Part 1: Carbon and The Carbon Soil Sponge

On the left is a graph of global Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels since 2016. The black line is the mean, and the red line the actual, which shows the natural fluctuations through the year. We can see from this graph, how the planet takes a breath in and out each year. CO2 levels peak in April at the start of the northern hemisphere spring (there is a far greater land mass in the north), so the peak comes right before everything starts growing and absorbs carbon back into matter, which is only possible via photosynthesis.

Figure 1. Global Atmospheric Carbon Levels – annual fluctuation and overall rise. Graph thanks to NASA:https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2636/Rise-of-carbon-dioxide-unabated

What is evidently unnatural about this graph is the fact that levels are increasing year on year. The planet draws down 120 billion tons of carbon a year, but 130 billion tons end up back in the atmosphere. The additional 10 billion tons coming largely from the combustion of fossil fuels (7,8).

The jump in atmospheric CO2 in 2019 and 2020, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was probably due to an increase in extreme weather events – rainstorms and droughts causing floods and fires; and because our oceans, which are warming and acidifying, are less able to absorb excess CO2 (1). The world’s oceans act as a huge buffer to atmospheric CO2, there is currently 30,000 billion tons more CO2 dissolved therein than normal. 

But let’s go back for a moment to this idea that the world breathes in and out on an annual basis. This shows us how important and powerful the growth of life is in regulating the earth’s atmosphere. This fact is the gold at the end of the rainbow, it is the key to solving our climate crisis, but in order to understand how we can help nature to help us, we must first gain some understanding of the relationships and cycles between our atmosphere, climate and land management. 

For this reason we have put together this 3 part article on Climate and Agriculture, we hope you enjoy reading it. Welcome to part 1.

How do we Help the Earth Breathe More Deeply

Crucial to earth’s annual ‘breath-in’, is the functional condition of her ecosystems and soils, and we will return to this point in a moment, but first we must distinguish between ‘ancient’ and ‘current’ carbon.

Are Cows Causing Climate Change?

Animals breathe Oxygen in and Carbon Dioxide out, and plants do the opposite, so it is easy to jump to the conclusion that the best thing we can do to help the situation, is plant lots of trees and stop eating meat. Animals also emit Methane (CH4), so cows are further demonised as part of the problem (we will cover this in detail in part 2). But blaming cow farts for climate change is a gross red herring, because it ignores the role of animals in cycling carbon into the soil (which we will come on to), and it detracts from the important distinction between ‘current’ and ‘ancient’ sources of carbon. 

Fossil fuels are ‘ancient carbon’, mostly accumulated in the carboniferous period when there were much higher levels of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere. At that time mega-flora with huge photosynthetic capacity evolved. These plants sequestered vast amounts of carbon which eventually became the stable solid (coal), and liquid (crude oil) forms, buried underground, the power of which we harness today. The mega-flora that locked carbon into the earth, led to increasing oxygen levels, and eventually created the stable climate we humans now benefit from.

‘Current carbon’ is what was left in circulation, the stuff that the world breathes in and out each year. So whatever aspect of ‘the problem’ of climate change we are looking at, it is essential that we ask, are we pumping ‘ancient carbon’ into the system as a shortcut to productivity? Or are we working with ‘current carbon?’

If we look again at the beef industry for example, then yes, intensively farmed beef has ancient carbon pumped into the system on many levels. All feed that isn’t pasture, will be dripping in ‘ancient carbon’. Animals kept indoors or in feed-lots require a lot of machinery to move food around. So intensive beef is a serious problem, but then so is all intensive agriculture: Soya, wheat, chicken, you name it, it is all saturated in ‘ancient carbon’. 

100% grass-fed meat however has a very small ‘ancient carbon’ footprint. Very little if any machinery is required, mostly these farms manage to get away with just a quad-bike and no tractor. The animals never receive any additional feed, so apart from animal transport to slaughter and quad-bike fuel, the carbon is almost entirely ‘current,’ sequestered by the grasses and herbs in the pasture. 

How the Earth Breathes Deeply

You know how elderly people often have a shortness of breath, their bodily functions are not quite what they were, and they are unable to breathe deeply and easily like in their younger days. Well, the earth’s ability to breathe deeply also depends on the state of her body. It depends on the functional condition of her ecosystems and soils. 

The earth breathes CO2 in through photosynthesis by plants and trees, but the earth retains carbon (locks it in long term), by incorporating it into soils. Every living thing is made largely from carbon, so it is through all life forms that carbon gets cycled ultimately into the soil. These are the main 3 ways: 

1. Through animals who eat those plants and then defecate on the ground which soil microbes incorporate into soil. 
2. Dead organic matter from either plants or animals, which soil microbes and fungi incorporated into the soil. 
3. A  less apparent route is that plants directly feed soil microbes and fungi via root sugar exudates. 

So while it is an excellent idea to plant trees to try and stabilise the climate, it remains largely unacknowledged that soils are the ultimate carbon sink. There is no limit to carbon accumulation in soils, as long as they are well managed. This is where the debate about grazing animals heats up, because these walking bio-digesters are a key component to effective carbon draw.

Lands managed under intensive production on the other hand, be it livestock or crops, are only oxidising carbon into the atmosphere. These soils are unable to sequester carbon, because such soils are no longer alive.

Living Soils 

Agri-Culture still mostly works off a chemical model for how plants receive nutrients from the soil. If plants are short in potassium, we add soluble forms of potassium. But this is a far cry from how nature cycles nutrients. In a natural living soil there is an inexhaustibly complex web of interactions between life and mineral soil, and nutrient deficiencies do not exist. 

Plants exude sugars from their roots which feed bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms. Plants commonly expend around 30% of their energy in this way, feeding all soil microbiota, which in turn cycle minerals back, in forms that the plant can absorb. 

This process is grossly inhibited in intensive production systems because the plants are fed with water soluble inputs, so no-longer need this symbiotic relationship with soil microbiota; and because fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc, kill soil life. In livestock farming intestinal parasite treatments are death to soil organisms from dung beetles to bacteria, so the form of farming system is an essential detail when we talk about the relationship between agriculture and climate change. 

