agriculture

Occasionally I get the criticism that the paleo diet would destroy the world if everyone ate this way or it's an impracticable diet for the world. But how many of us are preaching this diet as a cure for world hunger? Not many.

Most of the world's population can't eat paleo, but they also can't get enough calories. Does that mean we all should eat a diet of 800 calories millet gruel every day? Paleo, for most, is a diet of self-improvement and making the best out of your circumstances, which is a healthy and natural human desire.

But I did study agricultural development in college and I do think about what, for example, these people from Chad are eating:

Not much. You often hear the claim that if we devoted blah blah blah acres of land to growing beans for everyone instead of raising cattle we could feed the world. Yeah right. If for some reason farmers in the US had to stop raising cattle do you think they'd just randomly start growing grain for Africans and giving it away? Do you think this unlikely event would be good? How do you think the above farmers would feel if they spent grueling hours toiling over fields of millet and all the sudden there was free grain flooding the market and they couldn't sell their crop?

We need to think really hard about why these people don't have enough food. Corrupt governments mean messed up markets and sometimes the seizure of farmer's land in many third world countries. Lack of infrastructure and agricultural technology means they are unable to get much out of their land. The reasons why the third world is the third world have little to do with my decision to eat grass fed meat in the US.

If you think being a vegetarian will feed these people you are wrong. And if you asked these people from Chad what food they would like, they would say meat. Meat is the most prized food in most poor cultures and poor women will go to great lengths to get it for their children. Development projects they provide people with animals such as Heifer International or microloan programs are among the most successful. Livestock is an investment, provides milk/eggs, some meat, and fertilizer. One of the most revealing moments in my wealthy high school was when my homeroom was sponsoring a Heifer project. A wealthy white vegan girl was against it because she was worried that the people in Africa might eat the animal...

Paternalistic development projects that assume one size fits all models are mostly useless and sometimes devastating. I suggest everyone read development economist William Easterly's excellent book The White Man's Burden.

So what is the paleo diet? For most of us, it's not a project to save the world. It's a diet for a post-demographic transition society* where fertility is low and calorie availability is high. It's for people more worried about diabetes than dysentery.

I think most solutions have to be localized and local-driven, which also why I think the battle between the anti-organics and organics is so silly. Sometimes GMOs are a good solution and sometimes organic composting is a good solution. It depends on the local situation. I don't really believe either is a point-blank solution, particularly when infrastructure and badly hampered markets seem to be the elephant in the room.

*If you are worried about OMGTOOMANYPEOPLE you should definitely know about the demographic transition. Hint: Once women have jobs, they aren't so interested in having 12 children.

Last night I heard Joel Salatin speak in NYC. I was kind of surprising that he would speak on Easter Sunday. I grew up in Georgia and Easter was a big holiday there, but pretty much everything was open here and lots of people turned out for his lecture.

I only saw the first one, which was about whether or not the local food movement is elitist. Salatin mainly talked about how regulations hinder the development of new local food businesses and make food more expensive. I was familiar with this argument because I did my senior thesis on regulatory obstacles to a healthier local food system and Salatin's book Everything I Want to Do is Illegal was one of my starting points.

You can read his original essay on the subject here. What does this have to do with paleo? Well, the main food regulations affect are animal foods, though produce is becoming more controlled thanks to the spinach, peanut, and tomato food poisoning outbreaks that killed and sickened Americans.

The standard regulatory argument is that risk is risk and every farm should be regulated the same way. I personally disagree with that. Part of the rational behind regulations is that people are victims because they can't make a rational consumption decision due to the structure of our food economy. People wouldn't purchase things made unsafely if they could see the production, but they can't and it's pretty unrealistic to expect most people to closely keep tabs on food factories 1000 miles away. Of course a private certifying agency probably could, but it's equally unrealistic for libertarians to expect the US to drop all food regulations.

Even if you are not libertarian, it's clear that most regulations on food producers are unfair. I went to a big agricultural school sponsored by the government. Much of the technology used on farms is developed by such universities and most of it is geared towards large farms. That's an unfair advantage. So when regulations are written they typical require capital that would be unrealistic for a small farm to own or use. Also, there is rent seeking behavior- manufacturers of this expensive equipment often are the loudest advocates for more regulations. Things are changing- there is a foundation around here that is working on small scale mobile slaughterhouses, but they are facing an uphill battle. The mobile slaughterhouse has to have a separate trailer with an office and bathroom for the USDA inspector. They can't just use the normal bathroom in the farm office, regulations stipulate the inspector has to have their own.

Another subsidy is that large feedlot operations are pretty much allowed to pollute. I don't see why they should be allowed to sully steams they don't own. Small farmers often take great care of their land and the environment in general. Many factory operations also employ illegal workers and the government turns a blind eye, while small farmers struggle with the challenge of having legal workers, which is more than just paying minimum wage, it's often also paying worker's comp and dealing with some draconian state employment laws.

Contrasting with shoppers in the grocery store who really would have a hard time really knowing where their food comes from, people who purchase directly are able to talk to the farmer and often able to visit and work on the farm.

The consequences for all these regulations are stressed farmers who have to haul their cattle hundreds of miles to the nearest USDA slaughterhouse and more expensive meat. One of the reasons poultry tends to be cheaper is that there is an exemption that allows small farmers to slaughter on-farm . Why chickens slaughtered on farm are safe but goat aren't never struck me as logical. The safety of an animal to eat has more to do with the skill of the butcher than the magic of a USDA inspector. I'd certainly rather have animals killed by my own butcher that I know.

