A unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two. […] Research at the University of California, San Francisco, had already identified the fungus as part of the problem. And several RNA-based viruses had been detected as well. But the Army/Montana team, using a new software system developed by the military for analyzing proteins, uncovered a new DNA-based virus, and established a linkage to the fungus, called N. ceranae.

The big breakthrough here was identifying the virus using the Army’s new software.  In combination with the fungus, the new virus – dubbed IIV – was able to wipe out bee hives with 100% efficacy.  Scientists are still not completely sure the sequence of events or even why this started happening to American honeybees and not Australian variants, for example.  But this research is a major breakthrough for an industry that is responsible for pollinating most of the food plants we eat.

Some background on CCD: This issue has now been with us for a number of years.  Starting in the winter of 2006-2007, beehive keepers started to notice an increasing number of bees simply fly away from their hives and die.  The problem has continued through the 2009 season with little success in identifying what was happening.

We have seen theories ranging from an increase in electromagnetic pollution affecting the bee’s navigational abilities, to increased pesticide exposure for the bees,  exposure to GMO flower nectar that was supposedly interfering with their biological system (somehow) and some argued it was a milieu of all these factors.  The virus + fungus research we have here is by far the most convincing argument to date.

The Science

This latest study was published in the open access journal PLoS ONE, which means we get to read what the findings say!

The scientists used bee proteins from the initial 2007 outbreak, an additional 2009 outbreak in Florida, unaffected Australian bees,  and even had a control group of bees from Montana which showed no CCD characteristics.

The findings show IIV in over 75% of all the bees but that it didn’t cause a major problem unless it was mixed with the fungi from the genus Nosema.

The researchers then took young bees whose fed was inoculated with IIV + Nosema fungus, just IIV and just the fungus and watched them.  They found the combination of the two was a complete knockout, taking down 100% of the newly emerged bees tested.  Researchers also showed that bees could still be able to survive a Nosema infection and survive but with IIV, they are overcome.

How all of this comes together in nature is a still a mystery to be unraveled in future studies but it is clear from this study that IIV discovery is a huge step forward in turning the corner on this problem.

I’m not going to review this title (you can read the one from the Zocalo here) nor am I going to pick on Jacobsen. I’m sure his book is an interesting take on terroir foods as he calls them, picking up where Pollan’s Botany of Desire left off. What I am going to do is explain why I think this book represents another step backwards in gaining wider acceptance of SOLE foods.

The Issue

You may not even know what SOLE food stands for (its Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical Food) but that’s not even the problem. See, in the US and most of the developed world now, we have crushing obesity and diabetes epidemics going on. The latest obesity numbers released by the CDC should give everyone pause: the US obesity rate is over 30% now, with some states climbing to almost 35%. Stop and take that in for a moment. Just about every third person in the US is now more than 30 pounds over their ideal weight.

In the face of this monumental health crisis, related directly to food, a group of young, mostly urban dwelling Americans has taken it upon themselves to do something about it and change the food system. This fractious group is composed of some well-meaning professors, chefs, environmental activists, food writers, farmers and maybe even a nutrition blogger or two.  As with any movement, it has many sides. Unfortunately, the side that usually shows with the food movement is one of striking elitism, often so detached from why this issue exists in the first place that I’m often surprised at the amount of progress that has been made.

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Jacobsen or the reviewer Christine C. Chen; this Zocalo piece is just one I have read out of literally hundreds that strike this exact same chord of elitism that needs to be addressed. The tone these articles create is similar to commenting on how nice the paint on the Titanic looks as the ship was sinking. I think it would instructive to take a look at the people on the ship for a change.

How Elitism is Counterproductive to Better Food

Say you live in Indiana, are supporting a family of four, your spouse is a nurse and you work construction. You’ve had a couple brushes with unemployment but for the most part you are making ends meet. Both of you are in your mid-40s and easily twenty pounds overweight, prime candidates for slipping into the obese category. Now, you notice your kids are following in your footsteps, heavier than they should be. You start investigating bringing different foods into their both of your diets. (This is a large part of America, by the way.)

You hear about this organic, local food thing from a neighbor and are interested in how it might help your family. You start poking around online and this is what you read (from the Zocalo piece):

As with so many other things in the gastronomic galaxy, the English-speaking world adopted the term [terrior] from the French, who had more than just geography and geology in mind when they coined it. Terroir, from the Latin for “earth,” signifies more than “a taste of place.” It also conveys “a partnership between person, plant, and environment to bring something unique into the world.” Terroir is more than just the soil in which the grapes are grown or the village which lends its name to a wine; it’s the fullest, most concentrated expression of a person’s interaction with the land on which he or she lives.

“Huh? What language is that in?” you might think. So you look around some more. This is from the New York Times 10.10.10 Food Issue this Sunday. Here is Michael Pollan describing a 36 Hour Dinner Party (seriously):

The idea is to make the most efficient use of precious firewood and to keep the heat (and the danger) of the cook fire some distance from everybody’s homes. But what appeals to me about the tradition is how the communal oven also becomes a focus for social life (“focus” is Latin for “hearth”), a place to gather and gossip and escape the solitude of cooking at home. Shared meals have always been about community, about what happens among family and friends — even enemies — when they gather around a table to eat; but once upon a time, before every family had its own kitchen in which Mom labored more or less alone, cooking was itself a social activity, one that fostered community and conversation around the chopping board or cook fire long before the meal was served.

I could post other essays here but the point is already apparent: if you are that guy from Indiana, this party is not yours. The conversation is about becoming one with the soils around you and throwing 36 hour dinner parties of locally sourced food in Napa valley, not about feeding a family of four on a limited budget. Never is any of the food featured in these articles sourced from a grocery store, the one place the majority of the country buys its food.

The priorities of the agenda-setting side of the food movement are so out of step with what people facing these crippling chronic diseases need to hear that the two never even intersect. And, on the oft chance the foodie elite run into the middle class working family, the message is so distant that is might as well not even have been spoken.