In regenerative livestock farming systems the land and animals are managed in a way that breaks the life cycle of intestinal parasites, removing the need for intestinal treatments. Farmers who convert to regenerative methods are astonished by the return of life to their farms. This surge in biodiversity however is just a symptom of what is going on underground – the return of living soils, which rapidly draw down carbon and create the carbon soil sponge. 

The Soil Carbon Sponge

The sheer enormity of soil microbiota, itself living and dying, as well as drawing down dung and other organic matter into the soil, builds up as a carbon matrix within the mineral structure of soil. Without this organic matter soils are simply dusty dirt, able to hold little water, and once dry are extremely difficult to rehydrate. However living soils, rich in organic matter have a sponge like texture, are springy under foot and can hold large amounts of water, all due to carbon. 

For every gram of carbon present in the soil, it can hold 8 grams of water (7,8). So we start to see that soil carbon is not just key to climate stabilisation and biodiversity, but also water management. Over time, carbon rich soils just get deeper and deeper, and it is from such soils that we can grow the best, nutrient-dense foods.

Mobile bio-digesters 

Vast areas of the world are naturally grassland-scrub: The great plains of North America once grazed by buffalo; the Savannahs of South and East Africa grazed by a myriad of ungulates; Europe thousands of years ago, where wild horses, aurochs, elk, bison and deer maintaining wood-pastures.

These animals and their grassland-scrub homes are synonymous. Originally predators like wolves and lions would have managed their behaviour, keeping them moving in dense bunches, grazing, trampling, pooing and peeing, then moving on. This animal impact is essential to grassland regeneration. Without them, especially in dry climates, grass stays standing up and can only decompose through oxidation; bare ground soon appears underneath, the start of desertification, where carbon only goes up, not down. Animals in dry grasslands are the only thing that can put carbon back into the soil. 

So while overgrazing is a huge problem across the world, especially in drylands, this is only due to the mismanagement of animals. Animals can be the problem, but also are the solution, because their correct management (mimicking the action of predators), is about the only thing that can reverse desertification which is all about locking carbon into the soil and restoring dense plant cover.  

The following examples show just how effective pastureland is at locking in carbon,
if managed correctly:

1. Texas A&M University study demonstrated 1.2 tons of carbon per acre per year (1.2 tC/ac/yr) drawdown via proper grazing methods (2).
   
2. University of Georgia study demonstrated 3 tons of carbon per acre per year (3 tC/ac/yr) drawdown via a conversion from row cropping to regenerative grazing (3).
   
3. Michigan State University study demonstrated 1.5 tons of carbon per acre per year (1.5 tC/ac/yr) drawdown via proper grazing methods and demonstrated in a lifecycle analysis that this more than compensated for natural enteric emissions of methane (4).
   
4. The drawdown potential on North American pasturelands is 800 million tons (megatons) of carbon per year (800 MtC/yr) (5).

To Conclude

This is part 1 of a three part series of articles about farming and climate change.

References

1. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2019/06/14/carbon-dioxide-reaches-record-levels-plus-6-things-to-know-about-the-greenhouse-gas/
2. https://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.abstract
3. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7995
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?via%3Dihub
5. https://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.abstract
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxTtXabC2TM
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Z430GFyZg
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=123y7jDdbfY
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwEToq05L2k 

It’s very true that all meat, regardless of how raised, is an important nutrient source – especially for developing children. 1

However, some serious ethical and environmental concerns are associated with factory-farmed animals reared to produce cheap meat. These concerns give fuel to the argument that meat no longer has a place in a modern diet. 

Exciting new science has, however, further highlighted why grass-fed and factory-farmed meat should not be treated equally. In fact, beyond the legitimate and convincing environmental and ethical arguments, it now turns out eating grass-fed meat could be an efficient way of eating your greens!

At the root of most of the global issues we face today is our tendency to apply a mechanical mindset to our management of natural systems – both the outer environment and our inner ecosystem (our bodies). 

In farming or human health, if you want to benefit from the vast productive capacity of functional natural systems and their inherent ability to balance and suppress disease, you need to work with nature rather than quantify, separate, and understand it by the individual components. We cover this topic in more depth here.  

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In my work as a consultant in regenerative agriculture, to benefit from these natural processes, we manage land and livestock with principles rather than prescriptions. The further you wander from these laws of nature, the more costly the economic, ecological and social consequences. This has always been the case, forever, for everyone. And it won’t change just because we have invented a new technological revelation such as chemical fertiliser or lab-grown meat. 

Living by these principles does not mean you’re anti-science. Not at all. It simply helps you understand that the science currently available is only a partial view of a far larger picture. True scientists understand this completely – this is why they do what they do. There’s always more to discover and understand. 

Because I live by these principles, I have always known that meat from animals raised within a healthy functional ecosystem is better for the planet, people and worth the extra price. But, in a western society that makes decisions primarily based on empirical evidence, it is frustrating that there’s not more good science to confirm what I already know to be true. This is starting to change.

The many health benefits of grass-fed meat.

What we do already know about the health benefits of grass-fed meat is thankfully pretty compelling 2: 

Meat from animals reared in functional ecosystems on a diverse pasture is higher in omega 3. It has a healthy ratio between omega 3 and 6, which allows us to benefit from omega 3 essential fatty acid’s potent anti-inflammatory properties. As inflammation has been scientifically proven to be associated with nearly all modern chronic disease, this is a pretty big deal. 3

Grass-fed meat is rich in conjugated linoleic acid – CLA. CLA is associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and may help prevent and manage type 2 diabetes. 4 5

CLA has also been shown to reduce cancer risk by blocking the growth and metastatic spread of tumours. 6 7

Some research suggests that CLA can help reduce body fat and promote weight loss. 8

For many years, we have understood that grass-fed meat, compared to grain-fed meat, contains a powerhouse of minerals and vitamins, including bioavailable protein, zinc, iron, selenium, calcium/or B12. All of these nutrients are critical for fighting disease and maintaining health – especially in a world where our fruits and vegetables contain fewer nutrients with every passing decade. 9

We know – although often choose to ignore – that animals reared in factory-farmed systems are more likely to suffer from disease (and therefore be routinely treated with antibiotics and medication) and live in low welfare conditions. Their production has a vast and negative impact on the environment. (We cover this in-depth in our free introductory course on eating meat.) 

