I recently read the book What Your Food Ate by David Montgomery and Anne Biklé and have not been able to stop thinking about it. Then there was an opinion article in the NYT about how our food system is in crisis, with the most recent manifestation of it being the epic "foodflation" going on right now. You may be feeling this with the enormous price increases happening in every aisle of the grocery store. I know my toddler can pack it in, but he is not solely accounting for the more than 30% increase I've seen in my own grocery budget in the last year.

And then you have me here talking about 100% grass-fed meat and dairy, pasture-raised eggs, and organic produce, yet I know many people are facing the challenge of just affording enough whole food to get on the table, and going beyond that may not be feasible.

It's tough.

Especially hearing all this advice without knowing the real why behind it—how big of an impact our food has not just for our health but for our planet. I knew I had to write about it because I feel it is so important to share this message.

As I left my corporate job to start Flora & Fauna Nutrition and our household had to make ends meet on one income, we had to make sacrifices. But one thing I never sacrificed was food quality because I knew if we skimped now, we would be paying for it at some point down the line anyway, whether it be our own personal health or the general welfare of the planet my children and grandchildren will inherit.

The truth is, how our food is grown matters. I'd argue (and many others much more knowledgeable than me on the subject have, too) that how we've been growing food is actually a main reason we're in this mess in the first place.

How did we get here?

More Food—But At What Cost?

With populations growing exponentially over the last century, food production has rightfully been a major focus, especially picking up after the Second World War. But while trying to feed the world, we've deviated from traditional wisdom and practices, which has gotten us into trouble. Farming practices were optimized to prioritize a select few commodity monocrops, crops were bred for maximum yield, and food was processed for optimal shelf life and transport across the world—all at a cost.

The truth is that evidence shows the nutrient density of our foods has decreased significantly over the last century (1,2), not only because more than half of the calories Americans consume come from ultra-processed foods, but because, in some cases, the nutrient content of our actual whole foods has declined as well.

whole grain rice vs white rice — photo credit: Polina Tankilevitch

Along the way, once-nutritious foods like wheat and rice have been stripped of their beneficial compounds all in the name of producing, shipping, and shelving more food. In parts of the world, we may have solved the problem of providing sufficient calories, but we have an epidemic of undernourishment from a lack of critical vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, and our collective health is suffering for it (3,4).

And I'm not just talking about our personal health, but the health of our plants, animals, soil, and ultimately the earth.

Are The Soils Just Out of Nutrients To Give?

Many people blame the soil, saying that we've used up all the nutrients and the soil is depleted. You may be surprised to hear that isn't actually true (5). A 2008 study showed that while the mineral content of wheat decreased, the mineral content of soil was similar to over 150 years ago (6).

So why is even our whole food less nutritious? There are two main reasons at play.

The first is about the crops themselves and something called the dilution effect. Nutrient density has become diluted over years and years of breeding for greater and greater yields, but not breeding to have the nutrient uptake of the plants increase to match those yields. Effectively, that means the same amount of nutrients is being spread among a greater amount of fruits or grains or whatever crop it may be.

So that broccoli crown that is enormous, or the ear of wheat that now has twice as many grains, does indeed have more calories available but is still taking up the same amount of nutrients as before. This leads to the need to actually eat more of those calories to make up for the dilution of nutrients.

Basically, we've bred our plants with the goal to feed the world but not to nourish the world.

And while the mineral content of the soils may not be declining, that's not to say that our soils are in good shape. This has affected how plants are able to access nutrients from the soil. Coupling the dilution effect with poor ability to uptake nutrients from the soil has further decreases the nutritional content of food.

It's Not Just Dirt

healthier soil for healthier food — photo credit: fotios

A major driver impacting nutrient uptake in our food crops is the health of the soil. So even though the soil has enough theoretical nutrients in it, if the plant cannot access them, there is no benefit for the plant or for us.

That’s where soil microbes come in.

You may be more familiar with how our own microbiome affects our health. It affects how many nutrients our body is able to absorb, and similar dynamics play out in plants and the soil.

Research shows just how critical these microorganisms are for unlocking nutrients in the soil to make them available to plants and, in turn, us.