In short, local food is a message divorced from its audience.

How Do You Fix This?

The issue facing a broad adoption of the locally sourced, organic foods is mostly related to supply chains and cost, not a deeper understanding of man’s connection to the soil. While having an appreciation for where our food comes from matters, what is far more important is reform of the agricultural subsidies that have created this situation. Further, we need to create more efficient markets that lower the price of these foods. You’ll hear these discussions but much more infrequently (see James McWilliams at the Atlantic, he picks up on some of this).

Instead, when you read these locavores your options seem to be: start a large garden, inherit some money and go on a food quest to get in touch with the earth, throw a 36 hour dinner party or potentially go ‘woofing’ on organic farms. At times it would appear as if the local food movement would like most American to revert back into becoming subsistence farmers, living off the land as did our ancestry hundreds of years ago.

That’s not an option and it shouldn’t have to be. The real issue comes back to money: SOLE food needs to come down in price. That can happen with greater volume and subsidy reform, not 36 hour dinner parties. It will be hard work to get the country back to eating nutritiously again which is why it it is so foolish to drag food into the culture wars by constantly enforcing the idea that eating well is something only rich people can do. It seems there is no better symbol of something that ties everyone together. Maybe it’s time for the food movement to appreciate this fact.

Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet, intended to reduce what it calls a clear risk to human health. They would end farm uses of the drugs simply to promote faster animal growth and call for tighter oversight by veterinarians.

The agency’s final version is expected within months, and comes at a time when animal confinement methods, safety monitoring and other aspects of so-called factory farming are also under sharp attack. The federal proposal has struck a nerve among major livestock producers, who argue that a direct link between farms and human illness has not been proved. The producers are vigorously opposing it even as many medical and health experts call it too timid.

Scores of scientific groups, including the American Medical Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, are calling for even stronger action that would bar most uses of key antibiotics in healthy animals, including use for disease prevention, as with Mr. Rowles’s piglets. Such a bill is gaining traction in Congress.

In case you are not familiar with the situation, often pigs, chickens and even cows are put into caged areas much to small for any living creature move around freely.  These confinement animal feeding operations (CAFOs) result in large amounts of animal waste that creates an ideal breeding ground for bacterial infection among the animals.  Farmers are aware of this and supplement their animal feeds with a range of antibiotics.

But the point here is more nuanced.  The battle over the line for antibiotic use on the farm center around their use as a growth promotion agent in animals.  Many CAFO farmers have learned that antibiotic cocktails cause their chicken to grow faster, their pigs to grow larger, etc.  Ag-centric scholarly journals have dubbed these agents ‘antibiotic growth promoters’ (AGPs) and they are subject of the FDA’s scrutiny.  Here is a good review of how they have been used:

Public health officials note that antibiotic resistance has grown by this abundant use of antibiotics.  The use is so abundant that is far outpaces the amount of antibiotics used by human beings.  According the Union of Concerned Scientists – a reputable NGO – non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock represents over 70% of the total amount of antibiotics created in the US.  The FDA is listening to those worries, which have been ignored up until now, with new ears.

Imagine if you had to live your life in a subway car with 300 of your closest friends.  It wouldn’t take long before somebody got the sniffles and, pretty soon, the whole car would be sick.  That’s the basic scenario at the CAFO that farmers are worried about.  Public health officials are worried about what happens if those resistant strains of bacteria get out of the CAFO and jump into humans.

This new FDA rule will not be an easy sell.  The agriculture and public health industries are extremely well connected on Capitol Hill and I’m not sure who’s dollar bills will look better to elected officials. I see major resistance shaping the end product here.

Building a Better Animal

The story briefly highlights the work of Cecil Forsberg a biologist from the University of Guelph in Ontario, who wanted to spare the environment the impact of pig farming.  The problem with swine CAFOs is they produce huge amounts of waste that are stored in so called ‘swine lagoons‘.  These open air pig waste ponds have been the subject of much debate, with the EPA studying them for polluting ground water with estrogenic compounds while the hog farming capital of the world, North Carolina, has gone so far as to ban their new construction outright.  But the real problem with the pig waste is what happens once it leaves the lagoon.

Much of swine effluent is sold as a spray on fertilizer for crops near the hog farms because of it’s high NPK values (ag talk for Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potassium levels, critical to grow American corn and soy agronomic crops).  This concept makes logical sense and could even promote regional foodshed growth as a cheap form of nutrient dense fertilizer that comes from a natural source.  The problem is the volume of waste from giant hog farms far outstrips the local farmland’s ability to use it.  Most notable, is that phosphorous runoff from the pig waste finds its way into sensitive waterways where it promotes runaway algae growth that chokes off aquatic life from the oxygen it needs to survive, a process known as eutrophication.

Domesticated pigs eat a largely vegetarian diet of grain and soy that contains prodigious amounts of phytate, a complex compound their bodies cannot normally break down, causing these high phosphorous levels in the waste fertilizer.  Pigs still need phosphorous to make DNA so farmers solve this issue by buying free phosphorous for their pigs or supplementing with an enzyme called, appropriately enough, phytase.  But what if that was all unecessary?  What if the pig made phytase itself?

Enter Enviropig.

Forsberg, et al, have genetically engineered these Yorkshire pigs to produce phytase in their salivary glands, which breaks down the phytate into usable phosphorous for the pig.  The result?  30-65% reduction in phosphorous excretions. Enviropigs cost more than traditional breeds but, according to the Popsci article, save farmers $1.75 annually in supplementation costs – a big savings in the world of livestock production.  In a CAFO with 100K head of swine (which unfortunately aren’t going anywhere anytime soon), this would be a huge win for the marine environment, currently being decimated by many forces.  The pig awaits USDA and Health Canada approval as it has now successfully been breed into an 8th generation with no problems.

Ick, Ehh, or Yay?

