Modern Food : A series of unfortunate events

Reading Time: 40 Minutes
Comprehension Time: Depends upon the attitude of the reader

I do not want you to waste your time.  So before you move on,  let us do a quick qualifying survey for your own benefit.

Question - Do you think we live in a world where our food system and its production is perfect?

If your answer is YES then you can leave this post. There is literally nothing for you here.

If your answer is NO, then read on.

Let me first tell you why I am writing this article. I am writing it to sum up my learning after many months of pseudo-research about healthy foods and how our food choices have any connection with the environment we live in or vice versa. I have hopefully connected the dots and wanted to share it out.

I think there is always a cause for every effect and some time you have to dig deeper to find the root cause of a problem that is as serious as our food system today, in US and most parts of the world. So I wanted to lay down chronological events that led us to the situation we are in and I think the title is very appropriate for what I am going to write.

Event 1 (Protein Discovery):
- In early part of 1800s, Gerardus Johannes Mulder described protein as a component of plants as well as animals. This was a significant discovery in that until that point, people saw food as “whole” and did not think about its individual parts. People ate what they thought was "food" and ate what was available easily and locally.

Event 2 (Protein Recommendation):
- In late 1800s, Carl von Voit said protein is the most important nutrient and that more is better. He did not provide any recommendation or daily limit. He based his findings by studying wealthy people who were already eating too much protein. This was very unfortunate because until then people were not thinking about what exact component to eat. People ate real foods and combined foods in whatever way they liked.

Event 3 (Animal Protein):
- As more research continued, in mid-1900s, animal foods producers (an industry of sorts) in USA provided research support to prove that animal protein is superior in quality. Researchers based on this just by looking at structures and quantity of the amino acids rather than the overall composition and how they interact with the human body. They used rats for their research whose dietary and growth needs are much different than humans. This was an unfortunate event because this incomplete research led people to increase their meat consumption in developed countries.

Event 4 (Grain feeding):
- In the mid-1900s US, the US government used available data and wrongly concluded that all calories are same and so they started to subsidize corn and soy to be fed to animals to increase production of meat by using cheap grains as input. The logic was that you are creating cheap calories and then animals will synthesize lot more calories. This was unfortunate because animals were deprived of their natural foods and had to start living on foods that made them sick all the time.

Event 5 (Processed junk):
- In late 1900s, the corn and soy byproducts were used to create high fructose corn syrup and corn/soybean oil to manufacture highly processed / junk foods. This was unfortunate because packaged junk foods became cheaper than real foods. Government subsidies were now creating cheap calories and not nutritious calories.

Event 6 (GMOs):
- Meat industry wanted to increase the production because they were confident they can create demand very easily with the marketing money they had. But that meant they had to increase soy and corn production first, so GMOs were invented in late 1900s to promise a greater yield. This was unfortunate because the GMOs created an artificial perception that the yields increased but in reality it took lot more water and damaged the soil quality across the country.

Event 7 (Intensive Farming):
- US companies started treating animals as commodities and started putting them in so called factory farms to keep their costs down. This was unfortunate because this was the start of the era where mass produced animals resulted into rise in industrial pollutants and increased use of antibiotics to keep them alive until the day of slaughter.

Event 8 (Globalization of mistakes):
- Countries like China, Brazil, Argentina, Vietnam and South Korea saw a significant rise in per capita meat consumption (between 1960 and now) because they also were subjected to the marketing of US fast food companies. This was unfortunate because these countries had to divert their current resources towards meat production, increase the GMO soy and corn production OR clear rainforest for raising livestock.

Event 9 (Globalization of mistakes):
- In the last 60 years, many developing countries started growing crops such as corn and soy to export the grains to developed nations. This was unfortunate because it reduced available land to produce food for their own people and also depleted their soil quality over time. Even in countries that did not increase their meat demands, there was a trend to produce cheap grains and unnatural foods to be fed to their livestock

So as you can see whether it is GMOs or pesticides or processed foods or shortage of food in poor nations, whatever you thought was wrong with our food system, there is a root cause for all of it and the biggest driver for all of that is our obsession for high amount of protein from animals.

It is evident that there were quite a few unfortunate events in the last 200 years that led us to where we are now. It has lot to do with greed and capitalism of the industrialized world. But more importantly the industry has fooled people in such a way that we think it has been our tradition for thousands of years.


200 years ago, people ate animal foods but as a celebratory food or in small quantities, but now it is on everyone's plate for every meal and most people think that is how it has been for all their ancestry. In many countries the word "vegetarian" has taken a new meaning to include even meats and fish. That's the extent of manipulation prevalent in the world today to include and increase animal protein consumption. If we did not go crazy over protein and especially animal protein, we would have very well sustained on locally produced and organically raised foods that did not require the use of GMOs or pesticides and packaged foods would not have been discovered nor they would be so cheap (artificially).

