Book Review: What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health

I recently understand the 2022 bookWhat Your Food Ate , by geologist David Montgomery and biologist Anne Biklé . The authors have published two other record : The Hidden one-half of NatureandDirt : The Erosion of Civilizations , which also deal with the issues of soil wellness , microbiomes and land practice .

What Your Food Ateprovides science - based insight into how soil health and farming practices directly impact plant life wellness and nutritionary subject matter which in turn affect the health of the animals and man that consume them . This clause summarizes the key points the authors present .

Agricultural Practices and Soil Health

The book open with a discussion of how farming techniques have evolved from pre - industrial natural method acting to mechanized agricultural practices including weighty tilling and the use of chemical fertiliser , pesticides and weed killers on large craw monoculture . It makes the point that dramatic human population growth over the past 150 year necessitate a major increase in food output . This concur with technological change , leading to the shift in agricultural practice . While the changes achieve the increased turnout objective lens , they also engender an unplanned and , for a retentive clock time , unrecognized degradation of soil wellness , that caused a reduction in the nutritional content of crop . Because the chemical substance fertilizers lack many micronutrient that are central to constitute health and the nutritional content of food produced , their use along with mechanized farming practices has lead to a major reduction in territory health and plant - uncommitted nourishment .

The analytic thinking compares the content of conventionally grown to regeneratively grown harvest where the regenerative process include canonical constitutive practices ( contribute organic matter and minimizing chemical consumption ) , plus the regenerative additions of no - till , cover cropping , crop rotation and crop diversity . While conventional practices utilise chemical fertilizers give plants the macronutrients want to grow , they omit many micronutrient needed for works health , make them more susceptible to insect and disease harm while reducing their nutritional content . In addition , not replacing constituent matter wipe out soil microbic and fungal life that make the nutrients in soil approachable to plants . This makes plants increasingly subordinate on chemical substance remark . Regenerative proficiency , on the other hand , are recuperative and maintain soil health as nature did , until mechanized , chemically pendant practice were acquire in the early 1900s .

The author ’ location is based on documented research demonstrating that the nutrition content of harvest is both gamy and full for regenerative than conventionally rise foods . It also goes into the negatively charged environmental effects of mechanized , chemically based practice , from tilling to eating away and runoff to a reduction of soil life and pollinator population . It ride home the distributor point that the emphasis on increase yield without esteem to land nutritional subject has ensue in significant downstream wellness impacts .

Soil Content Impacts Plant Health and Nutrition

The authors explain that while established practice session have been successful at increase intellectual nourishment output , the quality of the food produced has declined . They cite many studies , concluding that flora develop on regenerative test bed and farms consistently demonstrate a more all over range of a function and often high-pitched quantity of needed nutrient . information also show that while organically grown crops incline to be of higher nutritional value than conventionally grown , full regenerative exercise , that go beyond basic organics , are even better . Test termination indicate that following canonic constitutional credentials practices including crop rotary motion , minimal use of approved chemical substance and the additional regenerative whole step of no - till , cover cropping and plant diversity ( vs large monocultures ) , provides systematically more nutritional result . They explain the importance of organic matter along with bug and fungus in the soil to make nutrients plant accessible . The discussion provides detailed information about the grandness ofmicronutrientsandphytochemicals , in plant life , animal and human health and nourishment .

Effects on Animal Health and Nutrition

The animate being sections discuss how plant nutrient impact both animal health and the nutritionary content of the foods humans derive from them . The nutrient let in meat , fish and dairy farm products . The generator cite studies comparing the wellness of animals that are feed processed foods to those that are naturally feed . For case , cows bring up in feedlot and fed processed grains are more at risk of diseases and produce less nutritional meat and dairy merchandise than beast that are pasture fed .

They explain that during the 1950s , we number to believe that animate being fat were a choice cause of heart plan of attack in humans . While initial belief was that all avoirdupois tended to raise cholesterol , subsequent study indicates that dissimilar types of fatness have very different impact on wellness . For example , chemical fertiliser bring forth higher degree of longer - chain omega-6 fatty acids in plants , negatively affect the wellness of fauna and human consumer while healthier and much needed omega-3 fatty acid have been reduced . For example , research indicates that beef from cows fed treat cereal in feed band have a importantly higher amount of omega-6s than omega-3s . It is the contrary for pasture - feed brute . This difference affects both the wellness of the animals and the health benefits of the meat and dairy farm products derived from them . The authors link human health decline to the conversion of meat and dairy farm production to feedlot / processed cereal practices .

Human Health Effects

It may be obvious that food ’ nutritionary content impact the wellness of people who ware them . However , linking the decreased or missing nutrient of conventionally grown plant life and animal food to gain in a diversity of diseases , sham people from babyhood to onetime eld , is eye - opening . The link from soil wellness to imbed health to solid food substance is well documented . The many cited studies that valuate and compare nutritionary content of conventional to regeneratively grown food make a strong guinea pig for tying the positive and negative aspects of soil health and intellectual nourishment selection to human health . The author explain how the outcome of eating conventionally vs regeneratively produced foods along with the farm consumption of more heavily processed solid food has top to the increased occurrence of a multitude of chronic sickness and diseases include cancers and atmospheric condition like corpulency .

Take - aways

While I was already a believer in the merits of regenerative practices , I find the authors ’ connection of territory health to plant wellness to nutrient nutritional subject matter and animal and human wellness to be thorough and compelling . It supports the tip that regenerative practices are better for all of life sentence on earth , from soil life to plants , beast and humans . It also allow data that present that the economics of a regenerative approaching can be as productive and beneficial for growers as it is for consumers . This realness spend a penny a spiritual rebirth from schematic agriculture to an evenly productive but healthier regenerative approach seem bright and naturalistic .

What Your Food Atemakes a potent argument that the regenerative route is the right one for commercial-grade growers and plate gardeners . Given an choice in the future tense , regenerative organically grow foods will be my choice for both horticulture and food leverage . For those interested in the basics of regenerative farming , I suggestreviewing this selective information from the Center for Regenerative Agriculture at the University of Missouri .

While regenerative practice are not yet far-flung in the agricultural community of interests , they are grow . lease ’s desire this increment stay .

Source list for What Your Food Ate from the generator ’ websitewww.dig2grow.com :

https://www.dig2grow.com/_files/ugd/efeec1_9af7d03df12f447f90dee61521c08707.pdf