GMO animals represent a promising new way to deal with the industrial scale of modern agriculture issues.  We say promising because, like always with genetic modification, the ideas are great but the implementation has left something to be desired.  It is heartening to see that the Enviropig was developed at the university level and not the corporate level, avoiding such pitfalls as the infamous terminator genes in some Monsanto GMO products.

It still strikes us as counterintuitive to create such a technology when simply lowering the density of swine at CAFOs would achieve the same effect.  Better yet, we could require CAFOs to treat swine waste much as we require cities to treat human waste before releasing it back into the environment.  Nevertheless, this is just one of many GMO animals to come and its a promising start.

It turns out birds aren’t bird brains when it comes to what they eat. A number of species of birds have been shown to choose foods that contain higher levels of healthy things like protein and antioxidants and lower levels of not-so-healthy things like heavy metals and pesticides. Since they’re such finicky eaters, scientists figured to let them choose between conventionally and organically grown food, and see which they deemed better for them. The vote was unanimous: birds prefer non-organic.

Birds Think Conventional Food Is Better

Researchers from Newcastle University purchased Alchemy variety wheat from a number of organic and conventional producers in Europe. They then ground the seed into 2mm or smaller sizes so that there was no textural difference between the two types. In their first experiment, they provided caged canaries with both types of wheat in identical bowls, and recorded how many seeds of each type they ate in 20 minutes. 66% of the time, they picked the non-organic variety – and they picked it more often as time went on, suggesting that those that tried both decided the conventional was better and stopped choosing the organic.

But maybe, the scientists thought, that since canaries are domesticated, it’s possible their food preferences are skewed by what’s provided in their normal, canary feed. Instead, they decided, they wanted to see what wild birds thought of organic and conventional wheat varieties.

They placed each variety in a bird feeders and put them in different gardens throughout northeast England. They measured the weight of food taken from each tube every two days for six weeks. Since wheat isn’t commonly used in commercial food for garden birds, it’s much less likely that they’d have a preference for either type based on previous encounters. To make sure that their own biases didn’t get involved, they coded the bags of wheat and didn’t tell the people who filled the feeders which was which, so they had no idea which feeder contained which type until after the experiment was finished. They chose a few different farms for each type, to make sure that it wasn’t just the effect of one farm’s practices. And just in case position mattered, they swapped the positions of the feeders on the farms, too, halfway through the experiment.

The garden birds, like the canaries, preferred the non-organic food. At 39 of the 45 gardens tested, conventional food eaten outweighed organic food eaten. On average, conventionally grown wheat accounted for ~60% of what the birds ate. And again, the scientists found that as the experiment went on, the birds ate less and less organic wheat.

Why Did The Birds Prefer Conventional Wheat?

The big question, of course, is why did the birds prefer the non-organic varieties? The researchers made sure that texture, size, and position weren’t factors. So what about the conventional wheat was so appealing?

To try and get to the bottom of that question, the scientists tested the different varieties of wheat. They tested their physical properties (weight per thousand seeds, hardness), nutritional levels (moisture, protein, fat, carbohydrate, energy, amino acids), and levels of potential negative qualities (toxin burden, microbes, oxalic acid, and pesticide residues). Levels of moisture, fat, carbohydrate, pesticide residues, cadmium, lead, microbial contamination (Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., Enterobacteriaceae), oxalic acid, hardness and amino acid content were not significantly different between samples.

They did find one thing that was different, though: levels of protein. The conventional wheat they gave the canaries was 26% higher in protein than the organic, and the wheat they gave the garden birds was 6-26% higher (depending on which farm the conventional or organic wheat came from).

Could protein explain the difference in preference? Well, they decided to test that, too. They grew new samples of wheat under four different levels of fertilizer, yielding four types of wheat that were identical in every way except how much protein they contained. They then took the lowest protein variety and the highest protein variety (a difference of 14% between them) and asked canaries for their opinion. The bird’s choice? The higher protein food.

Ecologically, it makes perfect sense. Protein is an essential nutrient in the diet of all birds and mammals and is often limiting – especially for species that eat grains, which aren’t high in protein to begin with. Studies have found that birds and mammals, particularly if stressed, pick higher protein options. So when the birds in this study were presented with, as far as the birds (and the experimenters!) could tell are two equal foods except that one has more protein, why wouldn’t they choose the higher protein option?

So What Does This Mean For Non-Birds?

While this study is fascinating, and may speak to potential ecological implications of organic farming, it doesn’t say much about whether we should buy organic food or not. Just because the birds chose the conventionally grown wheat doesn’t mean we should, too.

The study found a clear nutritional distinction between the wheat types they used. In a grocery store, things get much more complicated. What would have happened if the conventional wheat had higher protein levels but also had higher pesticides? Would the birds have weighed the risk and reward? It’s anyone’s guess. Also, studies have gone back and forth about whether there are or aren’t differences in nutrition between organic and conventional foods. Even if we were to say we should eat whichever has higher X or lower Y, the jury is still out on organic v. conventional in that respect, too. Furthermore, it’s hard to compare bird nutrition to human nutrition, even though birds tend to prefer foods that are healthy for us, too.

Of course, we can learn a lesson from our feathered friends – they consistently choose the healthiest food option available. How many of us can say the same?

Reference:
McKenzie, A., & Whittingham, M. (2010). Birds select conventional over organic wheat when given free choice Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.4025

It’s estimated that ninety-eight percent of attempts to lose weight fail. Ninety-eight percent. That’s a sobering statistic, especially in a country where sixty-seven percent of adults and almost twenty percent of children are overweight. It’s even more shocking to think that the secret to losing weight and getting healthier isn’t a secret at all. We all know what we can do to improve our bodies: just eat better.

Why is it so hard for us to eat a healthy diet? It would appear to be the easiest solution in the world. Just choose wisely at the grocery store and – Poof! – you can feel better, lose weight, and look fantastic. Of course, we all know that eating healthy is never as easy as it sounds. So what is in the way of making good food choices?