Microbes like fungi and bacteria help plants to uptake essential minerals like zinc and magnesium at a higher rate than otherwise possible by the plant alone (7,8). They also produce compounds that can be protective to the plant, and help stimulate a plant's own defense system against pests, decreasing the need for toxic pesticides (9). All of this is in return for the food that the plants produce—namely carbon via photosynthesis—that provides energy to the communities of microscopic organisms giving life to the soil.

Sounds a lot like our own relationship with our microbiome, right?

And like many of our own gut microbial communities, these microbial communities in soil are hurting. Many of the practices common in conventional agriculture have had detrimental side effects for soil health. The changes that came with the advent of now-common agricultural practices like monoculture crops, invasive mechanical tilling, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides and herbicides have caused the biggest impact on soil health.

Practices Most Detrimental to Soil Health

Let's dive into how these practices impact soil health and how organic and regenerative—in a word, traditional—farming practices can help to reverse these negative impacts and improve soil health for myriad benefits for people, plants, and the planet.

Monoculture Crops

Imagine eating the same thing for every meal, every single day. Our toddlers may happily do so, but we know better, so we try and at least rotate a few healthy options regularly to add in key nutrients. The same is true for the soil. Growing the same crop season after season after season has negative consequences on soil health (10). After a while, the diversity of the soil microbiome decreases dramatically, and the land is depleted of micronutrients that the crop needs. Something needs to be added back in at that point, which leads us to our next soil health-damaging practice.

Overuse of Synthetic Fertilizer

Instead of focusing on soil health to supply vital nutrients, the main go-to has been to load crops with synthetic fertilizers. Little did they know that these fertilizers disrupt the beneficial fungi that help crops to uptake minerals (11), further increasing the need for fertilizer. But increasing levels of synthetic fertilizer actually DECREASE some key nutrient levels like vitamin C and zinc (12, 13), both of which are critical for human health. It's estimated that an astonishing 17% of the global population is deficient in zinc, having serious implications for proper reproduction, development, and immune function (14).

So more synthetic nutrients are dumped on fields, but now because the soil health has not been improved, a large portion isn't even able to be absorbed and runs off at the first big rain. This leads to all sorts of downstream effects, like harm to aquatic life and contamination of drinking water (15). What's more—synthetic fertilizers increase the need for pesticides due to lowered plant defenses.

But the answer isn't only to remove these fertilizers. Unfortunately, many crops have been bred to be "lazy" when it comes to taking up nutrients from the soil, so just swapping fertilizer for organic matter isn't going to be a silver bullet. Getting crops to acclimate or have crops that are bred to thrive in high organic matter environments is necessary to achieve similar yields to conventional agriculture.

Pesticides and Herbicides

Think of them as the antibiotics of agriculture. In the case of glyphosate, the equally notorious and ubiquitous herbicide, it also received a patent as a literal antibiotic. So while it may be trying to target weeds, it is going to have an impact on the microbiome of the soil—and potentially our own—as well.

Pesticides also have many unintended consequences for beneficial insects that are critical to maintaining our food supply—namely, pollinators like bees and pest-controlling insects like ladybugs and parasitic wasps (those guys sound like freaky sci-fi characters we would not want, but it turns out they are super important for keeping many pests at bay, 16).

A 2022 study out of Harvard estimated that decreasing pollinators accounts for up to 5% decrease of access to healthy foods, annually increasing the disease burden on global populations (17).

Tillage

Tillage alters the soil health by disturbing its natural structure and microbial community composition in a way that can negatively affect nutrient cycling (18). It's used to temporarily improve surface conditions and disturb the soil so that weeds cannot take hold, but it ends up disturbing far more than that.

Tilling negatively alters the soil structure over the long term, leading to increased erosion, affecting water absorption and temporarily increases bacterial activity, leading to organic matter loss. It also reduces incredibly important fungal networks (more on why those guys matter below) and earthworm populations, both of which are critical for proper nutrient cycling (19).

So how do you bring health back to the soil?

The Organic That Really Matters

The answer lies in organic matter, or the living or once-living remnants from plant and animal sources—compost, root systems, decaying plant matter, manure, fungal networks, and so much more.

Just as fiber is beneficial for our health and feeds our gut microbiomes, organic matter is crucial for soil health and feeding soil microbial communities. Organic matter is reintroduced into the soil through composting, practicing non-tilling, leaving old plant remnants in place, and cover cropping between harvesting and sowing.

