At Sanctuary Farms on Detroit’s East Side, Jøn Kent and a team of volunteers use cardboard and paper bags to starve invasive weedy plants instead of using herbicides; they plant marigolds and lavender amid squash, melons, and collards instead of using pesticides; and they turn food scraps into lush, clean compost.

Kent and his business partner, Jean Parker, wanted to grow fresh produce for their working-class community, which Kent describes as a “food desert.” They also wanted to make sure their farming practices didn’t contribute to the area’s water pollution crisis.

“In Michigan, we have been left with polluted waters in Black neighborhoods from Benton Harbor to Flint,” he said. So Kent and Parker, who launched Sanctuary Farms in 2020, turned to regenerative agriculture practices, like alternating flowers with crops to attract pollinators and repel pests, to have a positive impact on the environment.

“The goal here is to really create a food-sovereign, energy efficient, zero-waste place, so our community knows it’s possible to live off the land,” said Kent.

Young Farmers Lead the Way in Regenerative Farming

Many young farmers share Kent’s commitment to sustainability, according to a new report from the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). In a survey of over 10,000 farmers across the country, 86% of respondents under 40 said they used regenerative farming practices, which the survey defined as “an approach to farming and ranching that builds healthy soils and ecosystems, supports climate-resilient farms and communities, and addresses inequity in agriculture.”

Of course, as the survey notes, regenerative farming practices aren’t new. Indigenous communities — many of whom were pushed off the land they stewarded for millennia — innovated and practiced these farming techniques for thousands of years.

“Young farmers today find motivation to farm in environmental conservation; anti-racism; and creating healthy, food-secure, and climate-resilient communities,” said Vanessa García Polanco, NYFC’s policy campaign director.

Overhauling the United States’ agriculture system will be crucial to meeting its climate goals. Farms cover about 40% of all US land, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture, and agriculture accounts for about 11% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Some regenerative farming practices, such as no-till farming, cover cropping, and rotational grazing, can help the US reduce those emissions.

But young farmers — particularly young farmers of color — need more support.

Supporting Young BIPOC Farmers

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said finding affordable land to buy was “very or extremely challenging.” Among those who identified as Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), that figure was 65%. Respondents also reported difficulty accessing capital, affording health care, and paying off student loans. In all cases, BIPOC respondents reported greater difficulties than their white counterparts.

These challenges may explain why more young people aren’t taking up the profession. The average age of a US farmer is over 57 and is steadily increasing, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture. According to that report, less than 8% of farmers are under age 35.

Kent, 29, spent his early childhood in Detroit. “My community is often hit with the reality that the government doesn’t always come through for us,” said Kent, who is Black. Kent, who only recently paid off his student loans, said accessing capital to finance Sanctuary Farms was a challenge, but added, “In spite of our lack of finances, we have faith. We just gotta keep puttin’ in that work.”

Adapting to Climate Change

Climate change poses another challenge. More than 73% of respondents said they experienced at least one “climate impact” in the form of extreme weather, hotter temperatures, or excess precipitation on their farm in the past year. That figure is up from 66% in 2017, the last time NYFC released a survey.

For some, climate change has wrought devastation.

Carolina Mueller, a farmer from Austin, Texas, and coalition manager with NYFC, said she suffered over $30,000 in losses when a winter storm in February 2021 froze much of the state.

“Winter Storm Uri last year was incredibly traumatic and damaging,” Mueller said. “Temperatures plummeted quickly, and we lost a lot of our livestock and produce.” All three members of the Texas NYFC chapter decided to stop farming after Uri.

For those young farmers across the country who continue to farm, there is an increased awareness of the need to adapt to the changing climate, said Debi Kelly, a field specialist and horticulturist with the University of Missouri’s extension program.

“Some of those old ways of agriculture can’t continue anymore,” said Kelly. “With all these weather events and with population growth, we have to learn how to do things a little bit differently.”

Taking Risks to Meet Climate Goals

Kelly said younger farmers she works with tend to be more willing to take risks and change their practices than older farmers. She said she also noticed younger farmers tend to be more concerned with how their operations affect their surrounding communities. According to the NYFC survey, 83% of young farmers reported that “one of their farm’s primary purposes for existing is engaging in conservation or regeneration.”

The NYFC report comes out as lawmakers are debating the 2023 Farm Bill, a massive omnibus bill that goes before Congress roughly every five years and includes farm subsidies, climate resilience initiatives, and food assistance programs.

If the US is to meet its climate goal by 2030, which requires a 50–52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels, Polanco said she believes it will need a transformative farm bill, one that addresses the climate crisis and the rising costs of land.

A New Inclusive Farm Bill

“Land is climate infrastructure for our young farmers,” Polanco said. But land costs are soaring. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmland values increased by $420 per acre, or more than 12%, in 2021. The report, which notes that “land ownership is rooted in the dispossession of Indigenous land,” calls on the USDA to support Indigenous communities in securing greater land sovereignty and for the agency to seat the Tribal Advisory Committee, a body created in 2018 to facilitate coordination between Native groups and the federal government.

Polanco said she’d like to see a farm bill that invests in community-led projects, prioritizing projects led by and benefiting socially disadvantaged and economically distressed farmers and ranchers. She said a successful bill would also invest in climate-smart farming adaptations.

These adaptations would look like an expansion of programs like the USDA’s recently launched Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, which supports the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities, increases funding for first-time farmers and ranchers, and improves access to crop insurance programs. The Inflation Reduction Act, which set aside $20 billion for USDA conservation programs, presents an important opportunity for young farmers as well.

Getting young, climate-conscious farmers on the land “is the best way we can fight climate change,” Polanco said. “But we desperately need climate investments that are part of a safety net for farmers, so they can continue stewarding the land when a disaster strikes.”

—–

This article appeared in Nexus Media News on October 17, 2022, with editing help from YES! Magazine and was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations. Nexus Media News is an editorially independent, nonprofit news service covering climate change.

Tell us in the comments:

• How do you think farms can become more climate resilient?
• How can government and community organizations better support young farmers of color?
• In what ways can you contribute to or support sustainable agriculture in your local community?

Featured Image: Jøn Kent at Sanctuary Farms in Detroit; Photo By Britny Cordera

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• What You Eat Can Impact Climate Change! See 9 Foods That Harm the Planet and 11 Foods That Can Help Save It

The post From Food Deserts to Fertile Grounds: The Rise of Regenerative Farming in Urban America appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Deepak Palakshappa became a pediatrician to give poor kids access to good medical care. Still, back in his residency days, the now-associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem was shocked to discover that a patient caring for two young grandchildren was food insecure. “Our clinic had set up one of those food drive boxes, and near the end of a visit, she asked if she could have any of the cans because she didn’t have food for the holidays,” he recalls.

Thirteen years later, Palakshappa’s clinic team now asks two simple questions of every patient to ascertain whether they’ll run out of food in a given month. But there are some critical questions they don’t ask: Do you drink your tap water? Is it potable and ample? Can you cook food with it, and use it to mix infant formula and cereal? Such questions could uncover some of the millions of Americans who are water insecure — a circumstance directly connected to food insecurity.

There’s no health care screener for water insecurity. The issue is not even on most public health professionals’ radar, although recent water disasters in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, are starting to change that. Clinicians who are aware of water insecurity “are thinking, ‘If I screen for this, what am I going to do about it?’” says Palakshappa, noting the dearth of resources available to mitigate it.

Researchers know water insecurity isn’t confined to one region or population. But “we don’t know how big of a problem it is,” says Sera Young, an associate professor of anthropology and health at Northwestern University. “And it’s going to keep biting us in the ass because we’re not measuring these things correctly.” Public health researchers talk about food and nutrition, while water researchers are siloed in infrastructure circles, and it’s rare for the two worlds to overlap. Says Young, “We need to build a bridge between those two disciplines.”

The Link Between Food Insecurity and Water Insecurity

Most estimates put US water insecurity at 2.2 million residents. Asher Rosinger, director of the Water, Health, and Nutrition Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, says this is probably a “huge” undercount, and the actual number might be closer to 60 million. There are no official estimates of combined food and water insecurity, which makes it tough to understand the scope of the problem, let alone to propose solutions.

“We’re measuring water by how many cubic meters there are and dividing it across the land,” says Northwestern’s Young. “Or we’re measuring infrastructure, which is like, ‘Where do you get your drinking water from? Is it from a tap? Is it from a well? Is it from a borehole?’ But you can imagine 99 scenarios where you have a tap, but you can’t pay for water to flow through it, or you don’t trust the water that comes out of it, or the infrastructure upstream of the tap has gone to shit. There are lots of reasons why measuring physical availability or infrastructure only gives you a pinhole peek of what the real problem is.”

The only way to truly understand water insecurity, Young says, is to consider people’s lived experiences as clinicians have learned to do with food access.

Accurate data is essential to closing the water gap because food insecurity increases the probability of water insecurity. In a study published last July in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Young, Rosinger, and a third coauthor tracked 13 years’ worth of tap water avoidance among more than 31,000 US residents. They found that people who didn’t drink their tap water had 21% greater odds of also being food insecure than those who did. “Efforts to mitigate food insecurity should simultaneously address water insecurity issues, including tap water availability and quality,” the researchers concluded.

Addressing Water Poverty

As with hunger, there are myriad reasons a person might be water insecure — some financial, some structural, and others having to do with quality and access. Still others are short-term predicaments brought on by disaster or a failure of local government.

You might think access to ample potable water is a basic human right. Legally, in the US, it isn’t (although California has taken a stab at making it so). Still, many Americans spend more than 12% of their income on water and sewer service. Others have lead pipes that contaminate tap water (Newark), or have bacteria seeping into wells (Iowa), or have sewage backing up into pipes during storms (Milwaukee), or nitrates running off farm fields (Las Vegas). A storm may knock out the electricity that pumps water (Puerto Rico), or knock out the pump itself (Jackson). Residents of the Navajo Nation lack basic water infrastructure. Then there are regions where aquifers are running dry, such as in California’s Central Valley.

Water poverty has a lot to do with health beyond the primary need to drink a couple of liters a day. Perhaps most consequentially, research shows that children exposed to lead can suffer developmental delays and brain damage. Rosinger also found that people who avoid tap water are more likely to drink sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs, in public health parlance). This alternative increases their risk for obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related diseases, with the implications most long-lasting for children.

Prioritizing Water Access for Public Health

SSBs are one of the few issues that public health researchers track that combines both food and water insecurity. Christina Hecht, a senior policy adviser at the University of California’s Nutrition Policy Institute, helped found the National Drinking Water Alliance in 2015, with a mission to improve access to potable water and educate people on the importance of drinking water instead of sugary drinks. “We discussed whether we needed to prioritize making sure that tap water was safe, but in 2015, we really didn’t think that that was a big issue,” she says. “Then Flint happened.”

Flint is just one in a long line of high-poverty communities now recognized for catastrophically unsafe water infrastructure. The city has a 29% food insecurity rate among its majority-Black population. In rural McDowell County, West Virginia, which will receive federal assistance to pilot wastewater infrastructure improvements, almost 32% of its (majority white) residents live below the federal poverty line. Century-old pipes, in some cases made of wood, bring in water so foul that residents capture creek water and store it in tanks. The most requested item at a local food bank? Bottled water.

The consequences ripple out from here. Someone who is water insecure can’t prepare food. Says Rosinger, “If your tap is dry, your water has been shut off, or you’re just avoiding it because you think it’s dangerous, you’re more likely to go out to eat. And research shows you consume a greater number of calories and have a lack of dietary diversity. So, it’s nutrition insecurity, too.”