The answer is we are. When we try to eat healthy, we’re picking fights against our own brains. Instead of working through those arguments, we make excuses. While we say we want change, the truth is that there are a number of reasons that we don’t. We can’t eat better until we understand why, deep down, we don’t actually want to. It’s time to sit down and work through our issues and excuses when it comes to healthy food so we can finally get past them and choose a healthier lifestyle.

We Think Healthy Foods Are Gross (Even If They’re Not).

Let’s be honest – most of us think that health foods aren’t the tastiest items on the menu. When school kids were asked what foods they dislike, for example, every single one named a vegetable. Health foods are those things we think we have to eat, but really don’t want to. We don’t choose to eat them – and why would we? They’re stiff, chewy, and tasteless. In short, they’re gross.

I can hear you now – I don’t think that! you’re saying. Guess what? You probably do, at least unconsciously. Even adults who might think they’re unbiased fall into the trap of thinking healthy foods taste bad. Tell someone that cheese or yogurt is low in fat, and they’ll say it doesn’t taste as good as the higher-fat version, even if the two items are the exact same thing. Or, take soy items, for example. Studies have found that merely labeling a foodstuff as containing soy will make people claim that it is grainy, less flavorful and has a bad aftertaste even if it doesn’t contain soy. Simply implying that a food is healthy alters how it tastes to us through a complex interaction between our tastes and our brains.

It’s not your fault that you think less of good foods – you’ve been trained to think that way. The key to beating your brain is not to focus on how much fat or whatever is in a food, but instead get used to buying healthy foods without counting their calories. If you can find a way to buy healthy items just because (making meals that include them, for example) instead of because they contain less grams of fat than another, you might just find that your meals taste better even though you’re eating healthier foods.

We Think We Don’t Have The Time To Eat Better

Even if it’s not the taste of healthy foods, there always seems to be an excuse to not eat better. Most often, we blame our bad habits on a lack of time. A survey of Europeans, for example, found that the most commonly cited reason for eating poorly was that people claimed they didn’t have time to make healthy food. A similar survey in Minnesota found that almost fifty percent of participants claimed not to have the time to eat better.

C’mon, admit it – this is just pure, sweet B.S. The sheer idea is strange – after all, how much time does it take to “make” a piece of fruit as a snack? Does it take more time to prepare a banana than a bag of chips? Healthy foods are often quick to cook (or require no cooking anyway), and even those that aren’t are no more labor intensive than unhealthy options. The idea that healthy foods take more time is just in our heads.

Instead of worrying about the time it’ll take to eat better, buy healthy foods that are cheap and easy to make. Fruits are great in this respect – they’re ready to go when you want a bite to eat. Besides, even if it does take more time to prepare a good meal, isn’t it worth it to be healthy? Once you truly make the choice to make a change, any small sacrifices in time won’t even be noticed.

We Think Healthy Foods Are Too Expensive

This is a big one for many people, and is cited almost as often as a lack of time as a barrier to eating better. How can you be expected to eat healthier when health foods cost so much? We’re in the midst of a recession here – we can’t afford to splurge!

Well, if you’re talking about organic or specialty foods, then yes, you’re right – these foods do cost more. But you don’t have to eat organic or from the health food section to eat better! There are a lot of ways to eat better without shelling out extra cash. Increase your intake of cheap health foods like eggs or frozen veggies. Frozen foods can often be bought in bulk and have the nifty property of not getting rotten if you don’t make them that day, so they rarely go to waste. Furthermore, you can buy most health foods as generic supermarket brands instead of the brand name items. Guess what? You’ll never notice the difference.

You can even save money by eating healthier. For example, stop buying juices, sodas and other bottled drinks and buy an aluminum water bottle instead. Almost every drink you might consume is high in calories and sugar, and even if they’re not, they’re definitely more expensive than tap water. Also, one way to make sure you don’t spend too much is to make a list. If you plan ahead and stick to it, you won’t give into the temptation of that bag of cookies just because you’re hungry. Planning ahead will also help keep you from overeating because you won’t feel a need to eat whatever has been lying around the house for awhile – and eating less will not only help with your bottom line, it’ll help with your bottom.

Why Choice Matters

The point of all of this is that we have to make the choice to eat better, not try to force ourselves to. Why is it so important that we want to eat healthier foods? Scientists have found that choice plays a big role in how our bodies react to eating something. For example, researchers from the University of Chicago found that when they told study participants that a new snack item was “tasty,” they reported feeling fuller than when they were told the exact same food item was “healthy.” In fact, the subjects who were given the healthy-labeled treat reported feeling hungrier than those who ate nothing at all. Simply telling them the item was good for them made them feel like they had to eat more food. I think we’ve all been there before: you get yourself a healthy snack, only to raid the fridge later when you’re still hungry. It’s not that the snack wasn’t enough; it’s that you had it in your head before you ate it that it wasn’t going to be satisfying. We set ourselves up all the time for this kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

But there was a twist: when people were allowed to choose whether to try the healthy snack or the tasty one, those that chose the healthy snack freely reported feeling just as full as the others. In other words, when forced to eat healthy, the participants felt hungry; when they chose to eat healthy, they didn’t. So all you have to do to  make the most of healthy eating is actually want to eat healthier foods.

Here are some tips to help you choose a healthy diet, not box yourself into one:

1. Figure out what is keeping you from eating better. Take a month and write down what you eat every day, and how you feel when you eat. By taking notes you allow yourself to look into how you really feel about your diet. Are you begrudging healthy options? Making excuses for bad behavior? Are there healthy foods you love? These are important things to know. Once you’ve diagnosed your issues with healthy eating, you can work towards getting through those issues and simply eating better. If money is an issue, for example, you can take some time to figure out what you actually spend on groceries every month, and then pick healthier foods that don’t go over budget. You can’t fix problems until you know what they really are.