Either way, read the book, it's great and will help you understand why small farmers have such a tough time. Salatin also addressed the global agriculture problem. He mentioned how large companies like Monsanto who often claim to be the savior of the third world often don't acknowledge that the green revolution is often the cause of the problems in the first place. He mentioned how the old Thai system was diverse and grew rice alongside fish and vegetables. Replacing this system with rice monoculture created the vitamin deficiencies that the GMO golden rice is supposed to cure.

Another factor is that contrary to popular opinion, small sustainable farmers aren't Luddites. There have been massive increases in the efficiency of many sustainable methods like composting in the past 50 years. Such methods are more sustainable not just from an ecological perspective, but from an economic perspective. In unstable third world countries introducing methods that require imported seeds, pesticides, machines, and oil just isn't appropriate.

Salatin also talked about the choice aspect of the matter. I don't make much money myself, but in the past I had to be on all sorts of expensive medication. Now that I eat a better diet, I don't need those pills and inhalers, which unlike grassfed beef, just masked the symptoms and did nothing to nourish or heal me. Joel Salatin mentioned how tests done at the local ag school showed high levels of CLA, a fat that shows strong anti-cancer properties, and DHA, which is the most prized of the omega-3 fatty acids that promote good health in general.

He said it's a shame that libertarians, free marketers, and conservatives have so often been reactionary against healthy eating, but the tide is turning. I agree. While paleo dieters come in all stripes, a growing segment is people traditionally associated with the right.

Highland Cattle from Veritas Farm Upstate...if you live Upstate, you should check them out! Beautiful healthy animals!

People are increasingly concerned about meat. Is it humane? What about scary food poisoning?* Is it sustainable? The only way to answer these questions is to know your farmer. I feel very comfortable eating meat from farms I know. The meat is tracable to a single animal and I can personally visit the farm to see that it's clean and the animals are living in a good environment. Contrast that with meat from the average grocery store which is probably several cows from god knows where all mixed together with a dash of ammonia. Food contamination is often due to processing mistakes...in the flurry of a slaughterhouse, entails get pierced and it often doesn't get noticed, contrast that with smaller slaughterhouses catering to small farmers that process only a few animals every day. 

Where can I get meat I feel good about eating?

• Your local farmer's market or natural foods store. Eat Well Guide has a searchable lists of markets, restaurants, and stores!
• A skilled butcher is also a great option. Artisan butchers care and know a great deal about meat quality. Most eat their meat raw to test quality...if there is anyone in the city I trust, it's butchers. Try The Meat Hook, The Greene Grape, Marlow and Daughters, or Dickson's! You can read about the butcher workshop I attended at my travel blog.
• Contacting a farmer, this is often much cheaper! I suggest Local Harvest or Eat Wild. 
• Meat CSAS. In NY I suggest The Piggery (I am a happy member), 8 O Clock Ranch, or the Traditional Nutrition Guild. Affordable and delicious meat delivered to you! 

In terms of contacting a farmer, this is waaaaaaaaaaay underutilized. Lots of farmers are eager to sell meat without trekking all the way to NYC at 4 AM to sell at Union Square. If you contact a farmer you can pick it up yourself to see how the farm operates. Don't be shy: farmers want your business!

*It's as good a time as any to remind everyone that going meat free isn't going to prevent food poisoning. Bagged salad is certainly scarier than pastured ground beef.

Whenever an article about the paleo diet is published in a major newspaper, at least one commenter expresses dismay that paleo dieters don't realize that humans are adapted to grains and milk. That's a misconception on several levels. First of all, plenty of us are educated enough to know that genetic adaptations can occur rapidly. I remember in high school when I first read The Beak of The Finch, which is about the finches in the Galapagos islands and how their populations genetically respond rapidly to changes in the environment. It takes down the myth that evolution is slow and can't be observed. 

In that case, why are we still talking about what our ancestors eat as if it matters? Well, so far the evidence is that some adaptations have occurred in some populations response to neolithic food. Genetic evidence shows that most of the population in modern societies is descended from agriculturalists who had been farming for several thousand years. Clearly, our ancestors were very much able to survive on diets of grains and dairy. 

I was just reading this scientific paper, Demeter's Legacy, which is free online and a fascinating read. Yes, there are two major genetic adaptations in agriculturalist populations. One improves the digestion of starch and the other of dairy. Great, we can eat these foods and reproduce. Yay, but it doesn't mean that we are completely adapted to them. There are plenty of foods that are digestible for everyday needs, but damaging in the long term. It's up to us to do the research and figure out if foods are really worth it. I ate bread for most of my life and felt OK, but life for me is not just about surviving, but about thriving. It's important to remember that even though adaptations have occurred, the vast majority of our genes were forged before agriculture. 

And for people descended from more recent hunter-gatherers, neolithic foods are even more devastating.

I created a list that I am currently still adding foods to which outlines some pros and cons of various foods from the paleo viewpoint. I think foods should be judged on their merits and there is no "one true" paleo diet...there can't be, since last time I checked I couldn't get wild antelope at the grocery store. It's about learning from the wisdom of the past and choosing food based on those principles, not reenactment.