Examining Tap Water Avoidance

Spending money on bottled water, which Rosinger says is “orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water,” might eat up $100 of a monthly food budget. For context, the maximum monthly SNAP benefits are $835 for a family of four. A water-insecure mother might pay for bottled water to mix infant formula or cereal; women inclined to breastfeed might skimp on their own hydration.

A colleague of Palakshappa’s, Dr. Kimberly Montez, recently met with a food-insecure mother from Latin America whose baby was failing to gain weight. She didn’t trust the tap water enough to drink it, so she was under-hydrated, which made breastfeeding difficult. Instead, she turned to formula, but that presented problems, too, because she thought she had to buy expensive bottled water to make it, says Montez.

If researchers can understand why people avoid their taps, they might better address fears and educate about the need for water over soda.

Young says questions about water trust and SSBs are a great start. “But don’t forget about cooking food. People are afraid of boiling pasta, so we should be asking, Are you drinking your water? Are you cooking with your water? Are you bathing with your water? And are you pissed about your water situation?” There’s some legislative interest in requiring the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which collects data on things like the prevalence of diabetes and fruit and vegetable consumption, to add questions about water insecurity. “If we want humans to be healthy, we need to realize that’s a product of a lot of things, and water is generally not on that list,” she says.

Water Is a Lifeline for Hunger and Hydration

As to the question of how clinicians can assist people identified as water insecure, there are a few initiatives in the works. SNAP recipients can already use benefits to purchase bottled water, although it comes out of their broader food allotment. Nourish California, an anti-hunger nonprofit, ran a pilot this year to see what happens when water-insecure households get extra SNAP bucks to cover half their monthly water expenditures. The results are still being analyzed. “We know we got to fix the welds, and we got to fix the pipes, but in the meantime, let’s not have people going hungry,” says Jared Call, a senior advocate at the organization.

The Environmental Protection Agency offers grants to help disadvantaged communities fund drinking water projects, test for lead, and conduct remediation in schools. Some states, like New York, offer assistance in paying overdue water bills.

Meanwhile, Young and her colleagues devised the Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales, which prompts researchers to ask questions about water availability, access, and reliability for domestic use. It’s similar to the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which asks about access to nutritious food. Young says WISE provides common language to the food and water insecurity camps since they rely on common measures and indicators.

“Evidence is growing — and plus it just makes sense — that water security underpins food security, so when you ‘fix’ water, a major driver of food insecurity is handled,” Young says. “By giving people the language to talk across the aisle, the beautiful thing is, this can be a win-win.”

Tell us in the comments:

• What do you think can be done to address food and water insecurity issues?
• Do you think water access should be a right for all?
• Do you drink your tap water?

Featured Image: iStock.com/PhilAugustavo

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• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 16 Million Americans — But See What Individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action

The post Why America’s Food Security Crisis Is a Water Security Crisis, Too appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Before long my fever was raging at 104 degrees, and I was so weak I was unable to muster a cry.

I’m grateful that my parents took me to a doctor, who put me on antibiotics. Within hours, my fever was down, and my sickness had reversed.

That antibiotic prescription may have saved my life.

What Exactly Are Antibiotics?

Alexander Fleming, a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, discovered penicillin — the first antibiotic — in 1928.

He’d been experimenting with colonies of Staphylococcus bacteria growing in Petri dishes. And he noticed that one dish had a spot of mold with a clear ring around it. This ring was a secretion from the mold that prevented further bacterial growth. It turned out to be penicillin.

Fleming and his colleagues worked to isolate penicillin, discovering its ability to attack other bacteria, like streptococcus, meningococcus, and diphtheria bacillus.

In later years, researchers developed new antibiotics that were effective in killing different classes of bacteria.

Altogether, antibiotics have saved millions of lives worldwide — overpowering such potentially lethal diseases as meningitis, tuberculosis, and cholera.

When used appropriately, antibiotics are a blessing and a welcome arrow in humanity’s medical quiver. But the reality is that they’re vastly overprescribed.

According to the CDC, in 2021, health care professionals prescribed 211.1 million antibiotic prescriptions — and many of these prescriptions are unnecessary.

Many health care professionals prescribe antibiotics at an alarming rate. Sometimes they prescribe them without making sure the drug will effectively attack whatever germ is involved — or without confirming that it is a bacteria and not a virus. (Antibiotics are completely ineffective against viral infections.)

And this lax approach doesn’t come without consequences.

The Dark Side of Antibiotic Use

Antibiotics don’t just target harmful bacteria in your body. They’re destructive to all microbes, which can leave your body’s natural microbiome unbalanced and damaged.

And this ecosystem won’t always go back to normal unless you consciously make an effort to make it so. Odds are, if your microbiome is currently out of balance, past antibiotic use has significantly contributed to your condition.

It’s also likely that the health care professionals who prescribed those antibiotics to you didn’t discuss how to counteract the collateral destruction of good bacteria in your body.

A couple of years ago, I was considering taking antibiotics to fight a strep infection. I asked my doctor if he could recommend any protocol for repopulating my body with healthy bacteria.

He replied that he didn’t learn anything about that in medical school, so he couldn’t offer me any advice. “My wife took a nutrition class online,” he told me, “so she’d be a better person to ask.”

It’s pretty crazy, if you think about it, that our medical system is so good at destroying a bacterial ecosystem but so ineffective at rebuilding it.

For more on the importance of gut health, and the use of prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics, read our in-depth article here.

How Antibiotic Overuse Is Creating “Superbugs”

Not only do antibiotics damage good bacteria, but their overuse encourages the widespread development of “superbugs,” or bacteria that display antibiotic resistance.

Bacteria, you see, are very much like accountants. No matter how much you change the tax laws, there will always be wily accountants who will find a way around them to escape taxes. Similarly, when you increase the dose of antibiotics or engineer new ones, some bacteria will find a way to mutate and resist them.

As a consequence of antibiotic overuse, we’ve had to start turning to “last-line” antibiotics, or medications typically only used as a last resort when the usual medications no longer work.

These drugs are meant to be used sparingly in human medicine to limit bacterial exposure to them, in the hope of preventing the development of antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately, because antibiotic resistance has increased, the prescription of last-resort antibiotics has also increased.

Antibiotic Resistance Can Be Deadly

Antibiotic resistance is leading to more and more deaths that were once preventable. That doesn’t sound like the kind of progress we’ve come to expect from the field of medicine.

In the United States, nearly three million people contract an antibiotic-resistant infection each year — with more than 35,000 people dying. Worldwide, antibiotic-resistant microbes are estimated to cause nearly five million deaths per year. And these numbers are rising.

Superbugs now threaten to make many common infections, such as urinary tract infections and pneumonia, lethal once again.

Many public health authorities fear that we could be on the verge of entering into a “post-antibiotic world” that threatens to kill millions of people annually by 2050. Antibiotic resistance already costs over $55 billion in medical treatment and hospitalizations just in the US. And this number is expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the World Health Organization has declared antibiotic resistance to be one of our greatest global threats to health, security, and development.

But is the medical overuse of antibiotics really the primary cause of the rise of the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance?

Antibiotics in the Livestock Industry

Factory farms, also known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), were created as a way to keep up with an enormous demand for animal products that’s emerged in the last century.

Modern farms look far different from farms of the past. The images that leap to mind when many of us think of a farm — the iconic red barn or a green pasture full of animals happily grazing in the sun — no longer represent how most farm animals spend their lives.

To say that animals in CAFOs endure close quarters and overpopulation would be an understatement. The average chicken raised for meat has less than one square foot of space per bird. And modern broiler operations have bred birds to grow so quickly that they often become unable to walk. As a result, these birds spend their lives sitting in feces. Animals regularly get sick, injured, and even die as a result of these miserable conditions.

So how do modern CAFOs cope with the threat of disease wiping out their livestock? Antibiotics to the rescue! Antibiotics are routinely administered (through injections or medicated feed) not just to livestock who have become sick, but rather to every single animal housed in these filthy and brutally inhumane conditions.

In addition to helping keep animals alive in an unsanitary environment, antibiotics serve another purpose, too. It turns out that antibiotics make animals gain weight faster — which increases producer profits.

How Do Bacteria Become Antibiotic-Resistant in CAFOs?

When bacteria have continual exposure to low doses of an antibiotic, any of the microbes that are resistant to the drug will survive and reproduce. The rest die off, resulting in a new bacteria population resistant to the antibiotic.

Modern factory farms provide continuous low doses of antibiotics to billions of livestock — thus creating the perfect conditions for breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

If, for some diabolical reason, someone wanted to create conditions that would breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they would be hard-pressed to do better than the conditions prevalent in industrial meat production today.

The Truth About Food Recalls

Already, the breeding of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics in modern meat production is hurting human health in many ways.

Have you ever gotten sick after eating at a restaurant? It’s an experience that’s not easy to forget. You just ate the most delicious meal, yet hours later, you’re regretting ever leaving the house that day.

Foodborne illnesses — such as salmonella, listeria, and E. coli — affect one in six Americans every year. That’s more than 55 million people annually. About 128,000 of them have to be hospitalized for their symptoms. And 3,000 of these people end up dying.

Two of the most common foodborne pathogens, Salmonella and Campylobacter, cause a combined 660,900 antibiotic-resistant infections in the United States each year.

Where do these bacteria come from? The truth is most pathogens that cause food poisoning originate with the intensive, confinement-based livestock production methods used in factory farming.

The US federal government tests supermarket meats to track trends in bacteria and resistance. Recent findings show that 73% of bacteria that FDA testing found on ground turkey were resistant to tetracyclines, the most widely used antibiotic in farm animals and a critical medicine to treat serious bacterial infections in humans.

Additionally, one in five strains of Salmonella in chicken meat were resistant to amoxicillin — the second most frequently used antibiotic on farms and the number one medication prescribed to children. And 1 in every 25 packages of raw chicken is said to have Salmonella contamination, according to the CDC.

E. coli has also been found to contaminate 40% of raw chicken samples tested. But beef is the most common source of E. coli exposure for humans. This bacteria is thought to cause up to 85% of urinary tract infections each year. It’s also a major part of the Salmonella risk.

What About Food Recalls from Vegetables?

“But, wait!” you say. “What about the E. coli that have been found in plant foods, like romaine lettuce or tomatoes? Aren’t vegetables as risky as animal foods?”

It’s a reasonable question to ask, given the media coverage of E. coli outbreaks. But the truth is, E. coli lives in the intestines of animals.

Last I checked, romaine lettuce and tomatoes don’t have intestines. The only way any vegetable can be linked to E. coli is to be contaminated by the feces of animals.

Usually, this contamination happens because there’s a factory farm upstream (or up-manure) from a vegetable farm. It’s remarkable how often these plain facts are not conveyed in media coverage of E. coli scares.

Pathogens, like E. coli and Salmonella, are abundant in animal waste, which can run downhill during a rainstorm or seep into underground aquifers, ultimately getting into nearby water systems that spread the pathogens elsewhere.

These hardy pathogens can spread not only to raw meat products but also to produce (through water or soil contamination) and to cooking surfaces where food is prepared. When you consume this contaminated food, that’s when you may get sick.

The largest multistate E. coli outbreak in over a decade, related to romaine lettuce, occurred in the spring of 2018. It ended up affecting people in 36 states, resulting in 210 illnesses, 96 hospitalizations, and 5 deaths. What caused it? All evidence points to a large industrial cattle farm near the affected romaine crop in Yuma, Arizona.

How Factory Farming Drives the Problem with Antibiotics

It’s true that antibiotics are overprescribed to people, and that is a problem. But antibiotics are used and abused even more egregiously in animal agriculture.

According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015, the world uses about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens, and pigs. That’s roughly twice as much as the volume of all antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to humans.

In fact, 80% of the antibiotics used in the United States are not given to sick humans, but to animals on CAFOs.