2. Focus on the positives. Don’t think about how you’re going to have to give up something you love, think about how you’re going to gain something better, like money saved by cutting out sodas. Or, reward yourself for doing well. Maybe you can use the money you save to buy a new outfit that will fit a slimming you. Or set a goal that you’ll give yourself a bonus yourself for achieving – like commit to buy a new camera when you’ve stayed on track for a few months to take pictures of your soon-to-be fantastic new body at the beach. Give yourself some motivation to really want to do this! By thinking positively, you avoid the mental traps that bring people down when trying to eat better.

3. Find healthy foods that you honestly like to eat. Don’t sit there and try to eat brussel sprouts just because you think they’re good for you! Find a vegetable or fruit that appeals to you regardless of its healthy nature. Then look into how to use that food to attract you to other foods. For example, let’s say you like pineapples. Search for some recipes that use pineapples so that you’re more interested in healthy meals – like a pineapple curry (coconut milk has some great things in it). Or pineapple salsa to go on top of baked chicken. Use the foods you like to fuel your way into healthier meals instead of forcing yourself to eat things just because they’re healthy. And don’t be afraid to try new things! You don’t know that you won’t like something until you try it.

It all comes down to making healthy options more appealing. Figure out how to do that for yourself, and you’ll be that much closer to your goals.

Citations:

1. Zeinstra, G., Koelen, M., Kok, F., & de Graaf, C. (2007). Cognitive development and children’s perceptions of fruit and vegetables; a qualitative study International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 4 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1479-5868-4-30
2. WESTCOMBE, A. (1997). Influence of Relative Fat Content Information on Responses to Three Foods Appetite, 28 (1), 49-62 DOI: 10.1006/appe.1996.0066
3. Wansink, B. (2000). How soy labeling influences preference and taste The International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 3 (1), 85-94 DOI: 10.1016/S1096-7508(00)00031-8
4. Kearney, J., & McElhone, S. (2007). Perceived barriers in trying to eat healthier – results of a pan-EU consumer attitudinal survey British Journal of Nutrition, 81 (S1) DOI: 10.1017/S0007114599000987
5. Eikenberry, N., & Smith, C. (2004). Healthful eating: perceptions, motivations, barriers, and promoters in low-income minnesota communities Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 104 (7), 1158-1161 DOI: 10.1016/j.jada.2004.04.023
6. Finkelstein, S., & Fishbach, A. (2010). When Healthy Food Makes You Hungry Journal of Consumer Research DOI: 10.1086/652248

It would be great if we could just stop eating meat all together. But there’s one problem – we need complete dietary protein, and about 60 grams a day of it. This is what I call the Protein Problem: the problem is that we need a lot of protein, nutritionally speaking, but producing it is an ecological nightmare. If you’ve read my post about why protein is so nutritionally important, you know that meat is simply the best source of complete dietary protein. But it’s not the only source of it, and many human herbivores instead choose to eat soybean products, for they are rare in the vegetable kingdom in that they, too, contain all the essential amino acids that people need in their daily diet. Tofu and other soy products have been around for centuries, but lately they’ve become more and more popular as people seek an ecologically friendly way of eating a balanced diet.

But is becoming vegetarian and eating tofu the solution to our protein problem? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Brief History of Soy

The soybean (or soya bean) is a species of legume, which places it in the same family as many pod-forming vegetables like peas as well as beans and lentils. Worldwide, over 150 million acres are planted every year. In the US, soybean oil accounts for about 80% of all the vegetable oils and animal fats (including things like butter) consumed each year. Due to it’s high production rate, it’s also often targeted for genetic engineering, and almost 90% of the 70 some odd million acres of US soybeans last year were genetically modified. Despite the large numbers, very little of the yearly soy crop is actually eaten by people. Most of it has its oils removed for use in industrial settings, the leftovers of which are used as animal feed.

People have been planting soybeans for over 5,000 years, but not to eat – like other legumes, soya plants fix nitrogen in the soil, making fields more fertile for other crops. It wasn’t until people started fermenting soy somewhere around 2,000 years ago that people began eating it, and even then it’s not been a huge part of the Asian diet. It only accounts for about 1% of the protein in their diet – the rest, go figure, is almost entirely from fish.

Soybeans are made into soymilk (which can be made into tofu), soy sauce, miso and oil. The beans are nutritious, though they cannot be eaten raw, for they contain enzymes that need to be deactivated by wet heat, as well as a host of compounds that aren’t terribly good for you. There is even some debate as to how much of this bad stuff goes away even when they’re fermented or cooked – just to warn you. But they can be up to 1/3 protein by weight, including all of the essential amino acids, as well as low in fat and high in other vitamins.

Most often, those who eat soy products as a dietary source of protein consume soymilk or its derivative, tofu. Soymilk is produced by soaking dry soybeans and grinding them with water. Tofu, in turn, is made from soymilk like cheese is from milk, by coagulating the protein into curd. Both contain much less protein than the beans did originally, though soymilk is comparable to cow’s milk while tofu contains only about 1/2 the amount of protein as cheese, though it also contains significantly fewer calories. Unlike the animal products they resemble, soymilk and tofu are naturally deficient in calcium, though often this nutrient is added during processing.

Soy’s Environmental Footprint

Soy products are often touted as natural alternatives to meat, but they’re far from it. Many are genetically modified, coated with herbicides and pesticides, and harvested with heavy machinery. Once taken from the land, the soybeans are processed in high-temperature factories and shipped thousands of gas-guzzling miles to end up on supermarket shelves. It would be funny that they’re called “natural,” if it wasn’t just so darned depressing to know the truth.

Soy isn’t some miracle food that somehow helps out the planet while we eat it. Like any other plant, soybeans have to be cultivated agriculturally. This takes space and water, and means it will have an environmental cost no matter what. The impact of growing soy, in particular, has been devastating to the world’s natural resources.

