Americans are getting fatter. But we aren’t getting healthier. 

We can expect that trend to continue, unless we fix our food. And we can’t fix our food unless we fix our soil, which means we stop saturating it with herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, synthetic chemical fertilizers and antibiotics.

Scientific American just published a great article this week linking the decline of human health to the decline in food nutrients caused by the decline in soil health. The authors pointed to a report by Eco Farming Daily, citing data going back to 1940, stating this:

“The level of every nutrient in almost every kind of food has fallen between 10 and 100 percent. An individual today would need to consume twice as much meat, three times as much fruit, and four to five times as many vegetables to obtain the same amount of minerals and trace elements available in those same foods in 1940.”

How do we fix our soil, food and health? We need a “microbiome renaissance,” the author said. And that begins with showing Mother Nature a little respect:

It is pure hubris to think we can manipulate nature into agricultural perfection with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Instead, to adapt to and mitigate the intertwined ecological, human health and climate crises, we must respect the elegant complexity of nature.

Read ‘Broccoli Is Dying. Corn Is Toxic. Long Live Microbiomes!’

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