The Link Between Regenerative Agriculture And Nutrition

During COVID, I watched a lot of tv. Anyone else? Right, we all did. I can’t remember what led me to see the documentary, Kiss the Ground, because I’m sorry, but that name is weird. I think it was the preview on Facebook. I’m a big fan of the earth, but while scrolling through movie options, that title would not have grabbed me. But that movie changed the direction of my life and brought me here today. And I’m not alone, this movie changed a lot of people’s lives. Check it out. It’s on Netflix. It definitely uses dramatic music, some celebrities, and clips of beautiful people and adorable children to guide your emotions, but the facts are the facts, so I’m in.

On my food journey, post-movie, I’m learning so many fascinating things. And Regenerative Agriculture is at the center of it all.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a cursory comparison between a conventional, an organic, and a regenerative strawberry.  Truth be told, I just want to tell you about regenerative (agriculture). The reason for this is that it can do so much for our planet and all the living things that inhabit it.  What moves me the most is the nutritional element.  And by “moves,”  I mean it made me sad and angry to learn about what we are missing out on.   So I am going to write a series on what Regenerative Agriculture can do.  The first in the series is on nutrition.  Then I would like to share what it does for our water cycles and our climate – all of which circles back to our ability to live healthy lives.  So while you’ll read some parallels between this post and the one on our friend the strawberry, I want to make sure I am clear about how we got here, and what regenerative agriculture can do about it. 

The What

Regenerative Agriculture (“Regen Ag”) is a combination of practices a farm uses to support soil health while growing food. Healthy soil has an abundance of soil organic matter and a robust microbiome that delivers nutrients and phytochemicals to plants grown in that soil. Most of the earth’s soils today are degraded and would not be considered healthy.  Just like humans need a robust microbiome in our gut to make us healthy and strong, plants rely on the microbiome in the soil to make them healthy and strong.  One main belief behind RegenAg practices is:

soil health = plant health = human health

The Why

If we’re going to make the effort to eat “healthy”, meaning incorporating fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and, in many cases, meat and dairy into our diet, we should know how to maximize our effort. We should know where to find the healthiest, most nutrient-dense options so we get the most bang for our bite. But right now, that’s not an easy task. Let me explain…

Just the facts ma’am.

Current convention in farming calls for plowing the fields (also called tilling), planting them with an annual crop, and coating the fields with chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides to kill almost all other life besides the crop. I’m oversimplifying, but in simple terms, that is the method.  The results of this type of farming are that plants grow almost completely alone in the soil. After the crop is harvested and the land is tilled, the soil is left bare.  Bare soil is exposed to wind and water erosion, and our world’s topsoils, as a result, have mostly washed or blown away. 

Plants grown in these soils often have weaker root systems, far fewer natural defenses to ward off pests and disease… and far fewer nutrients than their potential.  For example, you would have to eat several carrots grown in soil on a conventional farm to get the same amount of nutrients you could get from one carrot grown in healthy soil.  And since most of the food we find in our retail grocery stores is grown conventionally, we are being cheated out of lots of nutrients.

“One carrot grown in healthy soil can have as many polyphenols (micronutrients high in antioxidants) as 200 conventional carrots”

– Dan Kittredge, Bionutrient Food Association. 

Even what animals are fed during their lifetime impacts the nutrient density of their meat. I’ll go deeper into this on a future post. Conventional ranching, which also degrades soil, affects us.  This has contributed to our country’s decline in overall health over the last several decades and is what is working against us as we try to live healthy lives.

Fun fact:  If food is more nutritious, the flavor is more intense. So when it’s better for you, it will taste better. If you needed another reason to eat healthier food, you got one! Yum!

“30% of our genetic code is dedicated to aroma and taste. For whatever reason, nature seems to think that we need the senses [of] aroma and flavor to guide us because things that have better flavor are inherently more nutritious.”

Dan Kitteridge of the Bionutrient Food Association –Let’s Talk Taste with Sherry podcast

So to put it simply, regenerative agriculture produces more nutritious food that tastes better.

(If you’ve had enough, skip to What you can do)

Let’s go down the rabbit hole, shall we?

Back in the 1950s, governments around the world decided to work together to address widespread hunger. They did so by promoting a type of farming that prioritized yield (food produced per acre). The most abundant crops were mostly grains like rice, corn, and wheat because it is easier to produce them on a large scale, and when processed, they have a long shelf life. So chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides were made readily available to farmers, grain crops were heavily subsidized, and lots of food was produced with yield in mind and at low, low costs to consumers.  Today, the world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people. There are 8 billion people on earth. About 1/3 of the food produced for human consumption on earth is wasted. So, congratulations world!  We make enough food so no one has to starve to death! But that doesn’t mean people aren’t dying. They are.  We still have people needlessly dying of starvation due to political unrest.  But we also have people on an unprecedented scale dying of diseases largely caused by what we eat, and what that food lacks.

^{Magnesium, for example, is present in a variety of foods, from greens to whole grains, yet it is underconsumed in the US. Studies indicate that low magnesium intake has been associated with a greater risk of several chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, depression, and impaired cognition.}

The Hidden Hunger: Micronutrient Deficiences, The Institute of Functional Medicine

Here are some big reasons why so many people with access to food still suffer from malnutrition:

1. The average American diet is about 57% processed carbohydrates, according to a study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Think cereal, bagels, chips, etc.  I’ve seen studies that put this figure even higher.
2. Most of the ruminants (cows, sheep), poultry (chicken, turkey), and even fish raised for food in the world are fed grains like corn and soy.  This is not their natural diet and it affects not only the health of the animal but the nutritional content and fat profiles of the eggs, dairy, and meat we consume.  Their natural diets are things like diverse grasses grown in healthy soil (meat & poultry) or insects in the pasture (poultry).
3. Most fruit, vegetable, and grain crops are grown in poor soil and sprayed with chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. So they are not only covered in chemicals, they are less nutrient dense than food grown generations ago, when the soil was healthier.

Regenerative agriculture calls for applying no synthetic chemicals, increasing biodiversity (which helps with soil health and pest and weed control), using little to no tilling or plowing, and integrating animals into the landscape.  The main idea, though, is the outcome – healthier soil and hence healthier food.

The good news is that there is a certification for regenerative agriculture products and farm operations.  The better news is that the more we ask for it, the more they will be available to us.  Here is a resource for food brands and farming operations currently certified as Regenerative Organic.  There is still a long way to go.  But the journey is worth it – for our health and our future.

What you can do

1. Tell your local politicians (mayors, state senators, etc) that you support changing the Farm Bill this fall to include incentives and support for Regenerative Farms – I’ll talk more about this in a future post.  THIS IS #1 BECAUSE IT’S COMING UP FAST AND YOU CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
2. When available – buy foods that say they are raised using regenerative practices. 
3. If possible, buy only organic fruits, vegetables, AND processed foods like cereal, bread, etc. Until I can find an organic veggie “chicken” nugget for my 7-year-old who couldn’t get enough of them before we learned what we did, we’ve cut them out of our grocery list. If there are no organic grapes available this week, don’t buy grapes.  Vote with your dollar. 
4. When available, buy only pasture-raised poultry and grass-fed beef.
5. When the grocery store attendant asks if you found everything you were looking for today, tell them you want to see more organic and regenerative products.
6. Explore local farmer’s markets or food hubs and find out what farms are being run organically and regeneratively and buy from them. Some will even deliver to you. – I’ll talk more about this in a future post.

We have power – our dollars and our words matter. Let’s use them!  We support you in your journey to great health!