Soy is native to Asia, but most of it isn’t grown there – it’s grown in the Americas. Why does that matter? It matters because when a plant is grown in an environment that it’s not native to, it can cause all kinds of problems. Because they are predominately grown in foreign soils, soybeans are one of the most disease-riddled crops out there. To combat this, soya farmers coat their fields in lots of pesticides and herbicides, and similarly soya has become one of the most genetically engineered crops in the world.

Unlike potentially environmentally friendly alterations that can be made (like making a plant drought-resistant so less water is used, or flood resistant so that weeds can be removed by flooding instead of chemicals), soy is most often engineered to resist herbicides so that more chemicals can be sprayed on them to combat other weeds. The end result of which, of course, is that more toxins are being used to produce soy than any other cash crop, with the exception of corn. Indeed, soy products are some of the most pesticide-contaminated foodstuffs in the world – even the organic soy (remember, organic doesn’t mean chemical-free).

In South America, soy farming is one of the worst things ecologically that has ever happened to the continent. Up until the early ’80s, more than 90% of the world export of soy came from the US. Latin and Southern America realized that they were missing out on a big opportunity, and began wide-scale soya plantation. By 2003, the combined exports from Central and South America exceeded that of the US. But where did they find the space to plant all these beans?

Well, it turns out that as soybeans caught on as a cash crop, farmers decided that soy fields were far more beneficial to them than rainforests. The result was massive deforestation, particularly of the Amazon Rainforest. In just one year, over one million hectares of Brazilian Amazon Rainforest was replaced with soya farms. Deforestation doesn’t just reduce ecological habitat for the thousands of endemic species that live there, it releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change.

Furthermore, the loss of trees means less organisms helping fight global warming by using and storing CO₂ in their tissues. On the plus side, activist organizations like Greenpeace have done a lot by exposing the atrocity that was occurring. They actually managed to push through a moratorium in 2008 that prevents any forest that is cleared from being used to grow soy. While this is a huge win for conservation, it doesn’t replace the millions of hectares of rainforest lost already, nor does it help the rainforest deal with the pesticides and nutrients that run off of these neighboring farms. Sadly, the moratorium is only a temporary solution to a very permanent problem.

The real question is, of course, is it better ecologically to eat soy than meat? After all, no matter how bad soy is for the environment, what people really want to know is whether it’s the lesser of two evils.

So What Diet Is Best for the Environment?

Unfortunately, the answer to that is muddy. Hands down, vegetarian diets are more efficient when it comes to acreage of land required to produce them… but that’s not the whole story. It does take less land area to produce soy than to produce cattle, chickens or pigs, so, yes, soy is better for the environment when it comes to square footage.

But quality is as important as quantity; a study from Cornell University suggests that completely cutting out meat might not be the best solution because animals like cattle can survive on land that isn’t suitable for crops, meaning poorer quality land can be used to produce livestock. In areas with poor-to-mediocre soil, for example, it’s probably more efficient to farm eggs for protein than to try growing vegetables that don’t flourish there – after all, animals can consume low-quality grain that isn’t necessarily fit for us. A recent study from the World Wildlife Fund also found that switching all of Britain’s meat eaters to tofu-eaters would require more land to be farmed in the country because of this effect.

The hot debate, however, is which produces more carbon emissions: a vegan or meat-eating diet. Despite what you might expect, the results are actually quite mixed, and it largely depends on what you eat and where it comes from.

One study estimated that it takes about 14 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of milk protein on a conventional farm and a little less than 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy for an organic farm. To produce the same amount of organic soy protein takes only 0.75 calories – which seems like an easy win. But there’s a problem with the comparison: we don’t eat raw soy protein. The processing of soybeans into a consumable form, like soymilk, takes a lot of energy. Some research has even suggested that the carbon footprint of cow’s milk is less than soymilk, as the process of turning soybeans into milk is actually quite energetically expensive (not to mention making soy-burgers) – but exactly how much of a carbon impact this processing has hasn’t been thoroughly researched yet.

As it stands right now, because soy products are only a small share of the market, they are only produced in a small number of areas and often have to be shipped large distances to reach their market. Exactly how important these food miles are to a foodstuffs ecological impact isn’t well understood, but they certainly don’t make it smaller. Obviously, travel increases carbon emissions, but there are many other consequences of long-distance migration of food that are often forgotten; the ecological cost of creating roads to access remote fields, for example, which damage even fairly untouched ecosystems in the area by creating more vulnerable ecological “edges”.

In the end, the science does seem to support that soy products are better for the environment than red meat- but only barely. And choosing sustainable seafood may be better than either one of them. Even if soy wins out against all the other protein options, it’s hardly the clear-cut ecological solution it’s made out to be. Furthermore, it may not be all that healthy to eat soy as your #1 source of protein in the first place. Soy contains hormone mimics, protein-degrading enzymes and other potentially toxic or carcinogenic substances whose effects have yet to be fully evaluated in people who completely replace meat with soy.

Being Nutritionally & Ecologically Balanced

I’m sure the debate will continue to rage on, but there are some things you can do to be more eco-friendly no matter what side you’re on.

First off, eat local, no matter what it is. Transportation of foodstuffs from one place to another is an ecological cost that we can lessen greatly. If you can get vegetables grown locally from a farmer’s market or beef from a farm down the road – great. If soy is grown and processed in your area – super! Whatever is produced within a few hundred miles of you is automatically the more ecologically responsible option, and often local, smaller farms have more sustainable practices, too. It makes it much easier to do this if you plan your meals around what’s in season in your area, so you are less tempted to grab your favorite veggies when they have to be imported from fairer climates.