In the same period that junk food industry grew, they used several tactics to keep the public confused:

• When science proved that trans fats were bad for health, the industry produced no trans fat foods which still had high amount of saturated fat in them
• Then the industry came up with low fat foods to make the customers eat more sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup.
• Then they came up with "low carb" fad to make wheat and most grains as villains along with sugar.
• Food industry fed grains to livestock and fattened them up to increase their profits and then they convinced people that grains make you fat so people should eat animal foods in favor of grains. But animals got fat eating grains because grains wasn't their natural food. Humans on the other hand evolved to eat grains and seeds for millions of years.
• Slowly they made most of the staple foods in the world such as wheat, rice, soy villain along with even some fruits. Industry has convinced people that many raw foods are inferior to the processed foods they sell. They even created a campaign to tell public that bananas can kill people.
• Even though less than 1% of world really has wheat gluten sensitivity they have successfully made lot of people scared of wheat gluten. On the other hand even though 20% of the world has milk allergy they have successfully increased the overall milk consumption across the world over the last 5 decades.
• Industry also convinced people that rather than getting vitamins from foods, they are better off getting them from pills and packages. They also convinced that everyone in the world needs to take fish oil for brain health.
• Once science determined that animal proteins cause calcium loss in bones, industry has asked people to consume more milk for more calcium and once they found out humans cannot absorb calcium from milk very well, they started adding vitamin D to make people believe that it will improve absorption of calcium. So basically it has been one tactic after other to make people consume more and more animal products to maximize their profits.
• In many developed nations, people are becoming aware of the harmful effects of animal agriculture on both public health and environment health and they are willing to reduce their animal food intake but at the same time developing nations are increasing their demands at much faster rate, thanks to the effective marketing campaigns of giant food corporations.
• Food industry in association with medical industry has used tactics such as genetic research to make people believe that it is their genes which make them sick and what they eat or how they live does not have anything to do with illness. This is like saying that you could bang your head on the wall but if you get hurt, it is because you are not wearing a helmet.  In fact, food industry and medical industry has worked hand in hand to keep the people confused by presenting the science that never showed a solution but always showed either a patch OR provided a good news about their bad habits.
• In the last 30 years medical industry has blamed either genes, or lack of exercise or increased stress for illness so that people can continue to eat the same unhealthy foods.They have never addressed the root cause of any illness. All their technology invention has been just to elongate an unhealthy lifestyle so that people can continue to pay them more over their lifetimes. 

There are few other things that I found out during my pseudo-research that are mind boggling.

• Most of the world where water shortages are prevalent, most of the available water is still used for livestock production rather than human use.
• Several countries have seen rise of terrorism after persistent droughts and shortage of food because their fertile soil has become infertile due to long term use of pesticides and GMOs and economies have been destroyed which led to civil unrest.
• USA and other western countries where meat consumption has rapidly risen, healthcare costs have sharply risen in the same time period.
• Countries with the highest consumption of dairy (Finland, Sweden, USA, and England) has also the highest incidents of bone fractures and osteoporosis.
• Countries like India which used to have extremely fertile soil is seeing a steady decline in crop production, especially in those parts of India where pesticides are used more. These are the same pesticides that are used on GMO crops to “increase” yields. Pesticides kill the healthy soil bacteria that provides the nutrition to the plants from the soil.
• The nutrition quality of foods grown from soil across the world is going down where chemical fertilizers are widely being used.
• The pollinators are disappearing or going extinct in the areas where there are industrial farms.
• C-section babies and autism cases are increasing at a rapid rate in the countries where people eat animals who have been raised on pesticide laden GMO variety foods and with growth hormones.
• Humans living in developed countries with western diets have lost most of their biodiversity inside their gut. Basically the variety of bacteria that human gut needs to have to digest the foods has been lost. This has led to all kinds of digestive issues which all ultimately leads to poor nutrition, increased inflammation and thus diseases.
• Industrial farming that has to use antibiotics to keep the animals alive and healthy are the biggest reason why more people are losing their immunity and their defense against infectious diseases. There is a significant rise in the number of people dying of an infectious disease just because the medicines that are proven to work, do not work for them because of the antibiotic resistance that their bodies have developed over time.
• Livestock (cows, pigs, chickens) are today one of the largest ocean predator in the world. 70% of ocean bykills (bycatch) is fed to livestock in the form of fish pallets mixed with the grain. So not only we have a system where humans, primarily herbivore, is eating lot more animal protein; even the animals we breed and raise for food are also forced to do so. Instead of relying on the Sun and soil for food we have created a system where we waste large amount of primary food to consume secondary foods. 

But there is hope to come out of this mess and it is as simple as learning the truth. Since the first lie that started all this was that “animal protein is superior in quality”, it needs to be exposed in front of public.