Higher organic matter is associated with greater yields and richer microbial communities (20, 21). Mycorrhizal (root-associated) fungi, in particular, have been shown to correlate positively with plant health and the nutrient content of food (22, 23).

Regenerative practices like composting and no-till both help increase organic matter and allow fungi to take hold, which may explain why these practices yield more nutritious food and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

There are very limited studies comparing the nutrient density of crops from regenerative vs. conventional farming, but a side-by-side comparison of wheat grown under each system showed that regenerative crops had significantly higher levels of zinc, magnesium, and calcium—all critical micronutrients—without any decline in yield (24). The same study showed that various regenerative crops were higher in not only many key vitamins and minerals but also in phytochemicals.

What are phytochemicals, you ask? You aren't going to find these chemicals on the supplement facts panel like you would for macronutrients or minerals, but research is showing these micronutrients have a profound effect on maintaining health in our bodies. They are responsible for giving distinct colors and flavors to foods. Many, like quercetin in onions, lycopene in tomatoes, flavonoids in green tea and dark chocolate, and anthocyanins in blueberries, have been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits and help regulate the immune system.

Phytochemicals also support our gut microbiome, and having high levels of these in our foods has been shown to be increasingly beneficial for our overall well-being (25). Even if you can’t find regenerative, organic crops have been shown to be consistently higher in phytochemicals compared to conventional crops (26).

Don't get me wrong—even conventionally-grown whole foods are nutritious, and they are great sources of many micronutrients. They definitely benefit your health, so please don't take this as me saying that consuming these foods is not excellent for your health. It's just that not much attention has been paid to how our current agricultural methods and breeding practices may impact the lesser-known contents of food—like phytochemicals—and how they affect our ability to maintain optimal health (26). And thinking more long-term beyond just how it immediately affects our health, we should consider how things can be produced more sustainably for future generations.

Bringing Healthy Soils Back

So, there are reasons to believe that focusing on regenerative farming practices is good for our bodies. But how does it impact the planet? Healthy soil not only grows a majority of our food but also stores and filters precious freshwater, acts as a carbon sink, and suffers far less erosion.

two hands picking up healthy soil for healthy food — Photo Credit: Gabriel Jimenez

Soil that resists erosion is critical, especially since the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one-third of our topsoil is already eroded, and an estimated 90% will be at risk by 2050 (27). That number is alarming when you consider it takes a thousand years to create just an inch of topsoil. Intensive farming practices have played a large role in these startling numbers.

So how can we help bring health back to the soil?

The best practices to increase soil fertility include no-till farming, avoiding synthetic fertilizers or pesticides/herbicides, using cover crops year-round, and practicing diverse crop rotation. Supporting food that is grown in these ways, which prioritize soil health, will go a long way toward helping to restore fertility to our soils.

It doesn't necessarily need to be USDA-certified organic or certified by any means. In fact, organic farmers often use tilling, so although their soils are generally healthier and the pesticide load lower than conventional farms, it may not necessarily be doing the best for soils.

Unfortunately, as with "grass-fed" and other buzz terms, "regenerative" and "sustainable" has become a form of greenwashing that is put on labels for marketing without any oversight into which regenerative practices are actually being followed. There is, however, a new certification called Certified Regenerative Organic, so if you come across that, you'll know that best-in-class processes for soil health are being followed.

But one of the best things you can do is get out and talk to the vendors at your local farmer's market. Many of them are practicing these methods but don't have the money to spend on fancy certifications. What matters is what is actually being done, not necessarily what's on the package.

What About the Animals?

Many people, my former self included, thought giving up meat was the answer to our environmental and health problems. But the more I've learned, the more I realize it is not animals, but conventional ways of raising them, that are causing issues. Switching comparatively nutrient-dense animal food sources for more and more monoculture agriculture that erodes and depletes the soil is going to have just as much of a damaging effect on the planet.

The solution is not replacing one food group with another; it is changing the entire way our food is produced. Animals raised in a regenerative way that works with the land are not only good for the planet but also good for our health.

Animals raised to eat their native diet of pasture grasses and other on-pasture plants—out in sunshine, as they were intended to be—have higher proportional levels of many nutrients, including phytonutrients, vitamins A, D, E, and K, omega-3 fatty acids, and also have a better ratio of essential omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids than conventionally fed animals (28-31).

This is a whole topic on its own, but the gist is that while both of these omega fatty acids are essential for the body, omega-6s activate our inflammatory response, and omega-3s are anti-inflammatory. So, having a balanced ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is much less inflammatory in our bodies. Conjugated linoleic acid, which is correlated with a reduced risk of heart disease, is also much higher in pasture-raised cattle meat (32).

And we don't need a lot of meat. I actually think we should decrease the amount we’re eating as a population for the future of our food supply. Not all of our meals need to be based around it—and even then, I like to think of it more as a side dish. We should try to use most of the animal, including the most nutrient-dense organ meats and tougher connective tissue and bones in bone broths.

However, many of the most critical nutrients for fertility and development are found in their most bioavailable forms in animal products. Consciously eating moderate amounts of these nutrient-rich foods alongside a wide variety of plant-based foods can be highly beneficial when sourced from farms that are putting practices in place to make growing animal foods as sustainable and natural as possible (33).

When livestock are sustainably integrated with crop production, they help to improve soil health by adding organic matter to the soil during grazing, and the constant crop cover of pasture positively affects root systems and soil structure, all of which allow for more carbon to be captured and near-neutral emissions (34, 35). In fact, animal grazers are often the key to jumpstart the process of bringing degraded land back to a sustainable ecosystem. Some farms doing the regenerative model on a large scale are White Oak Pastures and PolyFace Farms, both of which have a direct-to-consumer option.

Some studies have actually found that grass-fed beef has higher carbon emissions (36), but these typically do not take into account the complete lifecycle of the entire regenerated ecosystem, including carbon sequestration in regeneratively managed soils with increased organic matter.

Fertility: An Important Vital Sign

I was really surprised to hear that when not fed their proper diet, the health of cows has been suffering, too—especially when I heard that lower fertility is being observed with dairy cows raised in conventional farming systems compared to pasture-raised ones (37, 38). I know how our diet can have such an effect on our fertility (and that’s one reason why our collective fertility has been dropping over the past decades), but I never stopped to think about what effect that may be having on cows and other animals.

Fertility can be thought of as a vital sign, so the fact that it is dropping with how cows are being bred and raised now tells us there is something wrong with our conventional methods.

Couple that with the fact that many farmers—those who work to feed us—are breaking their backs, enduring chronic pesticide and herbicide exposure, and actually losing money, surviving on crop insurance.

IT'S JUST NOT WORKING.

But is it realistic to think we can feed and nourish the world using these regenerative practices?

A Pie in the Sky Dream?

Many people question the ability of these regenerative farming practices to meet the demand of our population. However, evidence shows that after a couple of upstart years, yields can be just as good as conventional agriculture. Not to mention, the produce is more nutritious, so you may actually need to consume less food to achieve the same health benefits.

And that's not even considering all the food waste that occurs annually. It's estimated that 40% of food is THROWN AWAY. (Does reading this make you as frustrated as it makes me?) But I chose to turn that frustration into action to hopefully help move the needle on this crisis that is coming to a head.

That same NYT article I referenced at the start casually mentions how regenerative practices aren't the promise they’d hoped for, but there is evidence and plenty of practical applications showing that it is possible. However, it will take changes in practices, governance, subsidy focus, and consumer habits to make a noticeable shift.

Much of the debate is around the extra land use needed for regenerative ranching. Studies have shown that although net emissions are up to 80% lower and the land can regenerate with improved organic matter, often the land use required is more than double that of conventional systems (35). With deforestation a major concern these days, it is definitely an important aspect to consider. Land-sparing—where farming is more intensive but on a smaller scale—has come out ahead for biodiversity in certain regions (39).

But it is clear that regenerative farming practices do restore the land that has been degraded by years and years of conventional intensive farming. It’s also important to note that there are many land areas that simply will not support crops but are perfect for raising responsibly managed livestock.

Whether you agree with meat production or consumption—there are many reasons people may choose not to—I hope we can all agree that the way forward for agriculture should prioritize regenerative practices including no-till farming, diverse cover crops, reducing fertilizer/pesticide use, and composting.