And antibiotics are typically NOT used to cure disease on CAFOs. Rather, they’re used to promote growth or prevent diseases from keeping animals in unsanitary conditions.

What’s worse, last-resort antibiotics for humans are commonly used in CAFOs. So it’s no wonder that resistant bacteria are rampant in industrial meat products.

Regulatory Efforts Have Been Botched

Attempts have been made to better regulate antibiotic use in CAFOs.

In January 2012, the FDA prohibited the use of cephalosporins in food animals. This didn’t make much difference, though, because this class of antibiotics makes up less than 1% of the antibiotics used in the United States on food animals every year.

A study published by researchers at Ohio State University in 2016 warned of the very real potential of a post-antibiotic age. The study was sparked when bacteria that was resistant to last-line antibiotics was found on a Midwestern hog farm.

The FDA eventually took action in 2017, stating that farmers were no longer allowed to give antibiotics to animals for the purposes of weight gain, nor could they buy antibiotics without the oversight of a veterinarian.

But even after the 2017 attempt to crack down on CAFO antibiotic use, government records show that things haven’t changed as much as many had hoped. While sales of antibiotics for agricultural purposes dropped right after the 2017 ban on use for growth promotion, they’ve somewhat leveled out since then. Officially, there’s no ban on using antibiotics to prevent or treat diseases in animals — and so many animals in CAFOs are unhealthy, that this could potentially allow for very widespread use. The fact is that many companies that pledged to reduce antibiotics in their food supply haven’t followed through.

Beef suppliers for some of the largest fast-food corporations, like McDonald’s and Taco Bell, are still using the highest priority, critically important antibiotics (HP-CIAs) on farm animals, despite the risks to human health. USDA testing shows that between 2017 and 2022, all 10 of the biggest meat packers in the US were using at least one HP-CIA on livestock. And according to reporting by The Guardian, the dosages used are identical to the ones used previously to fatten up cattle.

Because there’s no universal ban on antibiotics in the food supply, companies seem likely to continue finding ways to exploit regulatory loopholes.

Antibiotics Aren’t Only Used for Land Animals

Just as we’ve industrialized agriculture for land animals, we’ve done the same to aquatic animals. And although fish aren’t what typically comes to mind when we envision factory farms, that doesn’t mean that farmed fish are living in better conditions. Antibiotic use runs deep in the aquatic environment, too — and so does antibiotic resistance.

Farmed fish are often packed tightly together in huge, unsanitary pools. Just as happens in the factory farming of land animals, the fish are given antibiotics (and other drugs, like pesticides) to prevent the spread of disease.

A 2015 study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials sheds light on this hidden problem. Researchers looked at 27 fish from 11 countries. The researchers found residues of five antibiotics — including tetracycline and other drugs used to treat human infections.

Remarkably enough, they even found residues in farmed fish with an antibiotic-free label. It turns out that farmed fish don’t have to be given antibiotics directly to carry them because many are eating antibiotic-contaminated fish meal.

Levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in seafood have exploded in the past 30 years.

For more on the true cost of farmed fish, see this article.

What Can You Do About Antibiotic Resistance?

The hope, of course, is that one day, governments will take stronger action against antibiotic use on factory farms.

Some countries have done so already, including Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. And they are seeing significant reductions in antibiotic overuse.

Whether or not government policy grows more enlightened, we can all take positive actions now to help preserve the efficacy of antibiotics and to support better industrial food practices.

The most significant contribution we can each make is to transition to a plant-powered diet. And for those who opt to consume animal products, it’s best to go organic since the use of antibiotics is not permitted under organic certification. If enough of us make these changes, we’ll drastically reduce consumer support for industrialized animal agriculture — the inhumane industry that’s fueling this public health crisis.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has made avoiding factory-farmed animal products easier than ever with this handy Shop With Your Heart Grocery List.

How to Change the Future Right Now

Antibiotics are a miracle of medicine. But now, thanks to factory farming, antibiotic overuse has become a driver of what could become one of the most terrifying public health emergencies in history.

Unless we take action to preserve the viability of antibiotics for future generations, millions of lives will be lost.

The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria isn’t one that any of us can solve all by ourselves. Slowing its spread is going to take collective action from governments, farmers, corporations, and concerned citizens around the world. It’s also going to take reducing the frequency with which doctors prescribe antibiotics to humans.

But just because you and I can’t solve it all by ourselves doesn’t mean we should refuse to do what we can.

As a concerned citizen who wants a safe future for humanity, the number one step you can take is to boycott factory-farmed animal products. You can also go a step further and urge restaurants and supermarkets to do the same.

We should ensure a future in which, if a crisis arises, every baby’s life can be saved by these miracle drugs the way mine was when I was three months old.

Tell us in the comments below:

• Have you ever encountered antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
• Does this help you understand antibiotic resistance and how antibiotic use on factory farms affects humans?
• What did you find useful, interesting, or surprising in this article?

Featured Image: iStock.com/branex

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• Unhealthy Conditions for Farm Animals are — No Surprise — Bad for Humans, Too

The post The Surprising Truth About Antibiotics, Factory Farms, and Food Recalls appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

In the United States, the Animal Welfare Act is intended to protect animals from cruelty. However, it specifically excludes “farm animals used for food, fiber, or production purposes.” Unlike dogs, cats, and hamsters, the law treats farm animals as unprotected commodities. The fact that they are, like all animals (including humans), capable of a broad spectrum of emotions, including affection for other beings, is considered essentially irrelevant.

But just outside Los Angeles, there exists an oasis of compassion and hope for farm animals. Founded by Ellie Laks in 1999, The Gentle Barn stands as a resolute response to the way society tends to treat animals in the modern industrialized food system.

The Gentle Barn is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of abused and neglected animals, especially farm animals. The organization is based in Santa Clarita, California, and they have two additional locations in Nashville, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri.

In addition to giving animals a safe and loving home, The Gentle Barn offers educational programs and therapy to help children and adults heal from trauma. Individuals can participate in cow therapy, horse therapy, or barnyard therapy (with pigs, sheep, and other smaller farm animals). And The Gentle Barn also offers private tours for groups of up to 30 people, as well as field trips for schools.

Open to the public every Sunday, The Gentle Barn welcomes nearly 750,000 visitors per year.

We sat down with founder Ellie Laks to find out what makes The Gentle Barn such a draw for so many, and how they’re working towards a more healthy, ethical, and sustainable world for all (farm animals included!).

How The Gentle Barn Got Started

FRN: Could you tell me a little bit about how The Gentle Barn got started and what kind of work you do here?

Ellie Laks: The Gentle Barn was a dream of mine since I was seven. I loved animals and noticed that the people around me didn’t see them the same way that I did. And so I kept saying, “When I grow up, I’m going to have a big place full of animals, and I’m going to show the world how beautiful they are. And all the hurting people of the world can come and heal with us.”

So I procrastinated for a really long time because I had no idea how to do it. And then, 25 years ago, I lived in a little house with a half-acre backyard, and I discovered a petting zoo I’d never seen before. And to make a long story short, the animals were suffering terribly. I tried to leave, and blocking the exit was a very old goat who looked me in the eyes, stopped me in my tracks, and asked me for help.

So they wouldn’t let me have her. I stayed there for 12 days. Finally, they let me have her; and I brought her home, fixed her, and realized how rewarding that was. I went back for more animals. And then, one day, I looked out my little picture window to a backyard that was full of animals and said, “Holy crap. I just started my dream.”

We’re now home to horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, llamas, emus, and dogs. And we’ve specifically taken animals that have nowhere else to go because they’re too old, too sick, too lame, or too scared. They’re just not adoptable. We bring them in and take them through a very extensive recovery program.

And then once they’re happy and healthy, if we can find them a home and family of their own, we do. If not, then they stay here for the rest of their lives. And then, when they’re ready, we partner with them to heal people with the same stories of trauma, and connect to the love and magic of animals.

Rescuing Animals from the Jaws of Death

FRN: Do you rescue specifically from factory farms? What kind of state are they in when you get them?

Ellie Laks: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the brilliant things that my partner and cofounder of The Gentle Barn, Jay, does, is he strikes up really good relationships with owners of slaughterhouses, stockyards, and auction houses. And so when they have a downed animal that they can’t produce into a profit, or when they have an animal born on the kill floor, instead of doing away with it, they call us and give us an opportunity to save them.

So Jay has gone around the country going into the darkest places on this earth, pulling animals out of the jaws of death, bringing them home to me to heal. He’s rescued cows from veal crates, every kind of animal from the slaughterhouse, gone into auction houses and been able to prevent the slaughter trucks from buying those animals.

When they come in, they’re all very sick, and they’re all very scared — that’s a given. They’ve seen the worst of humanity. They know what was about to happen to them, and they’re in shock. And so we have to go to great lengths to really show them that people can be kind and the world can be good.

Sometimes we can prove that to them in a few months. Sometimes it takes years. And still other times, the only time I touch or embrace these animals is on their deathbeds. And I can finally show them love. We’ve rescued so many animals in that way.

John Lewis the Cow

Ellie Laks: My favorite story is about the cow I got to raise in my house. He was born inside the slaughterhouse. And we have an arrangement with the owner of the slaughterhouse that when someone’s born there, he’ll allow us to have the baby and the mom because the chance of a baby’s survival without the mom is very bleak.

But in this scenario, there was a logistical reason and a health reason why they wouldn’t let us have the mom. And even though she was on death’s door, they processed her anyway, which really should tell people who they’re eating.

There is no difference between any of the species other than our perspective of them.

Ellie Laks, Founder of The Gentle Barn

So he was left orphaned and extremely sick with pneumonia at a week old. And we brought him into The Gentle Barn and brought him into our healing center, where we started the recovery process with great vet care, medication — the whole nine yards.

And we realized that it was so hot outside that we couldn’t lower his temperature in order to save his life. And so Jay and I looked at each other and said, “We got to bring him in the house into the air conditioning.”

So we brought him into the house. I was with him 24/7 for the first six months until he was finally cleared to start interacting with the other cows and having playdates with them.

And then, at nine months old, I came to pick him up after a playdate, and he said, “No, I don’t want to go. I want to stay with the cows.” So he moved in with the cows, and I cried all the way back up to the house.

I think the reason this is my favorite story is, number one, I had a cow in my house. I’m the luckiest person in the world.

Number two, it’s really easy to go, “Oh, well, but it’s a cow; it’s not a dog.” Or, “It’s a pig, not a cat.” And there are all these boxes that people like to put animals in: These are animals worthy of love, affection, and protection. These are animals that we eat; these are animals that we wear. These are wild animals that we don’t understand and that are dangerous. We have all these boxes, and it’s just not true.

And so what I love about the time I got to spend with John Lewis [the cow] in our house is it really once and for all proved there is no difference between any of the species other than our perspective of them. We’re judging them as different, so they show up differently.

But the minute you see a cow like a dog, he’s a dog. John Lewis, to this day… He’s now three years old. I still give him a bottle of warm water and some chlorella algae superfood in the morning to boost his immune system. And I sing him his morning songs. And I kiss him all over, and we spend time together.

But he comes to me when I call his name. He walks on a leash like a dog. We’ve even taken him to hiking trails. He slept on a dog bed. He had toys. It really broke those barriers once and for all. And so I love sharing John Lewis and his story with people — because if we could just erase those lines and just accept that we’re all the same, we just look different, what a world this could be.

The Recovery Process at The Gentle Barn

FRN: Wow. So what do some of the recovery processes look like? Is it the same for every animal?

Ellie Laks: More or less. The general protocol is that animals come in and do a 30-day quarantine with us, during which time we’re making sure that they’re not sick, so they don’t bring in a disease to our existing family. But we’re also reading to them, meditating with them, singing to them, playing musical instruments for them, coming and going so that they can get used to us and start to trust us.