Powered by plants.

We have for a long time known and studied the critical role of phytonutrients in promoting health and fighting disease in plants, animals and humans. ‘Phytonutrients’ or ‘phytochemical’ are primary or secondary metabolites found in plants and recognised to have nutritional quality attributes and powerful potential health benefits. 

Beyond the protective qualities they provide the plants themselves, these compounds have been known from ancient times to elicit positive biologic responses in human and animal systems. These elicitors have been shown to reduce the risk of many chronic diseases that plague modern society, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes and many more. 10

The need for food rich in phytonutrients to help tackle our ill-health epidemic has led to a push towards plant-based diets. It has also accelerated interest in the metabolic engineering and the genetic modification of plants to ‘create’ – and presumably patent – varieties that are higher in these disease suppressive nutrients. 11

Nature had this whole issue worked out a very long time ago – and without the need for a potentially disastrous intervention from modern technology. 

Wild plants are a powerhouse of beneficial plant nutrients. However, it takes healthy soil and healthy ecosystems to brew – through complex interactions between plant and the soil food web – the range of natural medicines found in our native wild plants.

Wild dandelions, for instance, contain seven times more phytonutrients than spinach, a plant considered a superfood among the sad array of factory-farmed vegetables proudly displayed on the supermarket shelves. 

Wild food wins.

Certain wild apple species contain a whopping 100 times more phytonutrients than the golden delicious you will find at your local convenience store. 12

The dramatic loss of phytonutrients in our modern plant foods comes from a combination of factors; 

1. Plant breeding for flavour, size and texture above and beyond health properties.

2. The fact that the main plant foods we eat come from growing systems that are the antithesis of a healthy functioning ecosystem. Lifeless soils and reliance on damaging chemicals lead to vegetables, grain, and fruits unable to perform the basic processes required to synthesise the plant nutrients that offer us health benefits. 13

1. The long gap between harvest and digestion. How we harvest, transport and cook food can have a degrading effect on our food’s nutrients.

Researchers have found that healing phytochemicals such as terpenoids, phenols, carotenoids and anti-oxidants with anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective and anti-cancer effects are found in the meat and milk of livestock who have access to healthy, diverse pastures.

This revelation is perhaps shining a light on why many traditional meat-eating cultures and modern carnivores see such dramatic health benefits from eating a diet high in grass-fed meat – when on the face of it, the diet seems to conflict with the natural principle of diversity. 14 15

By eating meat grown on healthy ecosystems – either hunted from wild landscapes or reared on regenerative farms – we leverage and upcycle the herbivores’ foraging behaviour. 

These herbivores freely graze and browse on the thousands of species of the most phytonutrient dense plants of all – wildflowers, grasses and legumes – growing on healthy soil or wild landscapes. 

Foraging phytonutrients for you.

Many of these native plants are inedible or unpalatable to humans, but as part of the pastures and woodlands they form, they are the foundation of a biodiverse food web. These plants create drought and flood-resistant landscapes that sequester carbon from the atmosphere. By eating the animals that eat these plants, we provide food and nutrition security in a highly vulnerable foodscape of monoculture grown vegetables and grains. 

Healthy pasture could legitimately be considered the only truly functional ecosystem that remains a part of conventional modern farming systems.

So I feel reassured. From my own experience of nature’s principles, I know that eating animals who have spent their entire lives grazing and browsing herb-rich pastures is better than eating meat from animals fed on grain. 

Eating animals that are part of a fully functional ecosystem – such as the regenerative farms that supply the meat we sell – is better for the animal, better for the environment, and better for my health. 

I am excited about what new incredible scientific revelations will further demonstrate that nature has the complete picture – the best and brightest human efforts still only represent a tiny piece of the puzzle. 

Caroline Grindrod

Modern humans have a mind-boggling capacity to create complicated things. From bikes, cars and trains, to quantum computers that ‘think’ and learn for themselves. We are on the verge of combining robots with humans, and creating vaccines in record-breaking time.

Yet, we are the only species which has consciously and actively destroyed its own habitat. Today’s world is plagued with problems: Climate emergency, biodiversity collapse, viral pandemics, human trafficking, escalating conflict and mass migration all of which we tackle in ever more sophisticated ways. 

Are we so drunk on our masterful achievements that we no longer think we have to live by universal laws? Do we see ourselves as entirely outside and beyond nature? Natural law, no longer relevant, living in a world where all is out-sourced and out of sight?

Cheap food for example, is grown on intensively managed land where the fertility comes from fossil fuels, and the ‘pests,’ also known as ‘wildlife’, are killed with toxic chemicals. These intensive systems are fraught with destructive, direct and indirect consequences. 

Results are decoupled from problems, so costs are kept low for the polluter, the tab, picked up by the citizen, under the guise of seemingly disconnected issues. Issues such as: adapting to climate chaos; cleaning up ocean dead zones; pollinating by hand due to insect population collapse; the huge social and environmental cost of human migration due to an area half the size of the European Union, turning to desert each year. 

In human health, the outsourced costs are vast: Since 1990 global cancer rates have almost doubled; autoimmune rates skyrocket, coeliac disease alone increases up to 9% each year; a tenfold increase in obesity; and now in the UK 1 in 54 children have autism. Rampant viruses from covid 19 to swine flu sweep through the world population, the latter of which resulted in the slaughter of 10 million factory-farmed pigs.

I believe that the most significant challenge we face today is not climate change, world hunger or a killer virus – these are all symptoms – it’s our inability to understand and work with complexity or find the real root cause of an issue. 

There are approximately 370 million indigenous people in the world occupying or using up to 22% of the global land area, which is home to 80% of the world’s biological diversity. 

Indigenous cultures understand/understood complexity. They live/lived as part of their ecosystem, watching and learning from the patterns of nature; knowledge handed down, through storytelling, rituals and the guidance of elders. 

But this ancient wisdom is sadly all but gone. Meanwhile we worship the gods of economics and technology. Distracted by soundbites of a marketable world, a far cry from any universal truths. ‘Meat is murder’ takes just a second to say but several hours to debunk – and that’s if you can get anyone to listen!  

Getting to the root cause of a wicked problem requires the ability to see the complex, interconnected, ever-evolving picture; it takes time, patience, a willingness to learn and think critically.

Who’s paying for that new scientific study? Who is really benefiting most from that new wonder drug? Are we asking these critical questions?

So, where did it all go wrong?

During the ‘enlightenment,’ Rene Descartes mechanistic thinking – the idea that everything can be taken apart like a machine, became the predominant way of looking at the world. Applied to living systems, such as human health and natural ecosystems, this is frankly disastrous.

Living systems are complex, interwoven, self-organising and emergent. The ‘whole’ system has properties that cannot be understood by separating and studying them. 

But evolution continues and beyond ‘mechanos’ has emerged ‘systems thinking,’ a new, ‘holistic’ paradigm. A way of seeing the world, that really can solve our most pressing problems, be it in our inner ecosystems (our bodies), or our outer ecosystems (our farmland and wild spaces).  

It is time to say, ‘enough is enough’, to rebel intelligently and quietly by taking the time to develop your own capacity to see the whole picture. This is the age of complexity. A new set of skills are required to work alongside ‘specialists’ – the capacity to see the world as the living, complex intertwined system that it is. 

In this series of posts, I plan to cover a wide range of issues. In each example, I will show a problem and how systems thinking can help to solve it. I hope to illustrate how every separate issue from crop failures to cancer, is utterly connected because it is all one system.

Below is the first of these, a short video looking at the issue of intestinal parasites in livestock. In a mechanistic paradigm, these are treated with chemicals, which have a chain of destructive knock-on effects. Within a holistic paradigm, we show how we can deal with this problem in a different way.

So what do we stand for? What can you expect from us in terms of standards and assurance? 

P – Pasture for life. 

Cows and sheep should eat pasture and only pasture, that’s what they’re designed to do. Feeding grain to livestock has negative consequences for animal health, and brings with it many environmental concerns. 

So we are committed to 100% pasture fed, and to assure you of our commitment, we use the ‘Pasture for Life’ certification, for all our herbivore meats. This includes a tracks-traceability system. 

Our omnivore (poultry and pork) meats, will eat an appropriate diet for optimal digestion and nutrient requirements. We will choose the most sustainable option available to each farm, based on a sourcing primarily from local farms, then UK grown organic feeds, and lastly, only if necessary, imported organic feeds.

We will also be exploring, and funding projects to develop the genetics for livestock that can thrive on more natural, and sustainable diets.

R – Regenerating soils. 

The farmers that supply our meat, farm in a way that regenerates soils. In order to tackle climate change, with its resulting extremes of weather, we need to farm in a way that takes more carbon out of the atmosphere than it emits. By using regenerative practices, our grazing systems are actively sequestering carbon into stable forms that are locked into the soil. 

Farms supplying us are monitoring carbon sequestration so we can demonstrate over a five-year timescale, a net-negative trend. Farmers also use ‘Soil Mentor’ annually, to show that the soils’ physical structure is getting healthier. This is a practical and straightforward proxy indicator, to show that the soil is sequestering carbon. 

I – Improving ecosystem processes. 

While carbon is important, so are farming practices which enhance biodiversity, rehydrate landscapes and rebuild the soil food web, so minerals can be passed from healthy soils, to healthy animals, and regenerate the health of the people eating the meat. 

Farmers supplying us are trained to monitor their land for the effectiveness of their ecosystem processes. From noting species diversity, to doing infiltration tests and worm counts, we use several simple, but scientifically proven ways of monitoring for improvements in these ecosystem processes. 

The farms that supply us with meats never use artificial fertilisers or herbicides.

M – Mature Meat.

Our culture is sold on the idea that only meat from young animals is tender and tasty.  This is not true, in fact, some of the tastiest and most celebrated types of meat around the world, come from more mature animals. Before the war, these meats were traditionally eaten in the UK as well. 

This prejudice has led to the devaluing of perfectly prime protein, resulting in the long-distance transport of live animals to foreign countries for slaughter in abattoirs with lower standards than our own. 

Although younger animals may have a more tender texture and delicate flavour, older animals produce meat of a deep, rich flavour, and delicious texture if dry-aged on the bone.  

We have created a ‘Prime and Mature’ range to help celebrate this forgotten delicacy. All the meat from beef and sheep is dry-aged on the bone for optimal periods.

A – Animal Health.

The farmers that supply our meat are proactive with regards to the health of their livestock. Farmers always aim to prevent diseases, by designing farm systems that address the root cause of why livestock get sick. They do this by leveraging the power of the natural ecosystem processes. Healthy ecosystems support healthy animals. In this way we can significantly reduce the need for medical intervention.

The livestock on our supplying farms are never routinely treated with antibiotics. 

We give you assurance of this, because we personally work with each farmer to design a whole-farming-system livestock-health-plan, that addresses any recurring health issues.

L – Living Naturally.

We believe livestock should be able to express their natural behaviours. Cows and sheep should be grazing on pasture, chickens need to scratch in healthy soil, alive with invertebrates, and pigs need to be able to root and nest. 

The breeds of animals that our supply farmers choose, are appropriate for their climate, topography, and reflect the cultural heritage of the region. 

As meat-eaters, we have a great responsibility to ensure a quick and humane death for the animals that we eat. We work with a hub system to ensure livestock are transported only short distances to slaughter, and we aim to support small, local, family abattoirs where possible. The kill process is quick and appropriate for the animal, conducted under veterinary supervision and will always include livestock being rendered unconscious before slaughter.

Take a listen to this podcast in which I am featured talking about my views on veganism. It may be a surprise to know that as the owner of a meat business I welcome the movement as an important catalyst for change.

I hope you enjoy it. Caroline x

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-vegan-a-dirty-word/id1490590788?i=1000461549444

The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health has gathered scientists from across the world to try and answer the follow questions:

1) What is a healthy diet?
2) What is a sustainable food system?
3) What are the trends shaping diets today?
4) Can we achieve healthy diets from sustainable food systems? How?
5) What are the solutions and policies we can apply?

Their aim is to define ‘what is a healthy and sustainable diet?’. But more so, what actions can support and speed up food system transformation. (Eatforum, 2019). Whilst it seems they have the right intentions in some areas discussed, we do need global food systems to change if we have any hope of obtaining a truly sustainable and eventually a regenerative farming system, it also seems they have missed the mark in areas like nutrition and the limitations of reducing beef and lamb consumption over poultry.

We want to make sure you, as our customers and followers, aren’t mislead or confused by the outcome of this report. We want to re-assure you of our, joint, beliefs in what a healthy and regenerative diet should look like.

The Eat Lancet Diet is Nutritionally Deficient

Firstly, if we look at the wonderful work of Dr Zoe Harcombe and her latest article, we can see the suggested ‘healthy reference diet’, also known as the EAT diet, by Lancet is deficient in the following nutrients:

Vitamin B12 – the US RDA is 2.4mcg, the EAT diet is slightly deficient in providing 2.27mcg.
Retinol – The EAT diet provides just 17% of retinol recommended.
Vitamin D – the EAT diet provides just 5% of vitamin D recommendation.
Sodium – the EAT diet provides just 22% of the sodium recommendation.
Potassium – the EAT diet provides just 67% of potassium recommended.
Vitamin K – 72% of the vitamin K in the EAT diet came from the broccoli (K1). As is the case with all nutrients, the animal form (K2) is better absorbed by the body.
Calcium – more seriously, the EAT diet provides just 55% of calcium recommended.
Iron – the EAT diet provides 88% of iron recommended. Our bodies better absorb heme iron, which comes from meat, poultry, seafood and fish. It is recommended that vegetarians eat 1.8 times more than those who eat meat.
Omega-3 – essential fatty acids. Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t aggregate to the fatty acid level, but this diet is highly likely deficient in omega-3 and highly likely (given the 350 calories of nutritionally poor, highly unsaturated, vegetable oils) has an unhealthy omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. This is a concise overview from ‘the eat lancet diet is nutritionally deficient’, Zoe Harcombe, 2019)

The Problem with Epidemiology Science

Another major issue with this report is the ideology that red meat is bad for human health, this has never been proved by sound science and the data for this report has been extracted from epidemiology science, which cannot be used to work out causation (The Nutrition Coalition, 2019). This means the evidence in the study can suggest a pattern but it can’t confirm or deny the cause of certain health issues. Are we really going to build a whole new diet, farming method and lifestyle from a pattern?

The Nutrition Coalition explains “A prominent example of this (weak
epidemiology science) was the World Health Organization’s 2015 designation of red meat as a carcinogen (for colorectal cancer). But this decision depended entirely upon epidemiological data which showed that the relative risk of getting this cancer for red meat eaters, compared to non-meat eaters, was only 1.17 to 1.18. Relative risks below 2 are generally considered in the field of epidemiology to be too small to establish a reliable correlation.”

What we do know about the effect of Red Meat on our health

The following findings from ‘Scientific Evidence on Red Meat and Health’ by The Nutrition Coalition, 2019, highlight:

Two of the largest clinical trials of 54,000 men and women, concluded that saturated fats had no effect on cardiovascular mortality or total mortality.

Two large clinical trials on more than 50,000 men and women who significantly cut back on red-meat consumption (while increasing fruits,vegetables and grains) did not see any risk reduction for  polyp re-occurrenceor anykind of cancer. 

Two meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials (in theJournal of ClinicalLipidologyand theAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition) both found that red meat had either neutral or positive effects on most cardiovascular outcomes (blood pressure, cholesterol and other lipids).

Red meat cannot possibly cause diabetes, because glucose (sugar) is the principal driver of type 2 diabetes, and meat contains no glucose. Moreover, red meat availability has dropped dramatically as diabetes has skyrocketed , making any proposed connection between red meat and diabetes self-evidently unreasonable

How should we manage our land?

The Eat Lancet report shows we need to action change in farming systems and modern diets. However, as presented in ‘EAT-Lancet report’s recommendations are at odds with sustainable food production’ by the Sustainable Food Trust, it doesn’t educate the public about how we can achieve a sustainable future and in some key areas it could make things worse.
Patrick Holden, chief executive of the SFT said, “A key weakness in the report is the failure to fully differentiate between livestock that are part of the problem and those that are an essential component of sustainable agricultural systems. This results in messages that are likely to add to existing confusion around what constitutes a healthy and sustainable diet”.

Furthermore, the report correctly shows that excessive nitrogen fertiliser use in farming has led us to exceed sustainable planetary boundaries for reactive nitrogen. However, they recommend maintaining current fertiliser usage levels by increasing use in developing countries to match any decreases that can be achieved in developed countries. This is likely to accelerate the rate of soil degradation and loss and reduce yields in some of the most vulnerable communities. This isn’t a solution. (The Sustainable Food Trust, 2019)

Is there a healthy, sustainable diet out there?

We have partnered with Wilderculture to create a new set of guidelines for eco-omnivores. The Wildervore Approach is designed to drive sustainability, save the planet and recover your health. A Wildervore is someone who chooses foods that are ethical, environmentally regenerative and right for their unique health requirements over and above a simplistic segregation of vegan, vegetarian or meat eater.