Secondly, know where your protein comes from even if it isn’t local, and make the best decision you can as to which ones to pick. Places like the Monterray Bay Aquarium have made it easy to choose sustainable seafood options, and you can often buy chicken and beef from somewhat local farms, even at supermarkets. If you can’t go local, go grass fed – the label requires sustainable farming practices. If you crave red meat and live in the US, maybe try bison instead of beef. Bison is lower in fat, higher in protein, and more ecologically sustainable. The prairie grasses that bison are fed on have evolved along with the bison for centuries, and both benefit from the relationship.

And thirdly, eat less all together! While a lack of protein might be a problem in developing nations, in wealthy nations like the US, we tend to eat more animal protein than we need. Heck, we tend to eat more than we need, period – that’s why upwards of 1/3 of our population is obese. Start by eating smaller meals altogether, and if you’re really hungry, have a locally-grown fruit or something as a snack. That way you can improve your diet AND help the environment at the same time!

Genetically modified foods have a significant image problem and much of that comes from the laissez-faire apparatus that has been put in place to regulate them. Scientists, in effect, over-estimated the scientific sophistication of the public and assumed no one would conflate the genetic modification of plants for humans. How this oversight has played out in the regulatory arena is instructive in trying to decipher some of the hatred pointed at GMOs and other scientific advances that may come to pass.

Understanding the Regulatory Apparatus

Right now, there is a lot of variation in the regulatory processes that monitor and label GMOs. Those that are tightest regulated are in the biomedical industry, where strict regulations on animal research in general ensure the ethical creation, treatment and use of GMOs. In the U.S., any procedure on an animal can be preformed if scientifically justified, though that justification isn’t always easy. Animals are regulated and protected under the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, published by the National Academy of Sciences.

Any institution that conducts animal research must have a vet and an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which ensures that alternatives, including non-animal alternatives, have been considered, that the experiments don’t use more animals than necessary, and that pain relief is given unless it would interfere with the study. The IACUCs regulate all vertebrates in testing at institutions receiving federal funds in the USA. GM vertebrates purposefully bred for research are separately regulated under Public Health Service policies, and all of these regulations are enforced by the USDA, OLAW and the AAALAC. The hoops that researchers have to jump through to make and use GMOs are insane, though not in a bad way – they guarantee good science as well as the control and proper use of genetic technologies.

The Food Fight

As I alluded to, regulation of GM food is different. There is no worldwide consensus as to how to regulate GM crops or livestock, and depending on the political, social and economic climate within a region or country, the government oversight and opinion varies. In Europe, for example, anti-GM activists are particularly vocal. GM crops are today very rare in Europe. In 2003, the European Union adopted regulations establishing an EU-wide system to trace and label GMOs and to regulate the sale and labeling of food derived from them, although this legislation did put an end to the ‘de facto’ moratorium on approving new GM products for the European market, which had been in place since 1998. Regardless, these strict labeling laws and regulations ensure that GM crops don’t hit stores easily. These include systematic genetic testing for GMOs using DNA barcoding technology and assurance that non-GM crops do not mix with GM ones.

In the United States, however, GMOs are much more common. The regulation is confusing because the EPA, USDA, and FDA all deal with different facets of GMOs. In short, the EPA evaluates GM plants for environmental safety, the USDA evaluates whether the plant is safe to grow, and the FDA evaluates whether the plant is safe to eat. This means that the EPA is responsible for testing and regulating GMOs with pesticides or toxins that may cause harm to the environment, like Bt corn, but not those that are modified only nutritionally or for other reasons like disease resistance. The USDA picks up where the EPA leaves off, including drought-tolerant or disease-tolerant crops, crops grown for animal feeds, or any fruits, vegetables and grains for human consumption. In general, the FDA focuses more on parts of things, not whole products. A box of cereal containing GM corn is regulated by the FDA, but the whole ear would be regulated by the USDA or EPA. In general, exactly what the FDA regulates with regards to GM foods is uncertain and confusing.

To protect the environment and other creatures, the EPA conducts risk assessment studies on pesticides and establishes tolerance and residue levels for them. These regulations aren’t just GM-oriented – there are strict limits on the amount of pesticides applied to crops during growth and production, the amount that remains in the food after processing, licensing for pesticides used and directions for how to use them to meet the EPA’s safety standards. Inspectors periodically visit farms and conduct investigations to ensure compliance.

When it comes to GMOs, for example, the EPA requires that growers have a license to grow modified crops, and requires those that do also plant 20%-50% unmodified versions to prevent insects from developing resistance to the pesticides as well as provide a refuge for non-target insects. The USDA has all kinds of specialized groups that share responsibility for assessing and monitoring GM foods, including the the Animal Health and Plant Inspection Service, which conducts field tests and issues permits to grow GM crops, the Agricultural Research Service, which performs the GM food research done by the USDA, and the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service which oversees the USDA risk assessment program. In general, these groups check whether GMOs harbor pests, act as weeds, or harm native species that surround planted areas, including the effects of escaped GMOs. Depending on their findings, these groups can stop the production or movement of anything deemed unacceptable, and can even destroy anything that is in violation if their regulations.

Under USDA regulation, a GM plant does not require a permit if it meets six criteria:

1. Is not a noxious weed
2. Has whatever genetic material that was introduced stably integrated into the plant’s own genome
3. The function of the introduced gene is known and does not cause plant disease
4. Is not toxic to non-target organisms
5. Will not cause the creation of new plant viruses
6. Does not genetic material from animal or human pathogen

Once the food is grown and processed somehow to be used in food, it’s the FDA’s problem. In my opinion, it is here, at the FDA level, that the US has failed to adequately regulate and monitor GMOs, and this failure is partly at fault for the negative attitude towards GMOs held by many. By FDA regulations, agri-biotech companies may voluntarily ask the FDA for a consultation, including the evaluation of how eating the product affects people. Companies working to create new GM foods are not required to consult the FDA, nor are they required to follow the FDA’s recommendations after the consultation.

The FDA does not demand special labeling of GM foods, as the FDA contends that GMOs are “substantially equivalent” to non-GMOs and are “generally recognized as safe”. The FDA could do a lot better, and needs to. How can consumers trust in a regulatory system that basically says regulation isn’t necessary? Here is where the politicians need to step in and demand more efficient, required testing of GM foods. Doing so might slow down the release of GM products, but it will give the public a reason to trust that when those products are released, that they really are “substantially equivalent.” In other countries there is even more variation in how GMOs are regulated. Some completely ban GMOs, not even allowing them to be tested and evaluated. Others plant them vigorously with no concerns towards their safety. What we need is a worldwide set of regulations that ensures the quality, environmental safety, and lack of adverse health effects of any GMO eaten by people.

A Quick Run-Down of the Pros and Cons

To try and explain the entirety of the debate on GMOs would take an entire book or two. But, for your edification, here’s a cliff notes version:

Potential Benefits of GMOs

• In Agriculture:
  • Increase productivity by reducing maturation time, increasing resistance to pests, disease, environmental stressors (like drought) or herbicides
  • Enhanced taste and quality, including added vitamins and minerals to increase the nutritional value of foods
  • Other new products and growing techniques that take less space or energy and have reduced environmental impacts
• Using Animals
  • Breakthroughs in biological and medical technologies through research
  • Increased resistance, productivity, hardiness, and feed efficiency of food animals
  • Better yields of meat, eggs, and milk
  • Increased nutritional value of food animals
  • Improved animal health including resistance to diseases and parasites
• To The Environment
  • Bioherbicides and bioinsecticides that have negligable impacts
  • Conservation of soil, water, and energy
  • Bioprocessing of waste, improving waste management
• To Society
  • Increased food security and nutritional needs met for growing populations
  • Better and more affordable medical treatments for tough or incurable diseases

The Things People Worry About With GMOs

• Safety
  • Potential human health impacts of eating GMOs, including allergic reactions, transfer of antibiotic resistance markers and other unknown effects
  • Potential environmental impacts, including transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms, and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity
• Who Owns It?
  • World food production by a few companies (like Monsanto), and the problems of monopolies on food
  • Increased dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries
  • Rich nations getting the majority of the benefits, advances skewed to interests of rich countries
• Ethical Questions
  • Whether “unnatural” is bad or the violation of natural organisms’ intrinsic values
  • “Playing God” or tampering with nature by mixing genes among species, particularly animal genes in plants and vice versa
• Labeling
  • Lack of choice in consumption due to poor or no labelling
  • Mixing GM crops with non-GM crops

Hopefully, this list, combined with the information above, can give you some basis for your own opinions on GMOs. When arguing about genetic modification, remember that it’s not all about food – this technology is used for far more than Bt crops and fast-growing fish. Now that you have the back story, you can better understand the different sides of the GMO debate.

The Future of GMOs: My Two Cents

What lies ahead for genetically modified organisms is uncertain. A lot of it depends on public opinion, which, right now, is extremely negative. There are definitely some concerns with GMOs that need to be addressed, including their potential interactions with wildlife and native plants, the societal issues of who owns GMOs and who benefits from them, and the ability of consumers to make informed decisions when it comes to their food. But it seems that most who dislike the idea of GMOs have few facts and don’t think of the many other uses of GMOs besides Frankenfood. Just look at the list of negatives – almost none apply to GMOs for use in biomedical research. Yet legislation seeks to prevent all GMOs wholesale – laws which would hinder medical advances. Anti-GMO feelings are spurred onwards by those who fear that by altering the genetic makeup of creatures, we are, in essence, playing God. It’s a line of thinking that feels anything unnatural is therefore unsafe – an entire culture of thought that thinks that anything produced by science or technology is automatically bad.

Let me just share my two cents on this mode of thinking: first off, nothing about our lives is “natural”. We build things out of reinforced steel and other metals that never occur naturally. Houses never form in the wild, nor do clothes. X-ray machines don’t occur spontaneously, nor do heart transplants. So if you’re really dedicated to living naturally, you’ve got to rethink a lot more than GMOs. Secondly, we have been messing with creatures’ genetics and “playing God” for centuries. Over 50 million of us worldwide proudly own the products of this genetic manipulation – you might call them pets. Dogs, for example, have more physical variation within their species than there is in the entire rest of the order of carnivores. In other words, a pug’s skull is more different from a pit bull’s than a mouse’s is from a bear’s. If that’s not some serious genetic manipulation, I don’t know what is. We’ve bred not just different varieties of one species to create ideal plants, we’ve bred together different species, and long before we could do it with genetic engineering. Changing creatures’ genetics to suit our desires is nothing new. Thirdly, the transfer of genes from one organism to a wholly unrelated organism isn’t unnatural. Yeah, I know, the way we do it is, but it’s not like it’s never happened before in nature. Viruses and bacteria donate their genes to other creatures all the time – that’s why their machinery is often used to do genetic engineering. Even the transfer of genes between higher-order animals isn’t unheard of. We’ve found plant genes in sea slugs, for example – which is really, unbelievably cool, by the way.

I’m not saying that we should all just go out and blindly trust Monsanto and the other GM producers. We shouldn’t just shovel GMOs down our throats and presume they’re safe and better for us. That’s what science is for – to test this kind of thing. Have the lawmakers make stricter regulations regarding the safety evaluation of GMOs. Let scientists study and debate GMOs until they feel like they’re beating a dead FrankenHorse. Let it take years and years for these products to be tested, evaluated, and released. But don’t stop them from being created. Don’t make laws that outlaw the GMOs that are so vital to biomedical research because of fear. The reason Monsanto has a near-monopoly is because we stifle smaller companies and universities from competing with them, competition which is not only healthy but necessary – and we can fix that. In the end, the global benefits of the GMOs of the future are too great to be prevented by idealized notions of a natural world, and this is coming from an ecologist. Progress isn’t a dirty word, no matter what you hear, and we should be excited about the amazing possibilities that ever advancing technologies afford us.