At the same time, we’re collecting fecal samples, making sure they don’t have parasites, and putting nutritional supplements in their water to boost their immune systems.

And most of the time, for the first time in their lives, they have a soft bed; they have shelter; they have fresh food, clean water, kind humans; and they start recovering physically and emotionally — slowly.

When their quarantine is over in 30 days, the next step is to introduce them to other animals of their kind. And with some animals like horses, pigs, chickens, and goats, the process is very slow because the animals’ first instinct is to reject newcomers. But slowly they get used to each other, and they become family.

With cows, that process is very quick. Because we can put a new cow in anywhere, anytime, at any of our locations, and the other cows are like, “Oh, hi. Come on in.”

But once they’re acclimated to other animals of their kind, then we need to see what is left over. So they might still be sick or lame or old. They might still have trust issues with people. And so we continue their recovery, their rehabilitation, and their treatments until they don’t need it anymore. Some animals that come in need ongoing care for the rest of their lives.

Adopting Out Animals

FRN: So the ones that are adopted out, where do they go? Do they go to other sanctuaries or individual people, or what does that look like?

Ellie Laks: Yeah. Every once in a while there’ll be somebody who has a ranch or a farm or a giant backyard, and they’ll invite a farm animal to live with them. And we’ve adopted out turkeys, chickens, goats, sheep, horses, and dogs. The only animal that we’ve never adopted out is a cow. I’ve never had a person say, “Can I please have a cow?” Which is weird because I think everyone should have a cow. They’re the most misunderstood and the most magical animal.

[The animals] all have healing for us. They all have life lessons for us. Like practicing confidence and leadership skills with a horse is unparalleled. Practicing empathy and compassion with smaller animals that we’re cradling in our arms is unparalleled.

But I think, as a tribe, cows are everything that we’re supposed to be. They’re matriarchal; they’re vegan. They meditate every single day. Family and connection is the most important thing. So they really lift each other up and support each other. They celebrate life. They celebrate death. They face their challenges head-on, and they’re 100% inclusive.

They’re a beautiful community, and they’re very, very gentle on Mother Earth. They harm no one. They’re that feminine, beautiful, nurturing energy. They’re everything that we will be one day. I have to hope.

Saving Buddha the Cow

FRN: Yeah. How did you discover that the cows were able to give that to you, and how did the cow therapy evolve?

Ellie Laks: So when I started The Gentle Barn, I found out that there was a miniature cow breeding program up in Washington State. I called the guy, and he explained, “Oh, miniature cows are easy to raise and easy to kill, and you can have household food for a year or take their milk.”

So half of me was sorry I asked. But then he started talking about how gentle and kind they are. And he had a beautiful cow, and his grandkids raised her, and she was so sweet. But, unfortunately, she couldn’t get pregnant and earn her keep, so she was going to slaughter.

By the time I had hung up with him, I knew that this cow was coming home to me. So I asked him, “Can I have her?” He was like, “Well, you’re going to have to pay what I would get for her.” And I was like, “Hold off on her slaughter. Give me time.”

And this was very early on at The Gentle Barn, where I really didn’t know how to raise money. So I literally put my son on my hip, my year-old son, and I went door-to-door to my neighbors. And I told them what was happening and how I wanted to save her, and asked if they would chip in. And I thought for sure they were going to slam the door in my face, but they didn’t. And they wrote checks. And I raised the money to save her.

FRN: That’s amazing.

Ellie Laks: I know. It’s crazy. And I knew she [Buddha] was special right off the bat; because that very first open-to-the-public Sunday, she immersed herself right into the center of a big crowd of people, lay down, and invited them to hug her, brush her, and pet her. And I watched with my jaw dropped.

The Evolution of Cow Hug Therapy

Ellie Laks: So then my ritual, then and still now, is every single night before I go to bed, I go out to the barnyard. I make sure all the chickens and turkeys are safely on their roosts. I tuck the pigs in with blankets. I give treats to the goats, sheep, horses, and cows. And I make sure everyone’s safe and feeling good before I go to bed.

So on this particular night, I think it was the day after that Sunday, I went out to do my barnyard check. And I said goodnight to everybody. And everybody was in the barn, all roosted and stuff. And I was walking back through the yard, back to the house. She was lying down in the yard, the last animal that I went to say goodnight to. And I was going to pat her on the head and tell her that I love her, but something made me stop. There was something about the way she shifted her body. She was like, “Sit with me.”

So I sat down at her shoulder; I leaned against her body because she’s giant and cuddly and fuzzy. And the next thing she did changed my life. She wrapped her neck around me and held me, and she didn’t let go.

And I was so astounded by her love of me, by her nurturing of me, by that gesture of kindness and connection, that I started weeping into her shoulder. It’s one of those things where you don’t know you’re stressed out, but then all of a sudden you realize how stressed out you are.

And so those nightly hugs became a must, and she would help me wash away the day. She would help me have strength and hope for the next day. She would help me get out of my head and my to-do list and be more centered and grounded.

And early on in those hugs, I remember thinking, “I have got to find a way to give the world these hugs.” So part of the original design was that we would rescue animals and then partner with them when they’re ready to heal hurting people.

So I opened the phone book, and I started calling probation camps, drug and alcohol rehab centers, domestic violence shelters, foster agencies, homeless shelters, war veteran centers, and said, “Look, I know that you have people who are hurting. I know that some of those people are not responding to traditional therapy. Bring them to me.” And they did.

And we would always start with Buddha by putting their faces down on her side and closing their eyes and just breathing in and out and feeling her energy — and she would crack them wide open.

They came cold, defensive, and hardened by life, and she melted them into little kids. And she helped them become vulnerable. And it’s only in vulnerability that you can heal. And then they would go back to their therapy sessions; and all of a sudden they’re talking, and they’re relating, and they’re healing. And during her lifetime, Buddha gave out 300,000 hugs.

She taught me everything I know. She taught me to meditate. She taught me to be grounded and centered. She taught me what these animals are capable of — the healing that they’re capable of. She showed me how to connect these hurting humans with these hurting animals, and I owe her everything.

And so she is the creator of Cow Hug Therapy, and she’s the reason why we do Cow Hug Therapy for people now.

Becoming Vegan

FRN: Wow. So our site mostly deals with plant-based eating, nutrition, and health. So I was just curious — because plant-based eating is becoming more popular and more mainstream — have you seen any change in the support of what you do or the number of visitors because people are more interested in where their food comes from, or the impact of factory farming on animals, or just plant-based eating in general?

Ellie Laks: Yes. I have a lot to say about that.

I became a vegetarian when I was 11. I met a chicken. I realized that was chicken and rice. And I was done.

Volunteers were coming to check The Gentle Barn out, and somebody said, “Are you vegan?” And I said, “No, I’m American.” And he said, “No, I mean, do you eat animals?” And I was like, “Oh, no. I went vegetarian when I was 11.” He said, “Yeah, but what about dairy and eggs?” And I said, “Well, it doesn’t hurt anybody.” He told me the truth. I went vegan on the spot. That was 24 years ago. I’ve been vegan ever since.

I became a vegetarian when I was 11. I met a chicken. I realized that was chicken and rice. And I was done.

Ellie Laks, Founder of The Gentle Barn

But it’s funny because, in the beginning of The Gentle Barn, I didn’t really know the word vegan, which is so silly to think of now. The word vegan was not mainstream, and the word vegan was almost a dirty word. And so we grappled with how we present it. How do we talk about it? How do we make sure that we’re not threatening to people? Because The Gentle Barn is not just gentle to animals. It’s gentle to people.

So we wanted people to come in and look these animals in the eyes, hug them, hold them, cuddle with them, hear their stories of resilience, and realize that we’re just basically all the same. But we didn’t want to offend anybody. We want it to be a gentle experience. So we were like, “God, can we even say the word vegan without upsetting people?”

Now, 24 years later, vegan is mainstream. Do you even realize how many vegan options there are at Disneyland? All stores, all major chains, most fast-food restaurants… You can go anywhere. Nowadays, small town, big town, it doesn’t matter. You literally can go anywhere and say, “What’s vegan on your menu?” And the waiter will have some modicum of awareness of how to guide you. It’s incredible.

Plus, 24 years ago, when I opened The Gentle Barn, plant-based eaters were 0.5% of the population. We are now at 7%. Huge progress.

Facing Grief as an Animal Sanctuary

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FRN: Have you faced any challenges or obstacles with your rescue efforts?

Ellie Laks: Huge. Nobody does anything good unless you have a lot of challenges. So I started The Gentle Barn, like I told you, in my little half-acre backyard using my first husband’s paychecks. My first husband was not amused and soon left.

In came Jay as a volunteer, and later we fell in love and joined forces. But during those early years, moving from that half-acre to where we are now and growing into a national organization, there were a lot of financial challenges.

The other challenge for a sanctuary is dealing with the level of loss. Obviously, humans tend to have a longer lifespan than animals. So those of us who love animals tend to have to say goodbye at some point. At The Gentle Barn, with 200 animals — and over the last 24 years, we’ve rescued thousands — we have loved so many, and we have said goodbye more times than I could possibly calculate.

And so there was a time early on in The Gentle Barn when I was so brought down to the ground with my grief that I said, “I made a mistake. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough. This is going to destroy me.” And I had to figure out how to stay with it and how to survive and have me not go down with the ship.

And so I had to really examine compassion fatigue, grief, and loss. And that’s a very large part of what I talk about in my [next] book, Cow Hug Therapy, about what the animals taught me about death, how they grieve, and how life and love are eternal.

And so that process from grief to gratitude, I had to work out.

How You Can Support The Gentle Barn

FRN: I think when I first heard about you guys, you were doing a fundraiser. I am just curious: Besides the visits and the fundraising, how else can people support you?

Ellie Laks: There is so much more that goes into taking care of farm animals other than hay, water, and shelter. There’s preparing for fire season every year and having the trailers and the trucks be able to evacuate. In this changing climate, we’re much hotter than we used to be: How do we keep them cool? We’re much colder than we used to be: How do we keep them warm?

I think the first thing that I would say in answer to your question is there are so many people who love animals, but very few of us can open our own sanctuaries. We need people to partner with us. We need people to fund our endeavors and to become our partners so that we’re rescuing animals together. Because they can’t do it without us, but we can’t do it without them.

The other thing that I would invite people to do is to follow us on social media. We’re on all social media platforms: The Gentle Barn on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter/X. See these beautiful videos and stories of the animals and their recovery and what they teach us, and learn about being connected to animals. It’s beautiful.

And if you live close enough, find a Gentle Barn either in St. Louis, Nashville, or Los Angeles; and come and visit and hug a cow, hold a chicken, cuddle a turkey, and give a pig a tummy rub. And look in the eyes of these magical animals, and realize that we’re here to protect them, defend them, love them, and listen to them.

And then the last thing that I want to mention is the biggest way you can help is by adopting a plant-based diet.

Every single person who goes plant-based saves 200 animals a year. So in effect, by going vegan, they are opening a sanctuary; because they’re saving 200 animals just with their knife and fork. Modeling that for others, being part of the solution, being part of gentleness and nonviolence.

—–

Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn Foundation, a national organization that rescues and rehabilitates unwanted animals and heals people with the same stories of abuse and neglect. She invented her own “Gentle Healing” method that allows old, sick, injured, and terrified animals to fully recover. She is the creator of Cow Hug Therapy and has hosted hundreds of thousands of people who have come to The Gentle Barn seeking healing and hope.

Ellie is a powerful speaker, celebrated animal welfare advocate, humane educator, animal communicator, and the author of My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope and the upcoming Cow Hug Therapy: How the Animals at The Gentle Barn Taught Me about Life, Death, and Everything in Between.