Here’s some of the facts that I learnt through my research and there are thousands of studies that have proved this:

• Every human and animal need protein
• Protein is first synthesized by plants by taking nitrogen from soil. It is basically composed of amino acids and other chemicals.
• When any animal eats the plants, the animal breaks them down and creates amino acids and use it as needed.
• When a carnivores animal eats another animal, it also needs to break them down and repeat the process.
• Basically at every level, the same process needs to happen. And there is no “quality improvement” that happens as this goes up the food chain.
• Humans are much more closely related to herbivores / frugivores (fruit eaters) and so they are very efficient at making use of plant proteins.
• Humans also live very long, live in a "friendly" habitat and have to grow slowly so their protein needs are actually very small compared to many other mammals.
• Animal protein has amino acids that have high sulfur content in them. Plant proteins do not have that problem.
• So even if the animal protein is technically protein they are not very suitable for humans and relatively less energy-efficient for humans. High amount of sulfur containing amino acids cause calcium depletion from bones as well as more uric acid in kidney.
• Animal protein is also the single most reason for inflammation in human body and inflammation is the root of most human diseases from basic digestive issues to something as deadly as heart attack or parkinson’s disease.
• Animal protein is also very closely linked with several types of cancers (breast cancer, prostate cancer etc), as well as cardiovascular diseases such as back pain, erectile dysfunction, Alzheimer's, stroke and heart attack. This happens because animal protein comes with a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol and it is the combination that is deadlier than its parts.

There is also a very clear explanation for why humans do NOT need a lot of protein:

When human baby is born, he/she needs mother's milk to grow at the fastest rate possible. Human breastmilk contains 15-20% fat, 5-10% protein and rest are complex carbohydrates. During breastfeeding period of first two years, human baby grows almost 4 times. This means that when protein needs are highest , 5-10% protein calories are all we need. Any more protein than that causes overload and makes the body inefficient at digestion. In a 2000 calorie diet, this will mean 200 calories which translates to 50 grams of protein. Protein needs are higher for athletes or someone who is physically very active but for most people 10% protein calories are more than sufficient. 

Also since protein requires lot of 'break down' and 'reassembly' it requires good gut bacteria to help with digestion. These gut bacteria feeds on fiber and cellulose and so they are most effective when they get fiber with protein. The best way to thus digest and absorb protein is to eat plant proteins such as grains, legumes and beans which comes with a lot of fiber.

In summary, animal protein is not superior in anyway compared to plant protein. It is neither essential nor healthy. If one has developed a taste for it, that is a different thing and maybe one can continue doing it but it is not doing any better to a human body than eating it from the true source - plants.

If one can switch to plant proteins, they will also stop supporting an industry that has destroyed our soil, wasted our water, polluted our oceans and caused so much greenhouse gases over years. And yes their body will be a much more energy efficient machine.

It seems global warming started with our obsession for "high quality" protein

• More people are eating more protein from animals
• Animals require lot of food and water to grow
• 50% of grains in the world are fed to livestock 
• Remaining land is used for all other crops
• To meet the demand of crops, more pesticides are used for all crops
• Soil health degrades so carbon doesn't sequester in the soil
• Rain-forests destruction continues so there aren't enough trees to take in co2
• Ocean over-fishing and exploitation reduces ocean's ability to take in co2
• More co2 and methane stays in atmosphere 
• Global warming continues to worsen

Global warming is not the cause, it's a symptom. The cause is our unsustainable demand of animal foods and of course fossil fuels used in every other industry. If you get a fever from common cold, doctor gives you pain reliever but if you get fever because of bacterial infection then he will prescribe antibiotics. Same way global warming is a symptom of an infection that requires elimination of root cause, just a pain reliever won't cure it.  

Here's the four scariest projections related to longer term effects of a sustained global warming:
- At high temperatures, plants will be unable to photosynthesis to transform solar energy into nutrition. This will cause major food shortages across the world.
- As part of world warms little too much, other parts will cool down significantly too and this will cause massive seasonal changes that will change weather patterns too rapidly for humans to adapt causing mass migrations of humans
- Number of earthquakes and other major natural disasters will increase and they will also intensify to a great extent
- Most of the coastal land will be underwater due to sea level rise

Imagine if everyone reduced their animal foods demand such that they get 40 grams protein from plants and just 10 grams or less from animals. This will mean that we won't have to devote so much land and water for animal foods and we can restore our soil health by regenerative organic agriculture. The best way to do regenerative agriculture is to rotate crops between legumes or other nitrogen loving crops and not use any chemicals for food production. Crops that takes nitrogen in soil are also very high in protein. So this is a great way to switch to a better quality protein with a better quality soil. We can restore our ocean's ecosystem and coral reefs. We can stop further destruction of rain-forests. We can actually reverse global warming. It seems the demand needs to reduce to 1/3 of current demand and it needs to happen at a rate faster than the growth of animal agriculture to really counter-act its devastating effects.

Nature magazine did a complete research/study recently and said that an all-plant diet is really the only way to sustainably produce foods without losing any more rain-forests in the world and without damaging our soil with chemical based agriculture and still feed all the 10 billions people in next few decades. So until the whole world gets that message, do your part in avoiding the damage.

Make the connection - sustainable planet will happen with sustainable food choices. Sustainable food choices are the ones that are closest to the soil and have the most nutrition in their purest form. Why go to the middle man when you can go to the source for the same price and better value? As Michael Pollen says it well - "Eat real food, not much, mostly plants".

It seems our gut biodiversity is directly related to biodiversity on the planet and by eating foods that cause energy efficiency and health in our body, we also creates a sustainable, efficient and healthy planet. 


References:

• http://www.gorillaprotein.com/protein_deficiency.html
• http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/protein.html
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/acj5tteqrkx9taq/food-revolution-summit-2016.mp3?dl=0