sugary food, because that was all that was available in their price range and they needed to eat something.
- Person 2 – Chooses to eat the same processed sugary food because they just want to eat something ‘nice’ as a snack, even though they have already eaten.
Here both people make the same choice – but follow an entirely different decision-making process. Perhaps Person 1 would feel fine about their choice, but Person 2 may feel guilty and subsequently feel rubbish.
How do you imagine each person felt after eating their choice of food in the examples above?
It is possible to see how the same choice can lead to different outcomes in individuals.
This is an important key understanding for individuals – because often it is not simply WHAT we choose that leads to detrimental or beneficial effects, but also WHY we chose it in the first place.
If we feel bad about our intentions, even though we made a ‘good’ choice, – then the outcome is still likely to unfold badly.
So what the heck does this all have to do with the benefits of grass fed beef?
A personal story
I spent years buying organic produce from supermarkets because I wanted to reduce my family’s exposure to unnecessary chemicals, not because I wanted to support the creation of/transition towards a better farming system.
Of course I understood that buying organic would have an effect on what supermarkets sold, but for me it was not my primary intention. I began to realise however that my food choices were not contributing to a better way forward – from a more holistic perspective.
I had absolutely no idea who was growing my food, how it was being grown and how that impacted communities or small scale producers. At that time it was also becoming increasingly apparent to me that small scale food producers were struggling, unable to sell to supermarkets,disconnected from supply chains and undervalued, or not even on the radar of their local communities. What had I been thinking – buying organic food in supermarkets all those years?
So with that, I set a new intention to obtain healthful food from farmers and outlets that were truly geared towards creating a better food system. It was through this intention that I could see how I may contribute towards a better future, not just for my family – but for farmers and others too.
The happy ending to my story was that through creating a more holistic, improved intention, I discovered regenerative agriculture and the availability of grass fed beef from small scale loving stewards of the land. I remember the feeling of ‘rightness’ as I cooked up my first oxtail soup made from regeneratively grazed beef, raised by farmers who loved farming and the land. As I ate that bowl of soup, with every spoonful I felt relaxed, contented, at peace with my food choices. I was now able to find ways to feed my family more nutrient dense, chemical free food AND I also now knew that my choices were contributing in some way to a better future. A better future for my own children, for nature, whole communities and all future generations.
We now understand that how we feel when we eat has a profound effect on our ability to digest our food.
If we eat when we are feeling stressed due to our sympathetic nervous system being active, then the blood flow to the gut will be reduced and we won’t digest the food properly. Feeling content and happy about our food choices supports the ‘rest and digest’ parasympathetic nervous system, allowing blood to flow towards and support improved digestion and regenerative processes.
Because I now felt good about my choices, my intention and the way my food was grown I could now really relax and enjoy meals with my family. My own ease and enjoyment surely impacts the mood and digestion of my family as they eat too. Everything is so interconnected!
The benefits of regeneratively produced food go way beyond nutrients, they are interwoven with the very fabric of what it is to be human.
If you want to make good decisions when it comes to your food – think, feel, research, contemplate, observe and learn. Only you know what food works for you – we are all unique, evolving and ever changing – the only way to create a better way forward is to learn how to become more balanced and aware.
All of this matters. It matters more than you think it does, because the heart is intelligent too and how we each feel about what we are eating needs to be taken into consideration. We cannot measure our way to a better future, because some things simply cannot be measured.
References:
- https://aspenjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0148607194018005430
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308814608012612
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2846864/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22060866/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20219103/
- https://academic.oup.com/advances/advance-article/doi/10.1093/advances/nmac089/6687799
- https://www.bapen.org.uk/bapen-statements/child-malnutrition-in-england-doubles
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793341/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536854/
Plant-based ‘meats’
Plant-based, does it literally mean that the product contains plants or is it created in a plant?
Primal Living is energy-efficient living
The increase in the cost of living and, in particular, the cost of energy and food is terrifying and sad – especially for the vulnerable.
Regenerative Agriculture – the answer(s)
By Fieke van Halder
In my role supporting Caroline with Marketing and Education, I spend many hours doing research for Root of Nature courses, Wilderculture training days, Primal Web articles and Primal Meats blogs. At the end of most of those research days, I have gathered more depressing figures on the terrible situation our planet is in and what we have done to it over the last decades.
I know it’s not just me, there is a rising awareness about the harm industrial agriculture is doing to the planet, the damage it is doing to our animals’ health and our health. The facts and figures I read around the sixth mass extinction we are currently in, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and desertification make me feel utterly desperate.
What keeps me going is that I truly believe I am supporting an answer to the crises. I believe our food systems are crippled and we need to implement a solution fast.
Regenerative agriculture is becoming more mainstream, the hordes visiting @groundswell_agriculture are a great example of that. However, with it rises the skepticism and questions. In this article we will try to explain the basics of Regenerative Agriculture, the routes that can take you there and the practices that come with it.
Regenenerative Agriculture, what?
Regenerative Agriculture (Regen Ag for short) is a growing movement under both big companies (Arla, McDonalds) and smaller farms (James Rebanks, Nikki Yoxall, Wilder Gowbarrow, FAI to just name a few).
The citizen awareness is growing as well, powered by the current climate crisis. Never before have so many of us tried to make a difference with our diet choices, may it be vegan, vegetarian, foraging or eating regenerative. Most of us choose our diets because of the same principles. We want to work on restoring our climate, preserving nature and its biodiversity and improving our health. Sadly, not all diet choices seem to have the desired effect.
Let’s explore what Regen Ag is and if it could give us the desired answers from our chosen diets.
Regenerative Agriculture has only been around since the late 1980’s. In 1983, Robert Rodale of the Rodale Institute began using the term, and led the creation of the “Regenerative Agriculture Association” sometime in the 1980s. After Robert Rodale’s unexpected death in 1990, the Rodale Institute dropped the term, focusing on promoting Organic Agriculture for more than 20 years. A couple of companies including Terra Genesis started using “Regenerative Agriculture” between 2009–2013, the Rodale Institute reclaimed the term (2014) in a modified usage that they continue today: “Regenerative Organic”. (1, 2)
For a fairly ‘new’ approach, there is a lot to still figure out. Even though many of the processes and practices of regenerative agriculture have been used for many centuries.
There are many definitions;
‘Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services.
By capturing carbon in soil and biomass, regenerative agriculture aims to reverse current trends of atmospheric accumulation. At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming communities.’
–Terra Genesis
‘Regenerative Agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle’
– Regeneration International
‘Regenerative agriculture describes holistic land management practices that leverage the power of photosynthesis in plants to close the carbon cycle and build soil health, which in turn leads to improved ecosystem health, crop resiliency, and nutrient density, among other benefits’
– Kiss the Ground
Regenerative Agriculture is a way of farming that works on improving our soil health, animal health and human health. With the fantastic side effect of sequestering more carbon into the soil by improving the photosynthesis of the meadows. The livestock in this process are actually the tool that make this whole operation work.
Regen Ag, compared to other practices, is the only approach that has looked at the root cause of our current wicked problems. Problem solving, you may already know, is often done by not defining the root cause. We humans like to use a ‘quick fix’ instead of working a little bit harder to make sure problems don’t repeat themselves or even get worse. Pandemic? Sell a vaccine instead of working on your nation’s health. Climate crisis? Blame the cow farts and promote processed vegan junk food, instead of repairing your food systems. Health issues? Promote medication, instead of a healthy lifestyle, movement and healthy food.