Tell us in the comments:

• Has an animal ever taught you something about life or yourself?
• Were you aware of The Gentle Barn before reading this interview?
• What other animal sanctuaries or animal welfare organizations should we know about?

Read Next:

• Unhealthy Conditions for Farm Animals are — No Surprise — Bad for Humans, Too
• What You Eat Can Impact Climate Change! See 9 Foods That Harm the Planet and 11 Foods That Can Help Save It

The post Changing Lives Through Compassion: The Gentle Barn’s Extraordinary Mission for Animals and Humans appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Pride: reasonable self-esteem; confidence and satisfaction in oneself; self-respect

Pride is an annual celebration of not just LGBTQ+ identities but diversity, resilience, and visibility. It’s often punctuated by a monthlong series of events in major cities, including parades, street fairs, and parties. But for the LGBTQ+ community, pride hasn’t always been an easy ask.

Behind all the colorful Pride celebrations is a cry for human rights, not just gay rights. And the freedom to be able to simply exist and meet basic human needs — food, water, air, and shelter — just like everyone else.

Here at Food Revolution Network, that first need is at the core of our mission: healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all. By shining a spotlight on food disparity in the LGBTQ+ community, we hope to amplify the voices of people who have been marginalized and foster a more inclusive and equitable society for everyone.

In the US especially (although not exclusively), legislation targeting the LGBTQ+ community has recently accelerated, further threatening to halt progress and once again to criminalize many aspects of being an LGBTQ-identifying individual.

At a time when so many wish to question the very existence of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s more important than ever to remember our common struggles as human beings. We all want our basic human needs met. We all want to be treated with humanity, decency, and respect. And we all want the ability to have pride in ourselves and the communities we are a part of and represent.

In this article, we’ll take a look at disparities in food security within the LGBTQ+ community, what’s being done about it, and how you can help support greater food access during Pride Month and beyond.

The State of Food Insecurity Among the LGBTQ+ Community

Although hunger and poverty are not unique to the LGBTQ+ community, these experiences are often disproportionately found among LGBTQ-identifying individuals. Differences in income, employment, and other financial disparities may all contribute to increased occurrences of food insecurity — and so, too, may sexual orientation and gender identity.

But increasing disparities and inequality are also significantly higher in certain US states, and in countries around the world, where there is little to no legal acceptance of or antidiscrimination protections for, LGBTQ+ people. In fact, in some places, same-sex relations and non-binary gender expression are still criminalized.

Data analyzed by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law shows that LGBTQ+ adults consistently report not having enough money for food at much higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ adults. They also participate in the USDA’s SNAP program (formerly food stamps) at higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ adults. LGBTQ+ people of color, women, and adults with children are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity and SNAP reliance.

Among those surveyed in a 2016 report, the percentage of LGBTQ+ people reporting food insecurity was 27% vs 17% for non-LGBTQ+ people. However, that number may be even higher since it doesn’t count individuals experiencing homelessness (which is significantly higher in non-binary and transgender youth and adults).

Really, we’re only just beginning to understand the extent of food insecurity among LGBTQ+ individuals — at least in the US. It wasn’t until 2021 that the US Census Bureau began including gender identity and sexuality as household demographic data points.

But in Canada, results from the 2015–2018 Canadian Community Health Survey also showed a large economic disparity between non-LGBTQ and LGBTQ+ folks. While household food insecurity was around 8.5% among heterosexual people, it was a little over 13% for gay and lesbian individuals. And nearly one-quarter of bisexual individuals were food insecure in the previous 12 months.

The Organizations and Farms Helping to Address LGBTQ+ Food Insecurity

Although many individuals experiencing poverty and food insecurity can and do use food banks, food pantries, and other charitable services, it’s often a different story for the LGBTQ+ community. A 2022 analysis of food pantries in 12 US states found that over 63% were run by faith-based organizations or churches. But many LGBTQ+ people feel uncomfortable in these spaces for fear of (or experience with) discrimination or harassment, and so have to look for alternatives — often prolonging their experience with hunger.

That’s not to say that just because a food pantry has a religious affiliation, they aren’t willing to serve LGBTQ+ people. On the contrary, there are many faith-based food pantries that are open to all. But because there is uncertainty there, some hunger relief resources are starting to note which food banks, pantries, or soup kitchens will serve the LGBTQ+ community. For example, the City of New York has a list of food pantries and soup kitchens that are friendly to the LGBTQ+ community — separated by borough — with many of them being churches and synagogues.

However, as a result of this hurdle to food access, there are a number of secular nonprofits, farms, and other organizations that have also become a lifeline in the struggle for LGBTQ+ food security. The following are a few select organizations actively working to provide access to healthy food no matter someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Rock Steady Farm

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Rock Steady is a queer-run farming collective working for equitable food access and education. They train LGBTQ+ individuals in sustainable farming techniques to encourage food sovereignty. And they run a sliding-scale CSA program that provides fresh produce for people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and people living with serious illnesses like HIV/AIDS. “Solidarity Shares” in the CSA are provided at no cost to low-income individuals and families through community partnerships. And a farmers market along with prepared meals are available for the trans community in New York through Food Issues Group (FIG).

The Okra Project

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Okra is an important vegetable in Black cooking traditions and the namesake of The Okra Project, a mutual aid collective that focuses on the Black trans community. The Okra Project supports food security, safe housing and transportation, and mental health services across the United States for Black trans folks. Their Rides and Meals Fund gives Uber credits to trans men and women for transportation use or meals through Uber Eats.

Gay For Good

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With 20 chapters all around the US, Gay For Good allows LGBTQ+ individuals to come together on a local and national scale working on service projects that benefit their community and the community at large. Many of their chapters focus on food justice initiatives, including community garden creation, food delivery for those living with HIV/AIDS, local food drives, and volunteering in community kitchens and food banks to feed low-income individuals and families.

Veggie Mijas

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What started as an Instagram page for college students looking to share recipes has expanded into a collective with 11 chapters across the country. Veggie Mijas is an exclusively plant-based organization for people with marginalized identities, including women of color, trans folks of color, and gender nonconforming individuals. The organization believes in the power and protection of plants and the decolonization of the food system. Chapters host potlucks, food gardening instruction, culinary classes, and sustainability workshops. And they work to support plant-based, LGBTQ+, and people of color-run businesses in their respective communities.

Centerlink

Centerlink is an international nonprofit and the parent organization for member-based LGBT centers across the US and Canada. These centers are a lifeline, with programs and services that seek to support youth and adults in the LGBTQ+ community. In addition to providing essential food assistance, LGBT centers may also help with issues around housing, health care, or job training — addressing some of the root causes of food insecurity.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of LGBT centers opened up “pride pantries” to address mounting food insecurity for their respective local communities. Some pantries partnered with local food banks (like the Coastal Bend PRIDE Center of Corpus Christi, TX) or hosted the pantries themselves (like The Center Orlando), making food available to anyone needing assistance.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center is one of the largest LGBT centers in the world and has a senior-specific pride pantry that provides both dry goods and fresh produce for seniors on a fixed or low income. They also offer a culinary arts training program for both youth and seniors that not only teaches job skills and provides job placement, but assists in the preparation of nutritious meals for center recipients.

To find an LGBT center near you, visit the LGBT Community Center Directory.

What You Can Do to Help Fight LGBTQ+ Food Insecurity

Because the LGBTQ+ population is so diverse, there are often multilayered challenges making it difficult for people to access the resources they need.

But, by supporting initiatives that aim to address food insecurity, we can work towards creating a society where every person, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender expression, or any other aspect of personal identity, has access to safe, nutritious food.

To help eradicate hunger in the LGBTQ+ community, consider some of these options:

1. Donate money

If you have the financial means to contribute money, consider donating to one of the organizations we’ve mentioned in this article, your local LGBT center, or another farm, faith-based organization, nonprofit, or mutual aid collective that is inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community.

2. Donate food and supplies

Check with your local food bank or LGBT center-hosted pride pantry to see if they accept food donations and other household supplies. If you own a restaurant, cafe, grocery store, or farm stand, some organizations may also rescue food that would have gone to waste and redistribute it instead. San Diego’s North County LGBTQ Resource Center’s Foodies & Goodies program is one such resource.

3. Volunteer your time

If you feel moved to help out but are unable to do so financially, volunteering is another great way to contribute. Check with an individual farm, organization, or center to find out their specific needs and policies around volunteering.

4. Share this SNAP resource

One in four LGBT individuals between the ages of 18 and 44 participate in SNAP. And in 2022, the USDA expanded SNAP program access to prevent discrimination not just based on sex, but sexual orientation and gender identity. If you or someone you care about uses SNAP benefits, make sure to read or share our article on how to use SNAP benefits to buy fruit and vegetable seeds and grow your own food.

5. Be an ally

Although it may not directly contribute to fighting food insecurity, one of the simplest ways you can show up for the LGBTQ+ community is by being an ally. Educate yourself on issues like this one, be supportive, and have positive discussions with friends and family members about LGBTQ+ people. You may also consider getting involved with LGBTQ+ groups or contacting your local elected officials about championing and protecting LGBTQ+ rights.

Take Pride in Supporting Food Access for All

This June marks 53 years of Pride celebrations in the United States. As some storefronts hang rainbow flags to show support and festive Pride celebrations are held, it is crucial to acknowledge the struggle for freedom and equality still faced by the LGBTQ+ population. Pride is and has always been more than a celebration; it is a collective call to action, an opportunity to confront the complex intersections of identity and inequality that persist in our society.

Disparities in food security persist within the LGBTQ+ community, often exacerbated by discrimination, violence, homelessness, and legal barriers to equality. But despite these challenges, there is hope in the ​​struggle for freedom and equality. Many organizations, farms, and nonprofits are actively working to address LGBTQ+ food insecurity and create more equitable access to nutritious food.

By standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community in the fight against food insecurity, we can help achieve healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all, not just during Pride Month, but every month, and every day.

Tell us in the comments:

• Were you aware of the food insecurity issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community?

• What other organizations are working to address LGBTQ+ food access?

• How else can you show up for marginalized communities?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Pacha M Vector and Olga Strelnikova (with modifications)

Read Next:

• Food Insecurity Is A Problem for Almost 16 Million Americans — But See What individuals and Organizations Are Doing and What You Can Do to Take Action
• Food Inequality: How Poor Nutrition Affects Health, Wealth, & Opportunity (And What We Can Do About It!)

The post From Hunger to Hope: Addressing Food Insecurity in the LGBTQ+ Community appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

If you answered “McDonald’s,” you win the imaginary grand prize.

The point of this tidbit isn’t that McDonald’s is a wonderful organization that’s going above and beyond to provide healthy food, or that particularly cares about our planet (though potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, and apples do all have their part to play). No, the reason I bring up McDonald’s as the world’s largest purchaser of several types of produce is to highlight how utterly massive this one restaurant chain is. And by contrast, many other restaurants that try to offer much healthier and more sustainable options are struggling to stay afloat.

In this article, we’ll look at the noble efforts that some restaurants are undertaking to contribute to a healthier and more sustainable world. If you want the option of dining out without compromising your values or your health, this is what you need to know about sustainable and socially responsible restaurants.

Challenges Facing the Restaurant Industry

First, we’ll discuss some of the challenges the restaurant industry faces, and then we’ll talk about the innovations and breakthroughs that are heartening and inspiring.

Owning and running a restaurant has always been challenging. The hours are long; the competition is fierce, and, in most market segments, the profit margins are narrow. For every five new restaurants that open, four of them will have gone out of business within 5 years.

And now, restaurants are having to deal with shaky supply chains and staff shortages while needing to treat all their customers well because, in the age of social media, one bad review can spell disaster.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Restaurants

The COVID-19 pandemic has left even longtime success stories vulnerable to failure. One year into the pandemic, somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 restaurants or bars had closed, either permanently or temporarily.

This was partly due to plummeting demand, as people didn’t want to congregate indoors, especially when the death rate was high and hospitals were overflowing. But labor shortages also contributed to the demise of many restaurants. For many restaurant workers, having to enforce mask-wearing, an increased risk of disease, and hostile customers were the last straws, on top of a regular diet of arduous work, low pay, and difficult and sometimes abusive working conditions. To make things even more challenging, resignations in industries that restaurants depend on — such as agriculture, logistics, and sanitation — also took their toll.

Restaurants and Inflation

For many restaurants, inflation has made a difficult situation worse, as they’ve needed to increase pay to attract employees. And the cost of many ingredients has gone up, leading to increased menu prices or diminished portion sizes.

Restaurant workers are also suffering from inflation’s effects on necessities in their daily lives. The costs for fuel, childcare, groceries, and housing have all skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic. And to add to the problem, customers are also tipping less. According to a 2022 survey published by CreditCards.com, only about half of Gen Zers always tip following a sit-down meal. (In defense of this generation, those who do tip are more generous than previous generations, perhaps because many of them have had food service jobs and therefore have empathy for their servers.)

Why Restaurant Tipping Is Problematic

Tipping has long been a hot-button issue in the restaurant industry. Federal law in the US allows restaurants to pay their tipped workers an absurdly low minimum cash wage of $2.13 per hour, under the assumption that tips will make up the difference between that number and the legal total minimum wage of $7.25 (some state laws provide greater wage protection for tipped workers). When they don’t, the employer is legally required to make up the difference. But in practice, some restaurants shirk this responsibility.

Beyond the simple economics, tipping is problematic in other ways. It creates a scenario where servers are pressured to put up with often rude and abusive treatment by customers in order to get paid for their labor.

The commercial restaurant industry hasn’t exactly been at the forefront of racial healing either. Latino, Black, and Asian servers typically get tipped less than white ones. In upscale establishments, people of color are often relegated to back-of-house positions (line cooks and dishwashers, for example) that do not receive tips, while the white servers tend to be much better paid. And in some restaurants, servers provide inferior service to patrons of color under the assumption that their tips will be meager compared to those of white patrons.

Sexual Harassment in Restaurants

There are many jobs in our society where female workers find themselves at a disadvantage, but this is particularly egregious in the restaurant industry. Many female servers experience repeated sexual harassment on the job. The need to earn tips puts women at the mercy of customers, some of whom exploit this vulnerability in ways that are insulting and demeaning.

The advocacy group One Fair Wage introduced a report in April 2022 finding that roughly three-quarters of female servers said they experience or witness “sexual behaviors from customers that make them uncomfortable.”

Well, this has been a pretty depressing discussion so far. But there’s also some very good news. Despite all the challenges they face, some restaurants and restaurant workers are responding creatively and resourcefully and trying to be part of the solution. Their stories can give us hope, and their efforts deserve our support.

Restaurants as Environmentally & Socially Responsible Institutions

We’ve already seen huge changes and energetic innovation by restaurants reinventing themselves during the pandemic. From the advent of touchless ordering to the creation of “ghost kitchens” that prepare only take-out food, many restaurateurs seized crisis as a moment of opportunity.

Now more than ever, restaurants have the chance and incentive to think outside the box and make business decisions that will set them apart. These changes can lead to fierce customer loyalty, which can help them weather both the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and whatever other challenges are just down the road.

Restaurants Giving Back to the Community

Restaurants exist in communities. Even global chains hire community members to serve food to other community members.

Restaurants Feeding the Hungry and Homeless

One visible way to be a productive element in a community is to feed people in need who may lack the resources to pay for restaurant food. This might be by donating excess produce and other food to nearby food banks and food pantries, or mutual aid organizations, or by feeding the homeless directly.

Oakland Bloom, a nonprofit operating in Oakland, California, has pioneered programs in which chefs from refugee and immigrant backgrounds work in underutilized kitchens to provide food for mutual aid societies that serve their communities.

Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in Philadelphia started a “pay it forward” program where patrons could put a dollar in a jar to buy a slice of pizza for someone experiencing homelessness.

Acorn Community Cafe in Eugene, Oregon got its start after a couple of furloughed restaurant workers began serving free lunches in their community during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, they’re running a full service vegan cafe that is still offering free lunches to anyone who asks for the The Blue Plate Special. They’ve also partnered with Mission 86 Hunger, a local hunger relief organization, to further provide high quality, plant-based food to community members experiencing food insecurity through their Free Market Project and Community Partner Project.

In New York City, Rethink Food NYC turns restaurant food waste into ready-to-eat meals that it distributes via community partners such as soup kitchens. The founder, former chef Matt Jozwiak, noted that there are practical and financial disincentives for restaurants to donate their unsold food rather than simply toss it. Turning an unused head of cauliflower into a meal ingredient takes labor, whereas chucking it into the garbage bin doesn’t. And many restaurants fear being sued if someone gets sick from eating a meal “salvaged” from their kitchen (an unfounded concern, says Jozwiak, given that Good Samaritan laws protect restaurants from liability). But Rethink Food NYC is helping to remove these barriers.

Restaurants Hiring People from Historically Marginalized Communities

Being an immigrant or refugee, lacking an education, having an intellectual or physical disability, or having been incarcerated are all conditions that keep people out of many job markets. Restaurants can provide meaningful work to people in these situations. Emma’s Torch in Brooklyn, NY, hires refugees after providing them a 12-week culinary internship complete with English lessons.

The owners of Bitty & Beau’s Coffee Shop in Wilmington, North Carolina, have two children with Down syndrome. They opened the coffee shop in 2016 to provide employment opportunities to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Second Shot Coffee in London, England, hires people experiencing homelessness. EDWINS Restaurant in Cleveland hires the formerly incarcerated. And Homegirl Cafe in Los Angeles provides skills training and employment to former gang members looking to rehabilitate themselves.

Restaurants Hosting Community Events

Many social commentators have bemoaned the loss of community spaces in modern society. Restaurants, with their often-spacious dining areas and ability to provide food and drink, can step in and fill this gap. By hosting community events and fundraisers, they can bring people together in ways that they might not connect otherwise.

Not only is this being a good neighbor, but, according to restaurant industry marketing experts, it’s also a great strategy for increasing customer frequency and loyalty.

Vimala’s Curryblossom Café in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is one such restaurant that frequently hosts fundraisers, donates food to various events including gatherings of human rights advocates, and hosts a Global Neighborhood Day the Sunday after Thanksgiving to celebrate all the cultures coexisting in Chapel Hill.

Sustainable Restaurants

Restaurants can tweak or completely reinvent their processes in a variety of ways to become more environmentally sustainable. One easy change is to include more plant-based options on their menu. The industrialized meat and dairy industries are environmental nightmares on several fronts, including emission of greenhouse gases contributing to climate chaos, fertilizer runoff into streams and lakes causing algal blooms and marine life die-off, and their contribution to severe water shortages.

The good news for restaurants is that offering plant-based options is likely to make them more successful financially, as consumer demand for these foods is growing quickly. There are now plant-based options available at many fast-food restaurants, including some outlets of franchises like Burger King, White Castle, Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr., and even McDonald’s.

Some restaurants have taken this a step further and announced their commitment to going completely plant-based. Three of the most expensive and highly decorated restaurants in the world — Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, Gauthier Soho in London, and Eleven Madison Park in New York City — have removed all animal products from their menus. And there are signs that these trendsetters will inspire many more restaurants to make a bolder commitment to human and planetary health.

Farm to Table Restaurants & Using Local Produce

Many innovative restaurants are now buying ingredients from local farms. This serves several noble goals. First, food that has to be transported fewer miles comes with a smaller carbon footprint. Second, restaurants can support local growers, which supports the local economy and community. And third, small local farms tend to operate in more regenerative ways, using organic or integrated pest management techniques that can heal the soil rather than further degrade it.

At Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, chef and activist Alice Waters pioneered the “farm to table” approach, favoring local, organic, and sustainably harvested produce in her dishes.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Farm & Table changes its menus seasonally to reflect what’s growing in its environs and is transitioning its property into a permaculture farm.

Restaurants Reducing Plastic Waste

As a rule, restaurants are notoriously wasteful. If you’ve ever ordered takeout, you may have been appalled by the mounds of single-use plastic and other non-compostable material that contained and accompanied your meal — plastic containers, plastic straws and cutlery, styrofoam clamshells, foil wrappers, and so on.

Some restaurants are acting to change that, even going so far as to encourage customers to bring their own reusable containers, and cutting down on single-use plastic by replacing it with more compostable or recyclable material.

The fast-casual chain Dig has created a program whereby its frequent take-out customers are issued a reusable melamine bowl with a fitting plastic lid. For $3 a month, customers can just bring back their dirties when they return to the restaurant for their next meal.

Some restaurants, such as casual chain Just Salad, actually reward patrons who bring their own containers with discounts and other special deals.

Zero Waste Restaurants

The mountain of plastic waste is the most visible of the restaurant industry’s wasteful practices. Another that’s less obvious is the tremendous waste of food. Some of the food is wasted on customers’ plates in the form of meals not fully consumed. But a surprising share of all food purchased by restaurants never leaves the kitchen and just gets thrown out unsold.

Rhodora, a restaurant and wine bar in Brooklyn, New York, doesn’t own a trash can. Everything that comes in goes out, either in patrons’ stomachs, in a recycling bin, or as compost.

Frea, in Berlin, Germany, houses a composting machine that can turn uneaten food into compost in 24 hours. They’ve even gone so far as to purchase lampshades made of mycelium (fungus) fibers rather than synthetic materials.

Chicago’s Monteverde restaurant composts in a closed loop, thanks to composting partner City Farm, which picks up their food waste, turns it into rich soil, and grows produce that it sells back to the restaurant.

And some restaurants are avoiding food waste in the first place. The Gadarene Swine in Los Angeles upcycles things like carrot tops for garnishes, tomato drippings for salad dressing, and veggie trimmings into dirty rice dishes.

Restaurants Powered by Renewable Energy

One meaningful way restaurants can contribute to climate healing is by reducing their use of fossil fuels for energy. The Original Oyster House, located in rural Mobile, Alabama, erected a 55-foot wind turbine to offset their energy costs and provide fossil-fuel-free lighting for their seating area and children’s playground.

The “Get Lit Stay Lit” initiative in New Orleans seeks to turn each of the city’s roughly 3,000 restaurants into a small solar power and battery array. This will reduce their use of electricity from the grid, as well as create local resilience in a region often left without power by unpredictable storms.

Not every restaurant can install a wind turbine or solar panels, of course. But there are ways to pay for cleaner energy that’s produced offsite. Denver’s Root Down restaurant has decided to pay a premium ($1.90 per kilowatt hour) for sustainable wind-derived energy, as opposed to $1.00 per kilowatt hour for conventional energy produced by the local power grid.

Restaurants That Take Care of Their Employees

Restaurants can also provide safe and fair working conditions for their employees. We’ve seen that the industry has a troubling track record when it comes to workers’ physical and psychological safety, particularly women and people of color. Clearly, the restaurant industry must do more to protect all of its workers in both the front and the back of their establishments.

Fortunately, many eateries are now dropping the toxic “customer is always right” credo in order to prioritize protecting the wait staff from abuse from the public. Many restaurants are also now training and empowering their managers on how to spot and redirect harassment, and elevating more women and people of color to management and other higher-status positions.

Chef Erin Wade of the Homeroom restaurant in Oakland, California, has created a robust system to shut down inappropriate customer behavior before it escalates to harassment or other forms of abuse. Her system, called Not on the Menu, involves training the staff to report and proactively intervene using a color-coded continuum of behaviors.

Restaurants Compensating Employees Fairly

The decline in business during the early days of the pandemic led to lower tips, making it even harder for restaurant workers to make a living. But it turns out that well-paid and happy workers actually provide greater returns to restaurant owners. When Bell’s bistro in Los Alamos, California, raised the average worker’s wages to $27/hour and started adding perks like health care and paid time off, they found their profits increasing rather than being shaved. In fact, at a time when other establishments were shuttering, Bell’s doubled its revenue in 2021.

Restaurants can also replace the problematic system of tipping with guaranteed wages. Many restaurants, such as Bell’s, simply add a 20% service charge to each bill.

Another outcome of the shift in power from employer to employees has been a resurgence of collective bargaining. More and more restaurant workers are finding their voices, organizing, and demanding changes to protect all employees from exploitation.

Serving Healthier Food at Restaurants

Restaurants have traditionally been places where taste trumps nutrition. In a fiercely competitive environment, those establishments with the most hyper-palatable food typically win. And the recipe they’ve followed to produce that food has typically added copious quantities of sugar, fat (in the form of animal products and bottled oils), and salt to their dishes.

Many chefs fear that if they changed their menus to offer less meat and more vegetables, customer satisfaction would decrease. But a fascinating 2017 study engaged in “menu engineering” at three restaurants, decreasing meat portions and doubling vegetable portions for a random selection of patrons who were unaware of the manipulation of their plates. The researchers found no difference in satisfaction between the control group and the “more veggies and less meat” group, suggesting that restaurants can indeed provide healthier meals without risking customer dissatisfaction.

Restaurants Increasing Food Security & Longevity with Healthy Food Options

And now, increasingly, restaurants are leading the charge to provide healthier options — meals that taste great while also supporting the health of their patrons. (One would think that a good strategy for repeat business would be to keep your customers alive.)

Organizations like Blue Zones have started certifying restaurants that offer healthy dishes in three adjacent beach towns south of Los Angeles.

It’s exciting to see more restaurants offering healthier menus — specifically plant-based options and foods associated with longevity — especially in low-income areas and so-called “food deserts” where healthy food can be hard to come by.

One innovative example is Everytable, a California-based company that sells healthy fare via take-out storefronts located in food deserts and underserved communities, as well as the affluent communities where you might expect to find a high-end salad restaurant. Their twist is variable pricing: the same meal that might cost $8 in a leafy suburb is priced at $5 in a low-income neighborhood.

Organic Restaurants

Restaurants can also support the growing movement toward organic food and away from bioengineered (BE, also known as GMO) food. Given that roughly half the US population has doubts about the long-term safety of BE food, restaurants who embrace non-BE standards can expect public support, and may even gain a competitive advantage for their brand.

Since organic foods are typically more expensive than their “conventional” counterparts, few margin-conscious restaurants have embraced an organic standard for their fare. Exceptions can be found in upscale restaurants located in cities like Portland, Austin, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York, among others.

But even if a restaurant can’t make the economic case for switching to an all-organic menu, it can still start to source some organic ingredients and offer some fully organic ingredients or menu items. Fast-casual restaurant chain Sharky’s Woodfired Mexican Grill uses organic beans, rice, greens, and other produce in many of its dishes, thus giving patrons a choice and the ability to vote with their wallets for the quality of food they desire.

What You Can Do

As communal gathering places, restaurants are uniquely positioned to be forces for good for people and communities. Many restaurants are already at the forefront of change, implementing practices that contribute to healthy, ethical, and sustainable food for all.

Many more are likely to follow, especially if customers, employees, and the community demand it. You can help restaurants to become more socially conscious in several ways.

First, vote with your dollars. Patronize those restaurants that are taking steps that align with your values. Second, ask for what you want. Talk to local restaurant owners and managers about your concerns. Ask about plant-based options (they may even decide to offer a plant-based menu). Let them know you would pay for healthier and more sustainable menu options. If you have the means, tip generously, or offer to pay for a meal for an unhoused person (the “pay it forward” program at Rosa’s Pizza in Philadelphia started when a patron asked if they could buy a slice for someone who couldn’t afford it).

Finally, you can get involved in a deeper way by educating yourself and supporting organizations that support restaurant employees like Unite Here!, One Fair Wage, or ROCUnited.

Of course, if you want to save money and be sure about every ingredient that goes into your food, you can prepare and enjoy food at home. For many reasons, you might prefer not to frequent restaurants at all. But if you do, it’s good to know that increasingly there are establishments that offer healthier and more sustainable options than places like McDonald’s.

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you ever worked in food service? What was it like?

• Have you seen more nutritious menu offerings at restaurants in recent years?

• What restaurants in your area are doing good in the world? Give them a shout-out here.

Featured Image: iStock.com/Petmal

Read Next:

• Healthy Dining at Restaurants: A Guide to Eating Well When Dining Out
• How to Use Food Scraps to Reduce Kitchen Waste

The post Can Restaurants Be Sources of Good for People & the Planet? appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

At 43 and 45 years old, husband and wife farmers Angie and Wenceslaus Provost, Jr., hope they live to see age 70.

They don’t fear terminal illness or a farm accident that could consign them to an early grave.

Instead, they fear stress could do them in. Years of trying to protect family land from encroaching banks and government agencies have worn on them, despite their love of farming.

After years of mounting debt with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a bank, the New Iberia, Louisiana sugar cane farmers filed a September 2018 lawsuit against a USDA-approved lender. The suit alleges that Wenceslaus, known as “June,” was all but run out of the profession in 2015 after the bank reduced his crop loans over successive years, effectively underfunding his farm operation. June also claims that the lender regularly dispersed his funds well past planting season, which hampered his ability to compete against other, mostly white, cane farmers in the region. Angie has had a separate and ongoing civil rights claim open against the USDA since 2017.

Both Angie and June have been hospitalized with symptoms of a nervous breakdown. They endure fatigue, racing hearts, insomnia brought on by nagging fear they could lose everything: their homes, their cane fields, their tractors, even their lives. They have sometimes feared the stress might literally kill them. In 2008, June, a fourth-generation sugar cane farmer, was in his second season of farming alone when his father died of a heart attack after helping him chop soil to plant fresh cane. June’s father had fallen behind because his crop loans were delayed by his banking institution; both June and Angie feel the situation had become bad enough to put his health at risk.

“We’re very aware of the fact that the early death of our family members like June’s father and some of our other community members is due to that stress of being bankrupt and foreclosed on after going through such litigation like Pigford,”  Angie said, referring to the class action lawsuits filed by Black Farmers against USDA for discrimination and failure to investigate civil rights complaints. “Those are issues of trauma. It’s a difficult thing, an almost impossible thing to live through, unless you have a support system.”

Owing the USDA more than $1 million, June at one point questioned his desire to live. “At my worst, I contemplated suicide,” he said. “I felt there was no one I could turn to.” The future seemed to be certain death by a thousand bureaucratic hurdles, racism, stress, and overwork.

Issues Faced by Black Farmers

In some ways, the Provosts’ story is familiar to anyone working in agriculture. All farmers and ranchers know the standard hardships of their profession — from the high costs of doing business to being at the mercy of uncontrollable forces. The financial risks are high, and crop prices are always in flux. A devastatingly adept predator might make off with some prized livestock. Pests may gorge their way through rows of promising crops. The physical work is hard on the body; the pesticides are too. And while weather is always unpredictable, climate change’s unseasonable droughts, flooding, storms, and freezes add to the strain. Those problems make farming one of the most stressful occupations in the country.

But Black farmers have to contend with an additional menace: the systemic racism that has long marred US agriculture. These producers face down all the typical hardships while also navigating other hazards, including legal battles with the government, discriminatory lenders, opportunistic land grabbers. These painful interactions tend to underscore the racist — and tragically long-standing — myth that Black people don’t belong in farming, and don’t deserve the tools required to succeed.

“So many Black farmers — June’s father, his uncles, my aunts and uncles, our community members, our kin — have the same story: sitting there in a USDA office waiting to be serviced, and never being serviced properly; being told by local agents that you will not succeed,” said Angie. “‘You will fail.’ ‘You are not a farmer.’ Those types of things are told to you directly.”

These grinding forms of discrimination take a deeply personal toll, contributing to a mental health crisis among Black farmers that’s at once acute and yet hard to see. Help is not exactly on the way. While programs do exist to help farmers handle the stress of the profession, many existing lifelines are geared toward the approximately 95% of US farmers who are white, downplaying or outright ignoring the specific forms of distress that stem from race-based prejudice. Though a small but vital body of research points to the need for a more inclusive approach, and at least one advocacy group is working to better understand the scope of the problem, few efforts are being made to address the problem on the ground. For now, too many farmers still have nowhere to turn, their suffering largely rendered invisible within the support systems that exist.

“It’s that psychological impact that I’ve seen happen to many Black farmers,” Angie said. “You have to understand it’s a repeated pattern. It tears you apart mentally and physically.”

The Research Gap

In 2021, the USDA announced $25 million to state Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Networks (FRSAN) to build crisis hotlines, establish anti-suicide trainings, and offer free or low-cost counseling, among other services. It was an important step toward recognizing the emotionally grueling, often isolating nature of farm work. But it did little to respond to the needs of Black farmers, who tend to operate smaller farms, face increased economic pressure, and are routinely exposed to racism in agriculture and beyond. Of the 50 FRSAN projects USDA funded in 2021, only seven programs — in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Rhode Island — pledge to make efforts to accommodate the specific needs of communities of color.

It’s yet another indication that the bulk of US research on farming and mental or behavioral health and stress focuses on white farmers. And while that may partly be a function of demographics — Black farmers make up 1% of growers nationwide, a stat that itself testifies to the exclusionary force of systemic racism in agriculture — important research or diagnostic tools fail to be race-sensitive. Without these mechanisms, it’s difficult to provide informed treatment that responds to the specific needs of Black farmers and could improve their physical and mental well-being.

The Farm/Ranch Stress Inventory, created by psychology doctoral student Charles K. Welke in 2002, is a tool that assesses stress, satisfaction and perceived social support among farmers and ranchers. It asks dozens of questions to assess a farmer’s anxiety level and is sometimes adapted for studies of farmer well-being. But its questions focus mostly on financial and family matters; while it inquires about conflict with relatives or community, no question mentions race or racism specifically. In another example, a 2021 Farm Bureau-commissioned study of 2,000 rural Americans found that farmers and farm workers were significantly more likely to have said their stress increased in the last year than their non-farming neighbors. But the insurance and lobbying giant told The Counter that it did not analyze its data by race.

Laketa Smith manages the Farmers of Color Network of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA). In collaboration with N.C. State University, she and North Carolina-based RAFI are conducting an ongoing study of farmer mental health and financial stress. Unlike many other studies, that research is intentionally oversampling farmers of color. Though the study won’t conclude until later this year, it will interview 15 Black and Indigenous farmers, respectively, in addition to the same number of white growers (a future iteration will include Latinx subjects).

While final results aren’t in, Smith said that there’s no indication that suicide is higher among either group. Still, preliminary results suggest that chronic stress is a feature of life for many Black farmers, and that stress can manifest in a variety of ways, from family conflict or separation to substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and ill physical health.

“Pride is the flip side of shame, and [when money problems happen and land loss is possible], there’s a lot of shame over being in that position,” Smith said. “Farming is often not [simply] what they do. It’s who they are. They’re fourth or fifth generation. And sometimes they think ‘This land’s been in the family for years, and I got us in trouble.’”

Racism as Risk Factor

It’s a realm of lived experience that’s also established science: Being subjected to racism is unhealthy. Even encountering the more subtle, daily varieties can be stressful — and, over time, that stress can impact mental and physical health outcomes in concrete ways. A 2013 article in The Atlantic summarized the current state of the medical literature, which draws links between discrimination and increased rates of hypertension, the common cold, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and even general mortality. One study of 30,000 participants found that racism-induced stress is directly related to poorer physical and mental health. It’s a phenomenon that social psychologist Nancy Krieger calls “embodied inequality” — and these damaging linkages have only become better established in recent years.

“The perception of racism, that feeling can have an impact on psychological well-being,” said Telisa Spikes, a cardiovascular researcher at Emory University who has conducted studies on the impacts of financial and racial stressors on African American health. “Your body responds by going into fight or flight mode — blood pressure goes up, heart rate goes up. When you’re constantly in this hypervigilant state it can have a negative impact on health.”

Spikes describes hypervigilance as a heightened response to prior racial trauma that leads African Americans to anticipate negative or discriminatory experiences when they are in predominantly white spaces.

“You have this stigmatized status as a Black person where you feel you always have to be constantly on watch,” she said.

Epidemiologist Camara Jones has long made the case that racism is a public health crisis. Notably, she has called on fellow researchers to prioritize data collection by race, urging them to focus their attention on the root causes of racial differences in health outcomes.

“When we collect data by race, our findings most often reveal significant race-associated differences in health outcomes,” Jones wrote in a 2001 article published in the Journal of American Epidemiology. “The differences are so ubiquitous across organ systems, over the life span, and over time that they do not surprise us or seem to require explanation. Indeed, only when there is a white excess in disease burden, as with suicide, is our professional interest piqued.”

More recently, researchers have continued to probe the role that racism plays in lowering Black Americans’ life expectancy. A 2020 Auburn University study concluded that stress caused by experiencing racism accelerates aging at the cellular level; while a study published by Georgia State University in 2019 found that experienced over time, racism and long-term anxiety could “wear and tear down body systems,” weighting the body’s allostatic load — the lifelong build-up of stress — and putting African Americans at greater risk for chronic illness.

Combine US agriculture’s institutionalized racism with the profession’s inherent volatility, and there’s an argument that Black farmers are at heightened risk for all manner of stress-related ailments.

“Health cannot be separated from the social environment. Many of the disparities that we see are a result of the social environment. And going back to clinical research, you cannot address problems without highlighting the racial demographic and the role that social determinants play in contributing to these disparities,” Spikes said. “Racism is now listed as a fundamental cause of disparities. It may not be experienced in the form of interpersonal racism — I’m going to charge you a higher price because of the color of your skin — but it’s more of the institutional and systemic racism. The trickle-down policies that derive from that is what has negative implications for health: not being able to afford housing in a good school district if you have children; not being able to get a loan for a mortgage,” said Spikes.

Those risk factors are only magnified and exacerbated within the context of farming, where discriminatory individuals, processes, and systems can continually threaten one’s livelihood and land. Combine US agriculture’s institutionalized racism with the profession’s inherent volatility, and there’s an argument that Black farmers are at heightened risk for all manner of stress-related ailments.

Black Farmers & Stress-Related Ailments

It happened to Lucious Abrams. The 68-year-old Georgia farmer was denied compensation as a claimant to 1997’s Pigford v. Glickman racial discrimination class action lawsuit against the US government. He has filed numerous legal measures since then to delay foreclosure, and rents his farmland to neighbors to keep the taxes paid. After three decades wrangling with USDA, his body became a vessel of agony and apprehension.

“I had kidney failure. I had a blood vessel burst up in my colon. My wife had a nervous breakdown. There’s no way to tell you the trauma that we have been through over the years. Through God’s grace and his mercy… that’s the only way I know how [we’ve survived],” said Abrams. “It’s been an absolute nightmare.”

Kentucky State University economist and rural sociologist Marcus Bernard worked with farmers in Alabama’s Black Belt region as the former director of a rural training and research center for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a nonprofit association of about 20,000 mostly Black farmers and landowners. While completing his PhD at the University of Kentucky, Bernard examined how racism, institutional racism, and class conflict affected Black male farmers. His research identified high levels of acute stress in both African American men and women farmers, typically wives of the male subjects he interviewed.

USDA vs Black Farmers

The long and well-documented history of Black mistreatment at the hands of the USDA, its partners, and agricultural colleagues also produces well-founded anxieties that bias will put more roadblocks in Black farmers’ way.

For decades, USDA and associated lenders withheld critical loans from Black farmers on the basis of race — only one factor among many that gave white farmers an unfair advantage, and a shorter path to profit.

“When you think about a picture of whites farming [and] then think about a picture of Blacks in agriculture, those are two very different experiences,” said Bernard. “The picture with Blacks in agriculture is marred by stigma and labels: a feeling like ‘Someone is always out to get me.’ Like ‘I’m not going to get a fair shake.’ Either ‘I’m going to get shorted on my price,’ ‘Somebody is after my land,’ or ‘I may not get the financing that I need.’”

For decades, USDA and associated lenders withheld critical loans from Black farmers on the basis of race — only one factor among many that gave white farmers an unfair advantage, and a shorter path to profit. Today, countless hurdles remain, from fierce, hyperlocal cronyism that excludes these farmers, to price manipulation that drives down their profits and earnings, and excessive collateral required to secure loans that put them at risk of losing everything if they fall into debt — a shameful legacy that is literally written across Black farmers’ bodies.

Gaining Land & Respect for Black Farmers

For 26-year-old farmer Tamarya Sims, the anxiety lies not in the fear of dispossession — but in the fear that she may never own land at all. Sims is a landless Black farmer in Asheville, North Carolina. By day, she works for a land trust, managing chickens and bees on a community farm. She runs her own business, Soulfull Simone Farm, on the side. The urban flower and herbal farm takes up less than half an acre of rented land.

Sims, who experiences anxiety related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hopes to one day own 60 acres of forested land she envisions as a “healing space” where she can grow herbs and plants, and visitors of color can attend workshops and feel welcome. She describes the distress she deals with as threefold.

“There’s the stress of being a farmer, then there’s the stress of being a Black farmer, and then of being a landless farmer,” she said. Added to the anxiety she feels, these stressors can make it difficult for her to focus, sapping her energy and ability to solve problems that may arise on the farm.

As a Black female agriculturalist in an overwhelmingly white area, Sims has experienced strong feelings of alienation. When she spoke out in the wake of George Floyd’s death, she became instantly and uncomfortably recognizable in her community.

“There’s the stress of being a farmer, then there’s the stress of being a Black farmer, and then of being a landless farmer.”

Tamarya Sims

But invisibility, rather than hypervisibility, has been the norm for her. When white visitors stop by the community farm, they often pass her wordlessly, seeking out the first white face they can find as an authority. When she was shopping for her own tractor, she brought a white male associate with her to the dealership, for fear she wouldn’t be taken seriously or get a fair deal. The sales agent spoke exclusively to the white man and refused to look her in the eye, she said. Knowing she must enlist the same tactic in her search to acquire land is upsetting and tiresome.

“One of the main recurring things I’ve went through is being on land and folks seeing me and thinking that I don’t belong just because I’m Black. Even at my job, I’ve had people slowing down in their cars to see what I’m doing.” If they come onto the land, they ignore her just as the tractor salesperson did. “There’s nowhere I can go where people see me and think I belong, or where I feel safe.”

This feeling has been a primary motivator in Sim’s desire to carve out her own piece of land where she can enjoy the restorative benefits of nature that all farmers love: the joy and relief that comes from digging in the dirt, watching a tiny seed shoot out roots long before its verdant foliage begins to show.

“I work through a lot of my life issues in the garden, and I think that everyone should have the opportunity to do that… When you connect people with land, they see the mountains behind them, and they feel comfortable,” she said. It’s a feeling of ease she continues to chase and an irony many Black farmers experience: that working the land can relieve stress, while also exacerbating it.

Community as Coping

Former cattle farmer Michael Rosmann is a psychologist who has worked with farmers and institutions for more than 30 years to raise awareness about the importance of behavioral health in agricultural communities. His work with the nonprofit Agriwellness Inc., a partnership initiative between seven Prairie states facilitated by the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health, informed the framework of USDA’s Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network.

“The traits that define successful farmers are a capacity to endure extreme hardship, the capacity to work alone, if necessary, self-reliance for making decisions, and keeping things to oneself. These traits cut across all races and cultures,” said Rosmann.

However, these characteristics can have a downside: a reticence to divulge thoughts and emotions to behavioral health professionals or scholars who could document farmers’ individual or collective mental health needs. To combat this, Rosmann emphasizes a need for counselors and therapists who have a shared understanding of not only agriculture, but the complex racial and cultural histories these farmers hold.

In practice, that’s not always easy. Rural communities, where most farms are, often lack the medical resources and services offered in major cities. At the same time, only about 3% of US psychologists are Black. For farmers, these factors — the disparity in health care services and the lack of representation among health care professionals — mix with other forms of inequity to create barriers to relief from occupational stress.

In the absence of doctors they can trust and enough rural mental health providers, many Black farmers like Abrams lean on religion to lessen their mental anguish.

“There is still within this community of older Black farmers, deeply spiritual, deeply rooted ties to their churches. Their spiritual life is what I believe is the No. 1 thing that keeps them sane and grounded,” Kentucky State’s Bernard said.

He speculated that faith may offset suicide risk among Black farmers. But because Black farmers are not often studied or written about outside the bounds of their racial experiences, there’s little to no information about the prevalence of suicide and self-harm among them.

Tapping into Social Networks for Support

That most Black farmers turn to social networks for support bears out an aspect of Farm Bureau research: in general, farmers are far more likely to tap their friends and family for help than seek a doctor’s advice.

Kaleb “KJ” Hill, 35, is a fourth-generation farmer from New Orleans and the founder of Oko Vue Produce Co., an agricultural business that specializes in edible landscapes and stormwater management.

He looks inside and outside his community for assistance.

“A lot of [farmers] are not very vocal with what they’re going through. They’ll speak in a lot of cliches, like ‘You know, it’s just part of the job.’ But the way I live my life, I share if I’m seeking additional support,” Hill said.

Though he doesn’t presume to recommend mental health services to his peers, “we usually talk to each other,” he said.

“That’s important,” he went on. “I won’t say it’s like traditional group therapy or anything that’s facilitated by a professional. It’s just us sitting around in a circle or gathering at the end of the season, and having a little dinner together with some of the things we have left over and just talking about how that was a rough year. It’s an ongoing conversation. You’re venting like ‘Man, that was frustrating, this insect ate up everything. What did you do about it?’ That’s a therapeutic session in itself.”

Still, traditional talk therapy keeps him “in touch with reality and it’s helped me grow as a man. …Sometimes you have these emotions that you don’t necessarily have a word for and that professional does,” he added.

The Provosts also sought help to alleviate their feelings of despair. Both now speak with a therapist regularly. They say it’s had a marked effect on their ability to cope with the day-to-day stress incurred by attempts to preserve their livelihood. But the fight is long from over. What was once an almost 5,000-acre family sugarcane operation — June’s family owned about 300 of those acres and rented the remainder — is now a mere 36 acres, split between June and one of his brothers. Angie’s civil rights claim remains open, and Congress’s effort at debt cancellation, which would have offered them a much-needed reprieve, remains stalled.

Additional reporting contributed by Cynthia Greenlee.

Tell us in the comments:

• Are you or someone you know involved in agriculture?
• Were you aware of the challenges faced by Black farmers?
• What other unique challenges could Black farmers face that might have been overlooked?

Featured Image: Jaye Elizabeth Elijah

Read Next:

• