Grass fed meat, soils, and sustainability
This one has been hitting paleo blogosphere quite a bit which is so great to see (Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser). But I still have to post up a link to Allan Savory’s TED talk, because it is just so good and such an important message.
This hits home in so many ways for me. For years since I became interested in food and diet from an evolutionary perspective I knew it is about more than just some narcissistic attempt to perfect oneself. The fact that our species is all in on row farming and eating whack foods is holding down the IQ of impoverished populations, destroying soils and disconnecting us from an interest in where we live, is surely to blame for much of current mental illness and diseases, and connects in to the most critical economic issues of our time around asinine agricultural subsidies. I stopped preaching to people around me about what makes sense to eat a long time ago, but it’s very hard to disassociate food from so many other issues.
Having an environmental science background I’ve been wanting to dig in to some writing on food and local/regional environmental management for some time but for now I’m glad to see it get covered. I’m so over exposed to the term “sustainability” at this point that I tend to distance myself from “environmentalists” who often take up the most ridiculous causes. But I hope one day I can fold in more meaningful action into my work and personal life. For now I’m happy to see select folks like Robb Wolf in this post last year take it up and represent thoughtful “sustainability”, and hope that more high profile economists like Tyler Cowen continue to recognize that soil management should be at the very top of the list of environmental issues.
If you’re looking for some inspiration from people with boots on the ground actually managing land properly with pastured animals check out these podcasts with Polyface’s Joel Salatin or Alderspring’s Glenn Elzinga. Scientist Mat Lalonde gets credit for mentioning the disaster of grains in the middle east on many of his gem podcasts as well, such as this one.
Other links:
Savory Institute