I recently moved back to the Netherlands where currently our farmers are on strike (and have been striking on and off since 2019) because of new Nitrogen laws put into place by our government. A law (max use of 170kg Nitrogen per acre per year) (4) designed with, I’m sure, the right intentions but certainly not the desired effect. As the second largest export nation of agricultural goods, these laws will mean many farmers will have to shut their family businesses because they can’t afford to abide by the new legislation put into place. Vandana Shiva can put it into words much better than I can;
In modern society, we are very comfortable operating within a mechanistic (3) paradigm but often need to work on our capacity to work with the complexity of nature – this is at the heart of why we have destroyed the very ecosystems that sustain our lives.
One of the most exciting outcomes of regenerative agriculture is that it restores the very ecological functions that cooled our climate millions of years ago and created the conditions that allowed humans to emerge. We can leverage these ecological principles and processes once again to achieve carbon net-zero and beyond.
Depending on how you have ‘arrived’ at regenerative agriculture will influence how you describe it. Any definition of regenerative agriculture must evolve over time, like the whole living systems that we aim to regenerate.
Routes to Regen Ag
There are multiple ways you may discover and farmers may adopt regenerative agriculture, and the possible routes will expand as more training offerings are developed.
Below, Ethan Soloviev, a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement, describes the five most common ‘lineages’;
- Rodale Organic: The focus is soil. “Regeneration” is a combination of 40-year-tested conservation farming practices — cover cropping, crop rotation, compost, low- or no-till.
- Permaculture/Regrarians: A strong focus on small-scale design and unproven beliefs about reversing climate change, this lineage of Regenerative Agriculture tends towards ideals from the human potential movement, focusing on how to create “thriving” and “abundance” for all.
- Holistic Management: Promoted by both the Savory Institute and Holistic Management International, focusing on a comprehensive decision-making framework designed for animal-centric ecosystem regeneration.
- Regenerative Paradigm; Guided by the Carol Sanford Institute, a small but effective community of praxis including Regenesis, Terra Genesis International, Regen Network and others has applied the paradigm to Business, Design, Planning, Education, and Agriculture.
- Soil profits/no-till/NRCS: Typified and led by Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown, and others, this lineage draws practices and inspiration from other Lineages but appeals strongly to conventional farmers by eschewing the dogmas of organic agriculture and focusing on bottom line profits through increased soil health.
Knowing from what ‘lineage’ an organisation is communicating helps to understand their language and possibly even further develop their work.
Features of Regen Ag
Soloviev describes; ‘More and more organizations, individuals, and businesses will start to claim that what they are doing is “regenerative” without changing how they are thinking or even what they are doing.’ What is fundamental to Regenerative Agriculture is that it requires a different way of thinking, a mind shift if you will. Which is exactly why a certification is not the answer for Regen Ag. As soon as we start using certifications, we risk turning Regen Ag into a box ticking exercise and miss out on understanding the root cause of the change that is needed for each individual farm.
You can be fluent in the practices and science behind regenerative agriculture. Still, until you change the way you think and adopt a wider, more holistic perspective when making decisions, then you will never be able to manage in a truly regenerative way long into the future.
Instead, we define the following 4 features;
- Principles not practises:
Regenerative agriculture is based on ecological principles.
Practitioners learn ecological principles. With support, each farmer must take these principles and work out what tools and practices are appropriate for their unique context.
Some farmers may come into the movement from an interest in soil health or grassland productivity practices and follow a prescriptive plan. This may yield some regenerative outcomes, but if the principles and thinking behind the practices are not fully understood, results can be frustrating and limited. - Holistic paradigm:
To fully understand and adopt regenerative agriculture, you must see the world as a living system of which you are part.
In regenerative agriculture, decisions are made ‘holistically’ considering the social, ecological and economic impact of the choice, both short and long term. - Outcomes not standards:
The only way to measure success in regenerative agriculture is to measure the outcomes. You don’t know if your practices are regenerative until you can see they have improved the ecosystem processes.
Ethan Soloviev (mentioned above) proposes; ‘that there is no such thing as a “Regenerative Agriculture Practice” — only systemic outcomes can confirm that regeneration is taking place.
Savory’s ‘Ecological Outcome Verification’ is a great way to prove that a product has been grown from a farm that is regenerating its ecosystems. It measures the improvements in ecosystem processes which allows management to be unique and ever-changing within each farm context. - Unique to its place and people:
Because regenerative agriculture is based on principles practised by individuals and communities in their unique environmental and cultural context, it will look completely different from place to place.
Regenerative agriculture should emerge from learning the principles and trying different practices to see which get the best regenerative outcomes for your unique situation. The farmers’ approach will evolve and adapt to their family’s changing needs over the generations and changes in climate and economic pressures, etc.
Just as an ecosystem has niches, regenerative agriculture will have advisors, trainers and coaches who occupy their niche within the ecosystem, each bringing a different perspective and range of expertise.
Conclusion
There is great potential in Regenerative Agriculture, and we are not anywhere close to achieving it. I think streamlining the definition, principles and practises of Regen Ag could help clarify the movement. What we can do in the meantime is work on educating folk on the need for change and the tools at our disposal.
Still unclear? Listen to this excellent podcast by FarmGate:
https://podbay.fm/p/farm-gate/e/1615828071
References;
- Regenerative Agriculture Industry Map | by Ethan Soloviev | Medium
- Lineages of Regenerative Agriculture (Short Version) | by Ethan Soloviev | Medium
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/mechanistic
- Frontiers | What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes (frontiersin.org)
- Veranderingen mestbeleid 2022 (rvo.nl)
Antibiotics – What have they done for our health?
By Teri Clayton
Penicillin was discovered in 1929 and developed commercially following World War II. Interestingly Alexander Fleming – who discovered and named penicillin, warned in a New York Times interview in 1945 that improper use of penicillin would lead to the development of resistant bacteria. Fleming had noticed as early as 1929, that many bacteria were already resistant to penicillin, well before it was even developed commercially.
Since the mass adoption of antibiotics, we have contaminated the entire globe with huge quantities of these synthetic anti-biological compounds. According to physician and researcher Stuart Levy, these antibiotics are not easily biodegradable;
‘They can remain intact in the environment unless they are destroyed by high temperatures, or other physical damage such as ultraviolet light from the sun. As active antibiotics they continue to kill off susceptible bacteria with which they have contact’ (1).
Stuart Levy
The environmental contamination with antibiotics comes from all areas of civilisation – from factory waste, sewerage, intensive factory farming and household waste, as well as contamination through pet droppings, to mention but a few.
Levy explains that this environmental contamination has stimulated unparalleled evolutionary changes.
Evolutionary processes are always powerfully initiated when living organisms are put under survival pressure. Using antibiotics in such a widespread way, has put huge selective pressure on bacteria (and all life) throughout the globe.
The penicillin based antibiotics target and kill bacteria through interfering with their cell wall production. This selective killing of bacteria with a cell wall, inevitably favours the growth of an imbalanced number of bacteria that:
- do not have a cell wall, (such as mycoplasma bacteria)
- have evolved to become penicillin resistant
On top of this imbalance we need also to take into account the disruption in the delicate balance between bacteria, yeast, fungi and viruses that results from antibiotic use.
This is not good news for people, ecosystems, or the health of the planet overall.
An obvious area where the imbalancing effects of antibiotics are beginning to show is in human health. For example it is highly likely, (perhaps inevitable), that the widespread use of antibiotics, particularly in humans, livestock and dairy animals, has led to higher levels of Mycoplasma organisms such as Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP) and a rise in the infections caused by such organisms. MAP is now thought to be a causative agent in the development of Crohn’s disease and can be found even in pasteurised milk, (2). Mycobacterium pneumoniae is now a common pathogen leading to walking pneumonia, causing respiratory symptoms ranging from mild to severe,(3). One has to stop and ask if our overuse of antibiotics has led to an explosion in respiratory infections caused by mycoplasmas and if they may have played some secondary role in varying levels of disease severity during the recent pandemic.
Research suggests that bacteria that have a cell wall have retained the capacity to return to an earlier point in their evolution, where they did not produce a cell wall, as a back up plan for if their ability to produce a cell wall is compromised.
‘….. bacteria can live without a cell wall may have been retained by modern cells as a back-up process for use when cell wall synthesis is compromised’ (4)
When we begin to step back and take a look at the bigger picture of how our use of pharmaceuticals in health and agriculture has altered the course of evolution – it gets even more worrying. We are now beginning to recognise that the seemingly unrelated use of glyphosate may accelerate the development of antibiotic resistance in some disease causing pathogens such as certain strains of E.coli, Salmonella sp and others (5).
‘Some glyphosate-resistant E. coli and Pseudomonas strains contain a gene coding for an ABC transporter that enhances the efflux of glyphosate from the cell. Such resistance mechanisms may have led to the cross-resistance against antibiotics observed for E. coli, Salmonella sp. and other environmental bacteria.’ (5)
It is clear that mass antibiotic use cannot help but have an effect on ecosystem health and the way microbes evolve. What is not so clear is how this story progresses, if we continue to follow the reductionist approach of targeting symptoms of disease, instead of addressing root causes.
With such a careless attitude to the use of antibiotics, weedkillers and other anti-biological chemicals in our environment, shared by the majority of civilised society – we urgently need to re-educate one another if we are to stop causing further damage. As we reach the end of the road for chemical warfare, it appears we are now transitioning into an even more devastating approach of genetic alteration of microbes and technological augmentation of natural systems. This would deal a devastating blow for human health, taking us even further from addressing the root cause – imbalance – of all modern disease.
The solution has always been and will always be – facilitating greater balance and as prompt a return as possible to homeostasis. This can only result from as much diversity of organisms as possible, evolving together to achieve an overall state of balance. This is why the planet needs regeneration so urgently. The regeneration of the planet necessarily involves the regeneration of human health and this is utterly reliant on the health of the environments in which us humans live.
Ultimately we will discover that human health is rooted in the health of the soil beneath our feet and until we all play our part in its restoration, we will suffer the painful consequences of the imbalances we keep creating.
References;
- Stuart Levy, The Antibiotic Paradox (NY:Plenum Press, 1992), 94
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894645/
- https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/atypical/mycoplasma/index.html
- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.13.20120428v1.full
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.763917/full
The true cost of globalisation
By Caroline Grindrod
We are in the midst of a cost of living crisis and face unprecedented disruption to our food and energy supplies.
I’ve been banging on about the looming food catastrophe for more years than I like to remember. I’ve made myself wholly unpopular with my family and friends and become accustomed to the eye-rolling or glazed looks this issue generally elicits.
In the crazed competition for efficiency and cost-cutting, we have stripped out every slither of redundancy and resilience from our food and energy systems. Globalisation has undermined healthy, resilient local rural communities worldwide with the promise of a better life as a serial consumer. Efficiencies will keep costs low, and technology will make our lives easier, leading to more leisure time with more money to spend.
How has that worked out for you?
In the west, globalisation has negotiated unrestricted access to freely available cheap labour. Facilitated business with countries with poor environmental protection willing to exploit their natural resources and pollute their rivers. If you measure success in terms of economic growth, globalisation has been a huge success.
Blissfully unaware that globalisation has eroded the very essence of what really matters about being human, we consumers have all become comfortably numb from the anaesthetising effects of materialism. Eventually, however, these externalities are going to come home to roost.
Aside from the utterly heartbreaking human suffering and tragic ecocide that has resulted from the economic ‘growth at any cost’ agenda, infinite growth on a finite planet is just not a sensible long-term business plan! Globalisation only works when the whole world is playing nicely together. Sadly, like a tired and hungry bunch of toddlers, when resources and relationships come under strain, there are inevitably going to be tears.
That time is now.
In this three-part series, we will dip into the economic, social and ecological implications of globalisation and propose a possible alternative way forward.
Globalisation started with a simple sales pitch; that lifting people from ‘poverty’ is a good thing, and that this is done by creating jobs and making stuff cheap.
In ‘sacred economics’ Charles Eisenstein states that the concept of poverty has been badly misunderstood. Helena Norberg-Hodge further illustrates this in the film ‘economics of happiness’ where she explains how western culture and globalisation have systematically undermined the happiness and resilience of the rural communities in Ladakh.
In many rural village communities where most farmers are subsistence farmers, the families may be living simple lives, but this must not be confused with being ‘poor.’
The services upon which we spend our hard-earned, stress-sweated cash were freely available as part of the rich community culture of exchange. It deepened the interdependence of all in the village and made them highly resilient. Everyone had a value, and everyone had a role. The village would collectively look after the children and share labour at planting and harvest; elders would offer counsel and carry forward the stories from past to present.
There was no need for nursery fees, and expensive counselling sessions, no time-saving junk food, no membership fee for a brightly lit gym, and no trendy brands or costly cars to prove our worth. The needs that these paid goods and services attempt to meet were freely available to the community so no money changed hands. This led to westerners declaring the villagers as ‘living in poverty’ and in need of ‘education’, ‘support’ in the form of cheap ‘stuff’ and access to jobs in the city.
Many of us find it hard to imagine life in a village in the foothills of the Himalayas, but we too had elements of this gift economy in the UK not so very long ago.
My Grandparents were some of the happiest and healthiest people I have ever known. Bringing up five children in a council house in Newcastle couldn’t have been easy on a carpenter’s wage. But my hard-working and resourceful Grandparents had a large back garden where they grew nearly all of their own – pretty much organic – vegetables. What food they didn’t grow was purchased from the local butcher or foraged from the hedgerows.
The broth pan was always on, and nothing was ever wasted. Clothing and shoes were the best they could afford, mended and valued highly. The bus and ‘shanks pony’ was their only form of transport.
Holidays were few and focused on the UK countryside – anywhere with fruit-laden hedges – and my Grandad thought nothing of cycling 100 miles at the weekend on his fixed-wheel bicycle with his fellow club members for ‘relaxation’ and catching up with his mates. Gran was an enthusiastic member of the WI, and her preserving, baking and pickling capabilities knew no bounds. She was undoubtedly an invaluable member of the community, and to me, her skills were more inspiring than any power-driven female entrepreneur.
In their family, there was a culture of love, laughter, respect and values such as; don’t waste anything, look after your stuff and treating others as you hope to be treated yourself. My amazing parents passed on the benefit of this grounded start to life by bringing forward many of the same values and resilience.
How could it be possible that things have changed so dramatically in my lifetime?
The resources available to the average family have expanded beyond all recognition. Iphones, giant TVs, multiple cars per household, dishwashers, takeaways, foreign holidays and food costing less than a quarter it did in the 1960s as a % of the household income.