There should be a focus on smaller-scale farms and shifting subsidies to incentivize and prioritize these farms that feed their communities at the source.

plots of land being regeneratively farmed — photo credit: Tom Fisk

A Note on Indigenous Wisdom

One of the major oversights I felt What Your Food Ate had was that while it touted practices championed by many new-age thinkers, it did not pay much attention to those who have been perfecting these practices for millennia—Indigenous communities around the world.

Modern intercropping, agroforestry, and other regenerative practices have roots in Indigenous practices (40). There are as many ways to go about it as there are different cultures, but they all include an inherent respect for nature and giving the Earth what it needs in return for the bounty it provides.

We need to look to Indigenous and traditional wisdom to bring solutions for a more sustainable food system. Thankfully, this is being brought to the attention of world leaders and changemakers. Learn more here about nature-indigenous wisdom management integration here and here.

Practical Tips for a Budget-Friendly Shift

The question of budget also comes into play. I know that often choosing higher-quality food like regenerative produce and pasture-raised eggs, meat, and dairy can really start to add up and may not be accessible to many.

I would encourage you to take an audit to understand where there may be room in your budget for this—how many "healthy" processed food options you’re buying or pre-made meals instead of the base ingredients?

When you choose foods in their whole forms and make the commitment to cook the majority of your meals from scratch, you’d be surprised how much less your total bill is while still including the highest-quality ingredients. And since a majority of the conventional agriculture is going to these commodity monocrops to produce processed foods, industrial seed oils and feed conventionally farmed animals, making the change to whole foods and 100% grass-fed meat and dairy will go a long way toward moving the needle on this issue.

Ways to obtain quality food whole foods on a budget include:

Buying from your farmers market—talk to the vendors and find out who is implementing these practices but just doesn’t have the certification.
Wholesale retailers like Costco and Sam's Club. I went to my local Costco recently and was pleasantly surprised by the quality selection they had—from 100% grass-fed butter, ground beef, and milk to a large selection of organic, albeit not regenerative, produce for prices that are MUCH cheaper than the grocery store. I'll have to do a whole other post on how to maximize your dollar, but this is a good place to start.
Buying less-expensive pasture-raised meat cuts like chuck roast and stew meat that require a bit more cooking time.
Prioritizing organic produce when it’s on EWG's Dirty Dozen list. I choose to buy organic when possible because while I am not under the illusion that it is the be-all and end-all in healthy farming and eating, I think of it as a step in the right direction, and I like to support the best practices I can as I am able.

When You Are Able—Vote with Your Wallet

a person buying sustainably grown food — photo credit: Erik Scheel

I wholeheartedly believe how our food was grown, and what it ate, matters so much for our well-being.

It's not just about calories and energy but the nutrients you are eating to nourish your body and how the practices used to produce our food impact the environment and our ability to sustain our food system. We seem to have forgotten that while working to maximize yield, convenience and, unfortunately, profit.

While choosing high-quality, sustainably produced food may seem like a luxury, I believe it's a crucial investment in our health and the planet's future. Even on a tight budget, making informed food choices and supporting sustainable farming practices can have a profound impact on our well-being and the environment.

So, I encourage you to choose quality food produced in a way that helps soil and animal health when you can, and for those who are financially able, vote with your wallet and seek these regeneratively farmed foods out on the regular.

This guide gives an overview of which labels to look for when shopping and questions to ask your local farmer's market vendors, and this guide gives a good overview of resources to help locate regeneratively grown foods and brand in your area.

In this aspect, I am so proud of my generation and younger generations for demanding better of companies in so many aspects of life, but the first step is actually knowing why things need to change.

My hope is this article provided some insights into why how our food was produced matters for us and our families, our communities, and our planet. There are a million other tangents I could go down on this—I've nerded out haaaard on this topic—but I'll leave it for future blogs and encourage you to read more about it if you're curious.

Again, the book What Your Food Ate goes into much of the details on this, and some other resources I recommend if you want to go deeper are Kiss the Ground documentary, Braiding Sweetgrass and The Lentil Underground (I promise a book about lentils is way more interesting than it sounds :D ). And next on my list is Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.

Know you want to make a shift in what you’re bringing to your table but don’t know where to start? Let’s work together to implement a manageable plan for shifting your food quality for your health and environment that is within your budget. Book your complimentary 15-minute consult today!

References

Why It Matters How Your Food Was Made