References

Eatforum, 2019. Access at https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/

Zoe Harcombe, 17th January 2019, The EAT Lancet diet is nutritionally deficient. Access here: http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2019/01/the-eat-lancet-diet-is-nutritionally-deficient/

The Nutrition Coalition, 2019. Scientific Evidence on Red Meat and Health. Accessed at: https://www.scribd.com/document/397606855/Two-pager-Scientific-Evidence-on-Red-Meat-and-Health

The Sustainable Food Trust, 2019. EAT-Lancet report’s recommendations are at odds with sustainable food production. Accessed at: https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/eat-lancet-reports-recommendations-are-at-odds-with-sustainable-food-production/

Chris Kresser has us feeling pretty inspired by his arguments with Dr. Joel Kahn on why you should eat meat. Chris Kresser is globally recognised as a leader in the fields of ancestral health, Paleo nutrition, and functional and integrative medicine. Dr. Joel Kahn is one of the world’s top cardiologists and believes that plant-based nutrition is the most powerful source of preventative medicine on the planet. They battled it out for nearly 4 hours on the Joe Rogan Experience.

Chris covers topics that really cement our beliefs that eating meat is good for our health and the planet. In the podcast, he covers the following topics:

• There Are Serious Problems with Epidemiological Research
• Vegetarians and Vegans Don’t Live Longer
• Is There a Connection between Red Meat and Cancer?
• Does Saturated Fat Increase Your Blood Cholesterol?
• Where (and When) Conventional Ideas about Saturated Fat Come From
• Will Eating Animal Protein Shorten Your Lifespan?
• Did the Sugar Industry Influence How We Think about Saturated Fat?
• Red Meat and TMAO: Red Herring or Meaningful Association?
• Does Fish Increase Your Risk of Diabetes?
• Correlation Is Not Causation
• Here, We Agree: There Should Be Lots of Plants on Your Plate
• What Happens When You Give Up Nutrient-Dense Animal Protein
• Is the Carnivore Diet Healthy?

Chris has put together an abundance of additional resources to back up his statements, this can be read here.

Primal Meats’ aim is to offer you nutrient rich meat from Farms who rear their animals to high standards of welfare and manage their land in harmony with nature. We also aim to further educate our customers in holistic land management and nutrition. Our meats are perfect for those following diets based on ancestral wisdom as they are as close as possible to meats from the wild. Visit the shop here.

We have written several informative pages to help you further understand ‘is healthy to eat meat?‘, ‘is it morally right to eat meat?‘, ‘is it sustainable to eat meat?‘

Watch the podcast yourself here and let us know what you think!

1. You eat more Protein

Our hunter- gatherer forefathers ate about 19-35% protein. Modern Western diets only comprise of about 15% protein and it rarely includes a good range of amino acids. Getting enough protein on a Paleo/Primal diet can help to balance blood sugar levels, more energy and healthier bones. Good quality meats, fish and eggs should contribute to most of your protein requirements.

2: You eat ‘better’ carbohydrates

On a Paleo/Primal diet you will eat carbohydrates that have a lower Glycaemic load – Non starchy fruit and vegetables will provide most of our carbohydrate requirements, this will keep your blood sugar stable. Avoiding blood sugar spikes will keep you slim and maintain consistent energy levels.

3: You eat more fibre

Yes even without eating whole grains! Dietary fibre is essential for good health; vegetables and fruit contain far higher amounts of fibre than grains. Some vegetables have 31 times more fibre than refined flour products.

4: You eat more fat

But only the good stuff – Recent comprehensive large population studies show that saturated fats have little or no adverse effects upon cardiovascular disease. Yes that means your GP’s information is out of date! Choose your meats wisely so that the saturated fat you eat is from grass-fed animals. 100% grass fed meats have up to five times the Omega- 3 fats of animals that have been fed grain based diets. Eat healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats with a higher Omega-3 to and Omega-6 ratio. Cut the trans fats and reduce the Omega-6 polyunsaturated fats in your diet. Wilderculture has a great free course, ‘is it healthy to eat meat?‘ which covers a variety of topics from ancestral diets to vegan and vegetarian deficiencies to help you get a well-rounded view of the topic.

5: Your diet will be higher in potassium and lower sodium

Our ancestors had a ratio of about 5 potassium to 1 sodium and our body needs this balance to help our organs function efficiently. Modern diets are likely to have a ratio of 2 sodium to 1 potassium, this has been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes.

6: Your body will be more Alkaline

By eating a diet high in fruit and vegetables you will reduce your acid load to the kidneys. High dietary acid may lead to bone and muscle loss, high blood pressure, risk of kidney stones and aggravate asthma. Therefore more Alkaline in our bodies will keep these issues at bay.

7: We will receive more vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and plant phytochemicals

Grains are no substitute for grass fed meats, fruits or veggies as they contain no vitamin A, C or B12. Many of the minerals and some of the B vitamins that whole grains contain are not synthesised in the body well.

8: You can have Diary!

We left this paleo diet basics ‘hot potato’ until last. Dairy was not available to our hunter-gathering friends however has been eaten by traditional pastoral cultures for thousands of years and some tolerate it well. As a natural product from an animal which (in some form) would have been around in prehistoric times, it is acceptable. The main reason Paleo purists avoid dairy is that some people have a problem with lactose and casein intolerance. Both of these molecules are present in human breast milk, this means our ancestors must have not just tolerated it but thrived on it for some time, in many Western cultures the ability to digest these proteins continues into adulthood.

I do, however, think that milk and its derivatives should be ‘raw’ as the pasteurisation process takes away the beneficial bacteria and enzymes that help us digest it. We believe homogenisation is a no-no, it messes with the way our body recognises food and our bodies are more likely to mark it as an allergen. If dairy was an unpalatable food there would be no good reason to include it in our diet. Raw dairy and its products are delicious and can make a very difficult diet regime much easier. Diary can add flavour and texture to many dishes.

Comment below and let us know how your Paleo or Primal Diet has improved your health…. 

Have friends who might like to know 8 Key Differences between Paleo/Primal Diets and Modern Diets? Share it with them to….

We have created our own health plan that draws from ancestral wisdom and helps you build a way to eat that is good for the planet and good for your unique life circumstances too. Take a look at our ‘Wildervore Approach.’

Through all the research on diet and lifestyle of our early ancestors and into healthy indigenous and traditional cultures, one thing is now crystal clear.

There’s no ONE natural human diet.

Different parts of the world have hugely varied landscapes that grow different native foods and humans have adapted rather nicely to utilising on these available foods.
However what’s also clear is that although traditional diets varied hugely, the inclusion of at least some animal foods was essential to maintaining robust health over the long term.
There are no essential foods, but there are essential nutrients only found in animals foods. Plant-based diets are virtually devoid of B12, calcium, iron, zinc, the long-chain fatty acids EPA & DHA, and fat-soluble vitamins like A & D.

Adequate B12 intake is thought by some to be possible from certain plant sources such as seaweed, brewer’s yeast, spirulina and fermented soy. As it turns out, plant sources of B12 are mostly B12 analogues or cobamides which in fact block the intake of, and increase the requirement for true B12.

Vegans are often found to be deficient in calcium. Not just because their diet doesn’t include calcium rich animal foods but the calcium-rich plant foods they’re eating contain oxalates and phytates which block absorption of some of the calcium contained within them. (1) (2) (3)

Vegans often have lower serum ferritin concentrations than omnivores even though their iron intake calculations are comparable. Once again this is due to the form in which the iron is eaten. Many plant foods are high in iron but the iron is in the (non-heme) form that’s poorly absorbed. Many of these plant foods are high in iron absorption inhibitors, such as phytates, polyphenols and oxalates. The result of this combination is that 90% or more of the iron in those foods isn’t absorbed. Luckily the absorption inhibitors in only seem to apply to the non-heme sources of Iron, so If you’re eating plenty of veggies with your meat then you’re good to go. (4) (5) (6)

Zinc’s the same story, although there’s not too much concern about the intake levels of zinc in a vegan diet, the high levels of phytate in the plant foods being consumed increase the volume of those foods required to absorb sufficient zinc. (7) (8)

EPA and DHA are two (omega-3) essential fatty acids found nearly exclusively in fish and animal foods. These long chain fatty acids are thought to protect against diseases such as: cancer, asthma, depression, cardiovascular disease, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases. Some plant foods contain both linoleic acid (omega-6) and alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3) which are essential fatty acids. Some plant based omega-3 (ALA) can be converted into DHA and EPA however, the conversion rates are very low at about 5- 10%. The successful conversion of these ALA’s is dependent on adequate absorption of synergistic nutrients such as zinc and Iron – hmmm!
If we eat too many omega-6 fatty acids this will interfere with the successful conversion of ALA into DHA and EPA. This is why grass fed meats with a higher ratio of 3:6 are important. and why vegans who are eating diets high in omega-6 (which they inevitably are) are less likely to successfully convert ALA into EPA or DHA. (9) (10)

It’s been shown that traditional cultures all have a near equal balance of omega-3 and omega-6 in their diets.
As Nora explains in her wonderful article  here’s a very special fat out there that is found only in the fat of grass-fed and finished animals. CLA or ‘conjugated linoleic acid’ could be one of the most healthful and potent cancer-fighting substances in our diet.

CLA has been proven to – even in amounts we’re likely to eat – can block all three stages of Cancer unlike most “anticancer nutrients” which are only effective in one stage. Research has demonstrated beneficial effects of natural CLA from animal fat have been found in cancers of the breast, prostate, colon and skin.

Correlation is not causation but it can give us clues. Several studies strongly suggest CLA could be particularly helpful in the fight against cancer. In one Finnish study, women who ate the most CLA had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those who ate the least. Some French researchers sampled the breast tissue of 360 women and found that the women with the most CLA had a staggering 74% lower risk of breast cancer than the women with the least CLA.

In a study that perfectly highlights the need for whole food solution not isolated nutrient supplements; human breast cancer cells were incubated in milk fat high in CLA or in an isolated form of CLA without any milk fat. The milk fat high in CLA decreased the growth of cancer by 90 percent compared to 60%. What was shocking is that some cells were incubated in linoleic acid (the omega-6 fat high in grain and grain-fed animals meat) the growth of the cancer cell increased by 25 percent!

There are more and more studies being done on the preventative properties of CLA against breast and Colon cancer and the findings offer a great deal of hope for those willing to source good grass fed and finished milk, butter and meat.

As Jo Robinson says on ‘Eat Wild’ ‘Many people take a synthetic version that is widely promoted as a diet aid and muscle builder. New research shows that the type of CLA in the pills may have some potentially serious side effects, including promoting insulin resistance, raising glucose levels, and reducing HDL (good) cholesterol.’  You just can’t fake natures processes.

Vegan diets are nearly entirely absent in fat soluble vitamins A and D. Fat-soluble vitamins are critical activators to human health and are found mainly in animal foods particularly seafood, organ meats, eggs and dairy.
Vitamin A has a critical role in maintaining healthy vision, neurological function and healthy skin.
Vitamin D deficiency is common and linked to increased risks of developing common cancers, autoimmune diseases, hypertension, and some infectious disease.

Apart from certain hard to find mushrooms which contain vitamin D, most plant foods don’t contain vitamin A or D. Plants contain beta-carotene which is the precursor to vitamin A but the conversion rates are poor. (12) (13) (14)

Vitamin D levels have been shown to be 74% lower in Vegans than in Omnivores.
To get the same vitamin A hot as a portion of beef liver you would have to eat 14 cups of carrots. We know that in healthy traditional cultures people at up to ten times the amount of Vitamin A than our current RDA. To attain these levels of vitamin A today from plant sources would be virtually impossible. (15) (16)

In 1945 Weston A Price discovered through the chemical testing of the organ meats, eggs and butter eaten by healthy traditional cultures an unknown fat soluble nutrient he called ‘Activator X.’ He discovered that the nutrient was present in higher quantities in the meat, milk, butter and eggs of animals eating quickly growing green plants in healthy pastures.
Dr Price found the nutrient played an influential role in the absorption of minerals, protection from tooth decay, growth and development, protection from disease and the healthy functioning of the brain.
A growing body of scientific work now confirms that the mysterious activator was Vitamin K2 which work synergistically with the other fat soluble activators vitamins A and D and is usually conveniently packaged with them in traditional fatty grass fed animal foods. (17)
Vitamins A and D tell the cells to produce certain proteins and vitamin K then activates these proteins. The K vitamins are also essential for effective blood clotting.

As illustrated in Kate Rheaume-Bleues’ ,‘The Calcium paradox’, vitamin K2 is the transport mechanism that gets calcium to your bones and eating calcium without sufficient K2 will be essentially wasted. Supplementing calcium could even be harmful in the absence of animal foods as it could increase the formation of plaque in the arteries or kidney stones if it’s not utilised in the bones.

Apart from fermented soya ‘natto’ and some other fermented vegetables, plants don’t provide vitamin K2. The K2 found in fermented foods is produced by the bacteria (animals) in the fermenting process. The K1 found in green leafy vegetables has a low conversion rate when ingested directly by humans – approximately 10% .
Vitamin K2 is thought to be one of the main nutrients responsible for the wide facial structures, lack of tooth decay and fine stature of the non-civilised people Weston Price studied in his research.

Weston Price found that ‘the diets of healthy, non-industrialised peoples contain at least four times the minerals and water-soluble vitamins, and ten times the fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats (vitamin A, vitamin D and Activator X, now thought to be vitamin K2) as the average American diet.’ (18)

Modern diets in ‘civilised’ parts of the world are now based on processed foods, refined grains, sugars and vegetable oils. But even the animal foods we are eating contain only a shadow of the nutrients our ancestor’s wild meats would have offered up.

In one study Cows grazing pasture and receiving no supplemental feed had 500% more conjugated linoleic acid in milk fat than cows fed typical dairy diets. (19)

In another study, fatty acid profiles were significantly modified by different diets in milk cows. CLA, vaccenic acid (VA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) significantly (P < 0.05) increased in plasma as a function of the proportion of pasture added to the diet. (20)

In a study on lamb by Bristol University the favourable fatty acid profiles of lamb improved when lambs where grazed on habitats with a greater diversity of species against a control of lowland pasture.

It’s clear from numerous studies that animals eating a natural diet with produce meat, milk and eggs that are higher in many of the nutrients helpful to human health. It is also clear that the health of the land, diversity of the habitat and breed or species of the animal influences the potential health and therefore the produce it supplies. Choosing produce from animals that have been reared in ways that mimic nature will outperform those which have been reared on un-natural foods in confinement every time.

I need no convincing that a diet high in poor quality and processed animal proteins is bad for your health and I would also like to make it clear that I’m not necessarily suggesting a high-protein diet is a great idea either, especially it reduces the amount of nutrient dense veggies you eat. Individual health, associated eating habits, quality of food choices, hormones, common gene mutations and the composition of our gut microbiome are hugely influential on how successfully we utilise and convert nutrients. Some people will manage very well on a vegetarian diet who others will feel and look terrible. A vegetarian diet based on junk food is a very different deal to a raw food diet which includes pastured eggs and raw milk. We need to be careful about jumping on a bandwagon or making sweeping statements. (21)

That said there’s no credible evidence that being a vegetarian is any healthier than being a health-conscious omnivore. (22)

There are many studies being thrown around to ‘prove’ a vegetarian diet results in better health but in nearly all of them they are loaded with what is known as the ‘healthy user bias.’ The healthy user bias occurs because the type of people who would take a huge step like cutting out an entire food group from their diet in the name of improving their health, are already some of the most health oriented and ethically minded people within society. (23)

To compare vegetarians with a general selection of meat eaters which includes a considerable number of McDonalds eating and sugar addicted elements of society is a tad unfair! But even with a fair heap of healthy user bias included, this study found no difference in mortality rates between vegetarians and meat eaters in the UK. (24)

Here’s an example of why these types of studies don’t prove cause:
This study compared smokers with non-smokers and analysed their consumption of vegetables and other healthy habits.
‘Although Americans as a whole have unhealthy diets, smokers appear to have worse diets than their nonsmoking counterparts. Prior epidemiological studies have shown that smokers consume more fats, alcohol, and caffeine and less fruit, vegetables, and fiber than nonsmokers.5–7 These unhealthy habits are evident even among adolescent smokers. Teenage smokers are more likely to skip meals8,9 and eat less healthy foods10 than their nonsmoking counterparts’.
From this study, you could conclude that smoking somehow stops you eating vegetables. The more sensible conclusion, however, is that people who smoke aren’t educated in healthy eating choices or don’t give a hoot about their health.

Thankfully there is one study that does consider this healthy user bias. This study compared omnivores and vegetarians that both shopped in health food stores and found no significant differences in rates of mortality even though vegetarians are likely to be consuming far higher amounts of nutrient dense vegetables.

This study also studied omnivores and vegetarians that were considered healthier than the average population and found no statistically significant differences in rates of mortality.

Being a healthy vegetarian seems to be as achievable as being a healthy omnivore, but remaining healthy as a vegan for a prolonged period is a far harder task. Vegans need to supplement heavily and there’s little room for ‘empty’ calories; every mouthful should contribute towards a carefully planned nutritional plan that fills all the gaps.

Be aware that we have no historic evidence of any healthy cultures that didn’t eat at least some animal foods, nor do we have any long-term evidence of vegans that have maintained robust health for more than one generation. If you choose to follow this diet you’re part of a rather uncertain human experiment!

I would love to hear your thoughts on ‘Are you missing out? The potential nutrient deficiencies of a vegan diet’ below.

For many more links to relevant research and evidence please take a look at the ‘healthy Omnivore‘ board.