Globalisation has made all of this possible. But at what cost?
We are sicker, lonelier and unhappier than at any other point in time that we bothered to ask people. We have outsourced the true cost of our comfort and convenience to far away parts of the world where it’s still legal to exploit people and the environment. This has led to a decoupling of our standard of living from what our planet can actually sustain.
The fragile globalised ‘just in time’ food system is at breaking point. And the collapse was inevitable long before Putin rolled the tanks into Ukraine. 1,2
Over the last hundred years, we have shifted from a gift and community-based economy where the forms of capital were diverse and culturally fitting for the community’s needs; to a monoculture economy based on just cold hard money. People, animals and the planet have suffered as a consequence.
Whether it has been deliberate or an inevitable by-product of the mechanistic paradigm of the world is a matter of debate; for a global money-based economy to work best, it first needs to undermine the services that are freely given in a cohesive traditional subsistence community. Services such as childcare, mental support, food exchange, fuel harvesting and building infrastructure don’t get captured on a balance sheet and cannot be taxed.
Measuring the success of a country by measuring economic growth is absurd. Every time someone has a heart attack and is prescribed a drug, every time a tanker leaks oil and requires a vast cleanup operation and every time a hard-working couple invests their life savings into their dream business and it fails – GDP increases.
Due to subsidies, cutthroat competitive efficiencies of scale and other complicated factors, it makes good economic sense to grow chicken in America and send it to China to be skinned and then back to America to be sold. 3
It explains why it is cheaper for the remote rural communities of Ladakh to buy butter from across the world rather than buy it from their community. And could be something to do with why severe sanctions on unfriendly countries could mean that we are effectively sanctioning ourselves into extreme food and energy shortages!
I had been hopeful that the climate crisis would bring in a new way of doing business that helps to reduce emissions and increase biodiversity. But, unfortunately, the new carbon economy has been designed from the same mechanistic paradigm of the old ‘economic growth at any cost’ accounting system.
It has been assumed that you can take an elegant holistic living system that has evolved harmonious interdependent systems and climate cooling efficiencies over millennia, and account for it in a spreadsheet of simplistic carbon equivalents. This is an insult to nature’s intelligent design and highlights to me that we have – surely – reached ‘peak’ reductionist insanity. 4,5,6
The same machine thinking has designed our food system. It is justified to ship lamb from New Zealand to the UK because it has a smaller carbon footprint but it escapes us that this undermines the biodiversity of the uplands because shepherds need to ‘get big or get out’ in order to compete. Of course, there are many issues with the current way we farm but as we will discuss in the next article we could be evolving a more agroecological approach within the current decentralised and resilient model. Unfortunately, the need for small-scale farms for diversified nutrition security is now considered a quaint thing of the past.
The next looming social and environmental car crash could be the yet uncalculated negative impact of switching from petrol cars to electric cars. The growing demand for electric car batteries leads to unprecedented demand for nickel and cobalt and new mining opportunities are being exploited on the deep seabed.
”Most of the cobalt used in batteries today is claimed by China from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where extraction has come with human rights abuses and environmental degradation.
As pressure mounts to claim terrestrial minerals, commercial interest is growing to extract resources from the deep seabed, where there’s an abundance of metals like copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese, lead and lithium. Investors already expect profits: One deep-sea mining company recently announced a plan to go public after merging with an investment group, creating a corporation with an expected $2.9 billion market value.” 7
Lithium is an essential metal for electric car batteries and the surge in demand has led to a so-called ‘white oil’ rush unleashing a mining boom that promises environmental destruction wherever it is found. 8
And my personal favourite was the VSCO girl craze that led to teenage girls thinking they were environmentally conscious and saving turtles because they bought branded hydro flasks and metal straws. 9
Unfortunately, you can’t shop your way out of ecocide, no matter how trendy it is!
The problem with all of these so-called environmental solutions is that they all come from the same stable; globalisation.
We can barely keep up with what’s happening in our own neighbourhood these days. We are so distracted by one crisis after another – or high-profile divorce trials – that keeping tabs on the environmental damage and social exploitation caused by companies selling eco ‘solutions’ is to all intents and purposes; impossible.
Even if we were to assume that large corporations were genuinely interested in regenerating the planet and improving people’s lives more than ensuring their shareholders are satiated, who is going to regulate them that doesn’t have a vested interest? When a government’s only language is economic growth, its main job becomes removing barriers to allow money to flow!
How do we citizens know what to choose to ‘do good?’
The promised lifting of poverty that sold us globalisation hasn’t been delivered. It has kicked the can of paying the true cost of things down the road until we have run out of tarmac. The true cost of the social and environmental consequences is now crashing down upon us.
There’s plenty of alarming research out there warning us of the fragility of the just in time food system if we choose to look for it. But we don’t. Instead, we ignore the problems until we can’t ignore them anymore. When fuel reaches £2 a litre, baby formula is missing from the supermarket shelves, penicillin isn’t available from the vet, trucks carrying our food won’t start because they have run out of AdBlue, your car won’t run because of a part not arriving, and health services fail due to a shortage of computer chips from Taiwan…..
Just like we cover up the gaps in the supply chain by spreading out the remaining available brands on the shelves, the potentially catastrophic consequences of a failing global supply chain are masked until the very end leaving you utterly unprepared.
So what is the alternative? It might be too late to arrest the terrifying looming food crisis but we can and must start now to build a better more resilient model. 10,11,12,13
Complex systemic ‘wicked’ problems cannot be solved with yet more mechanistic responses.
As the author Marriane Williamson says;
‘the best ones to drive us out of this mess are not those who drove us into the ditch in the first place’
It’s high time for a new paradigm of doing business and supplying food. The emergence of regenerative leadership, regenerative design and regenerative business offer a potential glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Authors of ‘Regenerative leadership’ Laura Storm and Giles Hurthchins say;
There is no doubt. We are living in a time marked by great upheaval and volatility. Leaders – both political and business – are being forced to cope with rising challenges: resource scarcity; high levels of stress in the workplace; disruptive innovations; social inequality; constant competition for top talent; rapid digitization and globalization; mass migrations; fragile supply chains; mounting social tensions; political extremism; and much more.
On top of all this, the climate of our planet is breaking down and we are facing what scientists have called the sixth mass extinction.
Our production systems are based on a linear, take-make-waste approach. Our financial systems based on short-term profit maximization that ignore life and debase human integrity. Our organizational systems are dominated by hyper-competition, power-and-control hierarchies, and rising stress.
We need a new approach that values life. A new leadership logic where organisations flourish, ecosystems thrive and people feel alive. This is what Regenerative Leadership is all about.’’
A sustainable business might aim for ‘polluting less’ and a regenerative business will be aiming to support the restoration of planetary systems.
It might seem like an impossible task to change the huge corporations that currently dominate the marketplace but maybe we don’t need to start there. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are responsible for approximately 70 per cent of the global pollution and just shy of 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
There is a short window of opportunity to encourage the emergence of regenerative leadership within SMEs to generate the sorts of changes that could lead to a positive tipping point that opens up a new path for humanity and our planet.
To operationalise the goal of regenerative business presents three regenerative strategies of “restore,” “preserve,” and “enhance” beyond “exploit,” as shown below. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
If SMEs can rapidly climb the regenerative ladder of “restore,” “preserve,” and “enhance” as a spectrum of opportunities toward the goal. Regenerative economic approaches could help both society and the planet thrive in the long term. 19
What if instead of centralised control by corporate giants who exert a disproportionate influence on the supply ecosystems, we could create a decentralised network of SMEs working like a web to restore planetary functions?
It might sound like an ‘airy fairy’ vision but it’s one increasingly being taken seriously in our business world as leaders struggle to deal with the current volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape.
Forbes magazine recognises the potential for this new paradigm of doing business;
‘’What if companies reinvented their supply chains and business practices so they function altruistically like a forest? Then they will operate as regenerative businesses that give back 10x and even 100x more to society and the planet than what they take from it.’’ Nature is generous—a virtue you don’t associate with the cut-throat corporate world. Forest trees magnanimously share information and nutrients with each other using a deep network of soil fungi.
What if new economies regenerated the cultures that globalisation degraded and recognised more diversified forms of capital such as the eight forms of capital in permaculture models. And valued financial capital alongside; material capital, living capital, cultural capital, social capital, experiential capital and intellectual capital. 20
What if like Bhutan, instead of valuing a country’s success in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) we measure ‘Gross national happiness” where sustainable development takes a more integrated approach towards a nation’s progress and gives equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing. 21
And what if the universal patterns and principles of the cosmos were used as a model for economic-system design to build healthy, and sustainable systems throughout the real world.
As highlighted in the Guardian piece ‘globalisation the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world’ It was only a few decades ago that globalisation was held by many, even by some critics, to be an inevitable, unstoppable force. “Rejecting globalisation,” the American journalist George Packer has written, “was like rejecting the sunrise.”
Natural intelligence guided our planet to have the exact climatic and atmospheric conditions for human life to emerge. Through photosynthesis, complex biodiversity and cooling hydrology we had the perfect habitat in which to thrive. Over the last few centuries, we have exploited this living organism to the point that we have reversed these processes and created an almost uninhabitable place to exist.
My hope is that we humans can evolve quickly enough to recognise the arrogance of assuming we know better than nature with our technologies and scientific advances. And to see the error of valuing only what we can measure with our mechanistic worldview at the expense of all that really matters to humans such as happiness, feeling healthy, close communities, authentic interactions, fulfilment and beauty.
As the sun sets on the ‘growth at all cost’ era of globalisation, and society has moved through its collective ‘dark night of the soul’, we must ensure that how we build our businesses and money systems is in service to people and the planet and uses nature’s wisdom and logic as a template.
Caroline X
Read the entire article with references on Primal Web (signing up is for free!)
Responsible Foraging
By Fieke van Halder
At Primal Meats we support ancestral diets because we believe our modern westernised diets and lifestyle have led to the rise in chronic, metabolic diseases.
Last month, we started promoting foraging as part of our ancestral lifestyle, since eating nutrient-dense meat and consuming seasonal wild foraged foods are part of the foundation of ancestral health.
However, since the start of our ‘foraging’ campaign, we have also received concerns about the countryside being stripped by foragers and the damage this does to our natural habitat. We feel the need to address this further..
‘The expansion of commercial harvesting in many parts of the world has led to widespread concern about overharvesting and possible damage to (fungal) resources.’ (1)
Science Direct
Foraging Concerns
‘Like most environmental issues with food production, the problems start to arise when done on a large/industrial scale.’ (2)
By stripping too much from land or sea we are not only taking valuable food from animals, plants and fungi, but we are also leaving gaps for invasive species to invade and destroying nature’s delicate biome.
In doing so we are at risk of creating monocultural landscapes (exactly like industrial agriculture), which is what we are striving to get away from.
There is no point in pointing fingers, so like all things we do, we have to tackle this issue in a holistic sense, take responsibility and think of a holistic solution.
Most foragers we know are switched-on people with a deep love and understanding of nature. And like many of you, we aim to live regeneratively, eat nutrient-dense foods, with the seasons. But looking at the facts, we know food grown in industrial agriculture is just not providing us with what we need.
“Compared to 1940, a carrot today contains 75% less magnesium.”
“1985 – 2002: Broccoli contains 80% less calcium, 62% less folic acid and 60% less magnesium.”
It has been proven that wild foods contain more nutrients, antioxidants and healing properties than foods coming from commercial agriculture. Research (6) indicates that wild fruits and vegetables are nutritionally rich and high in phytochemicals, especially antioxidants and therefore can possibly play a significant and positive role in delivering a healthy and balanced diet. Mostly because they have never been treated with herbicides or pesticides (nor has the soil) and are allowed to fully ripen before being harvested, wild foods keep their natural powers and stay nutrient-dense.
So how do we provide ourselves with these nutrient dense foods with minimal disturbance to our sacred natural spaces? Or even better, how do we eat nutrient dense food with a positive effect on our planet? We don’t want to focus on just eating sustainably, we want to eat regeneratively and create a culture of people who think holistically about their food and lifestyle choices.
Foraging Solutions
We encourage foraging for wild foods because we feel in a holistic sense that the value of getting into nature, in tune with the seasons and rooted in the local landscape will help to regenerate a culture of people who love, value and protect their natural habitat.
Plants that are edible, are edible because they want to be eaten. Either it’s a way to pollinate, or disperse seeds. Or a way to be pruned to encourage new growth, either of itself or by allowing light through to saplings below. (2)
In some cases just like coppicing a woodland, harvesting can have a positive effect. As Yun Hider (Mountain food) points out: “sea beet is often overcrowded, by removing a certain amount of leaves, we are actually encouraging growth”. (3)
In regenerative agriculture we try to mimic nature in grazing the land the way the deer, European bison or wild ponies for instance would have done many years before. The land is distrubed, grazed and fertilised for a short time before the land is resting for a long period to encourage growth, photosynthesis and soil health. If we would apply these principles to foraging, what would that look like?
Studies show foraging can actually encourage plant/fungi growth if done correctly (4); ‘The results reveal that, contrary to expectations, long-term and systematic harvesting reduces neither the future yields of fruit bodies nor the species richness of wild forest fungi, irrespective of whether the harvesting technique was picking or cutting.’
When we approach foraging the way we approach regenerative agriculture, and let the land rest in between picking we can encourage plant growth and enjoy foraging without negatively impacting our natural spaces. If you rely on a specific piece of land to provide you with wild garlic every year, it would be wise to treat this spot with the respect it deserves so it can provide you for years to come.
The study continues; ‘Forest floor trampling does, however, reduce fruit body numbers, but our data show no evidence that trampling damaged the soil mycelia in the studied time period.’ (4) So tread carefully, only take what you need for tonight’s dinner, and allow time to let nature recover in between harvests.
The UK has plenty of foraging experts who can help and guide you towards a responsible foraging approach. If you are keen on mushroom foraging in particular, we would suggest asking the help of an expert. Mushroom foraging is dangerous and can result in long term health issues or even worse. Find a nature loving foraging expert near you and educate yourself on safely selecting the most tasty edible mushrooms. Please see below some personal recommendations for foraging courses throughout the UK.
Conclusion
We feel, foraging can be (and mostly is) done with respect for nature. It has the potential to increase our mental and physical health and if done correctly it can even positively impact nature’s ecosystems as well. Ask for help, do your research and get out there.
References;
- Mushroom picking does not impair future harvests – results of a long-term study in Switzerland – ScienceDirect
- Is Foraging harmful for the environment? – Bangers & Balls (bangersandballs.co)
- Foraging without damaging | Food | The Guardian
- Mushroom picking does not impair future harvests – results of a long-term study in Switzerland – ScienceDirect
- Foraging, Sustainability and The Media – Galloway Wild Foods
- The role of wild fruits and vegetables in delivering a balanced and healthy diet – PubMed (nih.gov)
Foraging courses;
Primal Nomads
Primal Nomads.
Farming first developed around 9000BC in what is referred to as the (now desertified) fertile crescent, leading to a revolution in human culture. Whilst farming created reliable food and a resultant increase in human population size, it was also the beginning of culture moving increasingly out of step with natural evolutionary processes and contributing to a reduction in ecosystem diversity.
To quote historian Deborah Barham Smith:
‘Farming radically transformed society; hunter-gatherers had previously lived in small family groups building temporary shelters and being fairly nomadic, whereas farmers now began to settle, creating larger habitations wherever the land was more fertile, such as in river valleys’
Deborah Barham Smith
Wherever farming developed, the more reliable food source it produced led to a massive upswing in population.
But on the downside, there were dramatic reductions in the variety of local flora and fauna, as more and more land was given over to fewer varieties of plants and animals. (1)
At first, farming offered a reliable food source to supplement wild hunting and foraging, but it soon became the dominant source of sustenance, replacing our wild hunting and gathering almost entirely. Disruption of local flora and fauna and limitations on access to wild spaces led to an increasing dependence on farmed land and a reduced capacity to obtain sufficient wild food. Land in the UK, for example, became enclosed in Monastic granges, King’s hunting grounds and later through private ownership due to the enclosure act. Though we can now forage for our own wild food along public footpaths and parks, there has been a devastating loss of heritage and knowledge when it comes to edible and medicinal wild foods.
This has led to a dramatic reduction in the diversity of our modern-day diet, and it’s not just humans that these effects have impacted. Wildlife and livestock, too, have had to endure a dramatic loss of the diverse forage they have evolved alongside, and the consequences are beginning to show.
Research conducted by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1930s shows the dramatic effects on our dentition, skeletal structure and overall health when transitioning from a primitive diet to a modern one (2).
Weston A Price noticed an immediate degeneration in health within one generation after primitive peoples adopted a modernised diet. Quoting from his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:
‘…a chain of disturbances developed in these various primitive racial stocks starting even in the first generation after the adoption of the modernised diet and rapidly increased in severity with expressions quite constantly like the characteristic degenerative processes of our modern civilisation of America and Europe’ (2)
Our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed the numerous benefits of a diverse ancestral diet. It won’t be news to anyone familiar with the ancestral health movement that although our palaeolithic ancestors may have died young from the extremes of their lifestyle, they were not plagued with the chronic degenerative diseases from which we westerners currently suffer.
According to Chris Kresser (3) – many other advocates of the ancestral health diet – nomadic peoples eating traditional diets were likely to have a longer healthspan, carried less weight and were less likely to suffer from;
- Cardiovascular disease
- Diabetes and obesity.
- Neurological and mood disorders.
Much of this can be attributed to their nose to tail eating of nutrient-dense meats and consumption of seasonal wild foraged foods.
The Hadza are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes in the world. It’s thought they’ve lived on the same land in northern Tanzania, eating berries, tubers and 30 different mammals for 40,000 years. (4)
According to scientists, the Hadza have the most diverse gut bacteria of anyone anywhere globally. Our gut microbiome (the community of bacteria that lives in our guts) is essential for our overall wellbeing, affecting everything from our metabolism to our immune system and mental health. (5)
Nowadays, we enjoy reliable food all year round, but we do not have access to a truly diverse diet.
Happily, there is a way to produce a reliable food supply all year round and access elements of the diverse diet from which our nomadic ancestors were able to benefit.
At Primal Meats, we work closely with farms that regenerate their land and manage important habitats throughout the country. These farming methods lead to an increased diversity of plants in various systems and habitats, including glade pastures, uplands, hedgerows, riverbanks, etc. As a result, the livestock that graze or feed on such systems can benefit from the increased diversity of forage material, leading to more diverse plant compounds being concentrated in their meat. This bioaccumulation of important phytochemicals can be detected in the flavour of the meat and can lead to the development of distinct and complex flavour and texture.
What livestock eat contributes to the diversity of plant-based compounds, known as phytonutrients in their meat, which further diversifies our diets when consuming meat. This is discussed in the wonderful book ‘Nourishment’ by Fred Provenza and demonstrated in his research (6).
Eating meat from different farms in different locations and habitats could mimic a more nomadic diet.
Imagine wild game on the moors surviving on gorse and heather, cattle from inland grazing on wildflower-rich glades, sheep from coastal areas eating the sea-mineral rich coastal forage and pigs from woodlands enjoying a feast of seeds, insects, nuts, fruits and whatever else they can snout out.
A diet containing meat sourced from these unique systems can offer dietary diversity that cannot be obtained from one system or habitat alone.
Just as a Nomad would wander the lands moving in tune with the seasons and food availability, we can attempt to replicate this and in doing so access a range of diverse nutrients that would not be available otherwise.
As we support the regeneration of landscapes, we are also increasing the diversity of edible wild plants available throughout the year. We support maximal diversity recovery from the soil up from coastal samphires, seaweeds and salty fingers to simple inland species like meadowsweet, burdock root and garlic mustards.
At Primal Meats, we offer cow share’s from many regenerative farms with unique biodiversity; regularly buying meat that ‘upcycled’ the vast diversity of wildflowers on these farms could be a great way of diversifying your diet.
References;
- https://www.farminguk.com/news/-humankind-s-greatest-invention-the-history-of-agriculture-part-one_44383.html
- Weston Price; Nutrition and Physical Degeneration – A comparison of primitive and modern diets and their effects; 2010 Benediction Classics, Oxford
- https://chriskresser.com/what-is-an-ancestral-diet-and-how-does-it-help-you/
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40686373
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3996546/#b12
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426/full
Digital Addiction
Digital Addiction.
I have been aware of the negative impact of being overexposed to media bombardment and distraction for a long time.
Stephen and I haven’t had a telly for more than ten years, and my reading list for the last decade must be knocking on several hundred, so I wouldn’t consider myself addicted to digital devices. However, after two years of feeling like I was being sucked back into digital distraction, I decided to ‘reset’ myself with a total digital detox for a week, solo on a remote island on the West coast of Scotland!
Years ago, I was inspired by the ‘four hour work week’ by Tim Ferris, and although I don’t have any desire to spend time sunning myself in a bikini on a desert island – frankly, the world doesn’t need that! – I did take on board many of the superb work efficacy suggestions highlighted in the book.
The book – and many more that followed – opened my eyes to a new generation of entrepreneurs and leaders who consider their optimised health and highly trained ability to focus on deep work their number one asset.
I might not have achieved a four-hour workweek. Still, I have learned to value my attention and developed proactive practices such as disabling all notifications, only responding to email in allocated time slots, and developing my capacity for concentration through meditation and other techniques. These practices have allowed me to free time to work on unprofitable but incredibly important projects for the regeneration of our planet and find time to cook healthy food, balance family time and bring up three highly resilient kids.
Managing our attention is a highly overlooked skill, and it’s costing us in many ways. Our relationships, work ethic, mood, stress levels and ability to focus on a task to completion have been seriously eroded.
Social media companies know the value of your attention which is why the so-called ‘mind hacking’ industry is now worth approximately seven trillion dollars!
You might think of being distracted by technology as a soft addiction that is easily overcome, but habitually using technology lights up the same part of the brain as when we are addicted to alcohol or cocaine!
Unless you actively take control, you are being hardwired to depend on technology! And our kids are most vulnerable of all.
Behind every ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ are teams of the world’s best technology engineers and psychologists working out how to best hack your attention. Your hyper-personalised feed is ever-present, luring you with exactly what they know – through clever algorithms – you cannot resist. They want you to stay on their platform, following the breadcrumbs to what they want to sell you or are paid to influence you with. It’s as impressive as it’s sinister! Meanwhile, you think you are just checking what our friends are up to – completely unaware!
You might think you are getting these social platforms for free, but you get free access to them because YOU are the product, and you are worth a fortune to them! Interestingly, the two industries that use the term ‘user’ to describe their customers are; drug dealers and technology companies!
But unlike being addicted to heroin, where you can stay away from your drug dealer and the places that trigger you to use, we addicted technology users are surrounded – it’s relentless!
During my childhood, the extent of my technological distraction was a cassette player, four TV channels, a telephone that required me to dial a number at an agreed time to talk to a friend, a calculator, a Casio watch and an occasional postcard if on holiday! It was no contest – I spent my ‘attention’ on plying in the woods or galloping the countryside on the back of a horse.
Our modern existence is swarming with technological inputs; most of us work on a computer, receive emails, notifications, have on-demand unlimited TV, computer games, drive past electronic billboards, have the radio on, are never far from our iPhone, constant texts, WhatsApp’s, Instagram messages, tweets, push notifications from apps and the constant allure of google – the gateway to the world! Even our cars tell us how to drive and when to take a break!
Physiologically our bodies and minds haven’t adapted to the tidal wave of technology that has washed over us in the last 25 years. As a result, it’s making us sick, depressed, ineffective and inefficient.
We are nearly ALL addicted to some degree. There’s no shame in it, but it needs to be proactively managed. Just because everyone does something doesn’t mean we should all give in and go along with it.
We are experiencing a shifting baseline in what constitutes an acceptable level of focus and attention. Frankly, nearly everyone who is regularly distracted by technology is performing at some level of mediocre.
Dr Richie Davidson, a neuroscientist who created the field of contemplative neuroscience, hooked up some of the Dali Lama’s monks to study the effects of meditation on the brain. What he found was that through dedicated practice, their brains could be moulded to be able to focus to exceptional levels;
“What we saw in these individuals, not a burst of gamma, but a long duration [of activity] for minutes while they were meditating, which is crazy,” Davidson said. “This had never been seen in a human brain before.” Typically in an “untrained mind,” Davidson said, a burst of activity would last for about one second, but the monks could sustain it.
“And [they] can turn it on pretty much at will,” he said. “Any of us can have it and we may not be able to sustain it, that’s the difference … a thought will come into our mind and we’ll get lost in it for a few minutes, and so the ability to sustain it I think really requires much more practice.”
Top entrepreneurs and leaders are well aware of the digital distraction issue and go out of their way to proactively manage this habitual lure. It’s even said that Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his own kids have an iPad!
So how do we mere mortals learn to live with technology and successfully limit the many negative impacts of being plugged into the technological system 24/7?
Like any addiction, rule number one is; to recognise you have some level of addiction. ‘I am no longer completely in control of this situation, and I will take steps to regulate it so it doesn’t take over my life.’
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti
Put your phone in a drawer out of sight, switch off your notifications and email popups, commit to a cut off time for technology in the evening, ban your phone from the bedroom, and read an actual book!
Our ability to clear space for deep thinking and flow states helps us build the capacity for focus and allows us to step between stimulus and response. Nature, of course, has a considerable part to play. Digital distraction removes us from the natural rhythm of life, which compounds the issue with artificial light and electromagnetic bombardment, making us sleep-deprived, more stressed, and even more likely to zone out with yet more technology!
Make a plan and start with your evening, not your morning. Shut down and get to bed, tech-free and in a cool dark room. When you wake, instead of checking your notifications, why not journal the boundaries you intend to put in place with a notepad and pen.
Build longer and longer periods of nature-based reflection time and meditation into your life. For example, leave your phone behind when walking in nature and build up your capacity for being away from technology for prolonged periods.
And this is exactly why I ended up on a remote island on the West Coast of Scotland – to reset my relationship with technology.
Many of our Wilderculture projects are in wild places, and working on these sites can involve having prolonged periods away from technology or instant communication. Still, few are as cut off from the modern world as Wilder Carna – our first-ever Wilderculture project.
On this occasion, the Island’s two off-grid holiday cottages were vacant. So after being dropped off by boat (by Andy, the Island manager) and accompanied by my Jack Russel Joss, I spent the week on the Island. No internet access, iPhone (apart from once a day from the top of the hill to send an ‘i’m safe’ message to Stephen), and I limited myself to the open fire and candlelight – no electricity. I even took the opportunity to fast for four days to give my body a complete break.
It was an incredible experience of retraining my brain to be okay without constant inputs and overcoming the guilt of allowing myself not to work or be ‘productive’. Time went SO slowly because there wasn’t anything to punctuate the day, and after a day of my brain chattering and clattering like a speeding train, my mind eventually settled into – calm silence!
I spent days watching our ‘wee wild herd’ of cows graze, observing the wildlife, journaling, and simply gazing at the weather flowing over the hills and the tide washing in and out over the beach.
It felt like after years of ‘binge eating’ information, I finally had allowed my mind some time to digest it! Since my return home, I have re-established some firm technology boundaries, and my focus, mood and stress levels have hugely improved.
I would highly recommend taking technology breaks to anyone. Perhaps you could have a digital free Sunday or pre-plan a camping weekend with no phone? Once you have managed other people’s expectations, it’s not that hard and absolutely worth the effort.
You might just be able to hear yourself think!
Carnivore diet
A helpful tool for wellbeing, or should we write it off?
By Teri Clayton
Disclaimer: Please seek the advice of a healthcare professional, registered nutritional therapist, nutritionist or dietician before making long term changes to your diet, particularly if you are planning to cut foods out. This article is an opinion piece for information only; the author does not endorse, recommend or advocate any specific diet.
There’s no doubt about it; we are now in the midst of an explosion of interest in nutrition and its effects upon individual well being. Many recognise that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to diet, and people are trying to find what works for them. For example, few had even heard about the ‘paleo’ diet ten years ago. Yet, nowadays, this diet is well known and has all kinds of additional variations, such as the modified paleo diet, autoimmune paleo, essential paleo, ketogenic paleo, primal paleo and others. People used to think that the paleo diet involved eating loads of meat and not much else and were concerned about the long-term effects. Yet the paleo diet turned out to be more nutritionally balanced than most people thought and seems to be a very suitable diet for some people.
The carnivore diet, which includes only animal foods and products, is now in the spotlight and is facing dramatic criticism like the paleo diet once did. But, is this criticism warranted, or could the carnivore diet eventually be accepted as a helpful wellbeing tool, in the same way that paleo now is?
We have all heard and likely believe that fruit, veg, and fibrous foods are good for us, but many trying the carnivore diet find that they don’t get along well with these healthy foods for many varied reasons. How is that possible?
In a fascinating interview with Joe Rogan in October 2018, Dr Rhonda Patrick says this about the carnivore diet:
‘I think that the most important question really is what is attracting people to try the very restrictive diet, that potentially could be dangerous, without published evidence, or any long term studies.’
Dr Rhonda Patrick – October 2018
She then goes on to say:
‘It seems as though a lot of people are drawn to it because they have some sort of auto-immune problem and so they try this diet and it improves their auto-immune symptoms and I see that seems to be a common theme’
Dr Rhonda Patrick has done extensive personal research on the carnivore diet and has some concerns regarding the changes that occur in the microbiome of people on a carnivore diet. Saying that it could increase putrefactive bacteria that ferment amino acids, potentially increasing the production of cadaverine and putrescine which are genotoxic. She says that lactic acid producing bacteria that feed on fermentable fibres normally limit the growth of putrefactive bacteria and these fermentable fibres are missing in a carnivore diet.
Through the anecdotal information we currently have available, some people with auto-immune symptoms notice that when they cut out plant-based foods, their auto-immune symptoms disappear. A well-known example is Mikhaila Peterson and her Father Jordan Peterson, who both claim that the carnivore diet has alleviated their auto-immune symptoms.
If people struggling with crippling chronic disease claim any diet makes them feel well again, relatively quickly, it’s a compelling reason to at least consider its relevance and place as a dietary tool for wellbeing.
Dr Rhonda Patrick hypotheses that the benefits that appear to come from the carnivore diet could be explained by caloric restriction, which puts the body under stress, as with fasting. This supports various positive effects, such as clearing away cells that cannot activate the stress response pathway (like cancerous cells) and may even re-programme the immune system by clearing away faulty auto-immune cells. However, it may be possible for people to obtain the same results with a less restrictive diet, so this is an avenue that needs to be explored.
When it comes to the carnivore diet, we are still in the very early days of assessing how useful it might be for supporting people’s wellbeing. Shawn Baker, an American orthopaedic surgeon, elite athlete and ex nuclear weapons launch officer, is one of the biggest proponents of the carnivore diet. Shawn says that we should use diet to move people from diseased to healthy and that it is impossible for us to know what is the best diet for anyone to follow long term. In thousands of anecdotal cases, Shawn has seen the shift from ‘diseased to healthy’ in those following the carnivore diet.
This all enters a whole new dimension of complexity when you begin to factor in the quality of meat being consumed.
Fascinating research now suggests that meat and dairy from animals fed solely on rich, diverse pastures contains concentrated amounts of plant nutrients (1). These phytonutrients include terpenoids, phenols, carotenoids, and anti-oxidants and form an important part of the diversity that we consider beneficial for our microbiome and health.
Is it possible that we can get at least some of the benefits of plants through meat and dairy from animals that have eaten a truly diverse and natural diet? Could this be why some people get such impressive results on the carnivore diet and yet still others struggle? If so, then ensuring you source your meat from farms that are not only rearing their cattle and sheep on a 100% grass-fed diet but that manages pastures for a high level of biodiversity in plant species could be a sensible idea. Buying from a range of regenerative and nature friendly farms in different regions of the country who graze different species rich pastures and habitats could be a great way of ensuring you are eating a wide range of microbiome benefiting phytonutrients.
Despite all the unknowns surrounding what constitutes a genuinely optimal diet long term, one thing is for sure; we are beginning to realise that diet is complex and unique to each individual. Though people think of the carnivore diet as too restrictive, couldn’t the same be said for veganism?
We are fortunate indeed if we get to choose what we eat and when, a luxury that is perhaps not widely appreciated. It matters what we eat and it matters why we eat it, but maybe one question we are not asking enough is:
What food can we eat that can be grown in harmony with nature? Can we grow/produce/raise food that increases biodiversity, the food system’s resilience, builds soil, supports evolution, produces nutrient-dense foods, and leaves the land better for future generations than we found it?
If we choose, then perhaps this is what we could choose, and maybe we’d all be healthier for it too?……
References:
What is Complexity?
Caroline talks about her work and the mind-shift required to enable us to work with complex systems, be it land, animals, or the human organism.
Human Health and the Microbiome
By Teri Clayton
If you are interested in the world of human wellbeing, nutrition or healing, then you will have undoubtedly come across some of the exciting discoveries about the human microbiome and its effects on human health.
Even the most basic of understandings reveals that the microbes living in our gut must digest our food to some extent and produce various metabolic by-products. It, therefore, follows that microbes must have some impact on our nutrition. The extent of this impact is now turning out to be nothing short of spectacular!
Though it is abundantly clear that the microbiome has powerful effects on our wellbeing, health and ability to heal, it will be a long time into the future before we start to more fully understand the ever-evolving complexity of the microbiome in relationship to human form and function.
The microbiome is unique in each and every individual, and even within individuals, it’s constantly cycling through different expressions.
When scientists first began to identify that certain microbes seem to confer certain health benefits, such as the reduction of asthma symptoms (1), alleviation of anxiety (2) and may even contribute to creating healthier, thicker hair growth in the case of Lactobacillus reuteri (3,4) it opened up a world of opportunities in the world of medicine and dietary supplementation. Science is now discovering a role for the microbiome in obesity, auto-immune disease, atherosclerosis and increased blood pressure. It has been observed that lower levels of certain bacterial families such as Veillonellaceae sp are associated with increased blood pressure for example (5).
When it comes to the microbiome, we could tell you about which organisms have been shown through science to do X,Y and Z, and what probiotic formula contains these microbes. We could go on to talk about the field of proteomics that reveal that the gut microbiome produces a core of around 1000 proteins that have bioactive functions in the body (5), or discuss the findings from the field of metabolomics, to discuss all the various metabolites, produced by the microbiome and their potential roles (6). This, however, would lead us down yet another reductionist dead end.
We need to understand that to see the microbiome as separate organisms producing various proteins and metabolites misses the broader (and more powerful) picture.
Instead, we prefer to adopt a regenerative, holistic approach that encompasses not just individual organisms but also considers their complex relationships, forms and ever-evolving functions.
So how do we do that?
In true regenerative agriculture meets with regenerative human ‘style’, we want to invite you to see the microbiome through the expansive, amazing and seemingly miraculous lens through which we view ecosystems – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
When it comes to seeing the microbiome through a holistic regenerative lens, you have to see yourself as part of nature – a walking ecosystem interacting with everything you exchange information with.
We believe that the most powerful approach to feeding the microbiome is the same as how we feed the soil in regenerative farming systems –
We work WITH natural ecological principles facilitating the creation of maximal diversity.
What we eat obviously has a powerful influence on the microbiome and research suggests that a diet rich in polyphenolic compounds seems to offer it the best food!
Polyphenols are micronutrients that naturally occur in plants. There are more than 8,000 types of polyphenols, which include: Flavonoids like quercetin and catechins in fruits.
Yet fascinating early stage research suggests that these polyphenolic compounds could potentially be obtained from meat and dairy from livestock that graze pastures rich in diversity (7,8). The farmers who supply Primal meats work hard to maximise pasture diversity as guaranteed by our PRIMAL promise.
Want to learn more? Why not take our free course ‘Microbiome Basics’ on our online community Primal Web!
References
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFcphkad_nY&ab_channel=NationalNetworkManagementService
- https://atlasbiomed.com/blog/stress-anxiety-depression-microbiome/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547054/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24675231/
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2017.00004/full
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7281736/
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.555426/full
- https://www.primalmeats.co.uk/grass-fed-meat-so-much-more-than-a-source-of-omega-3/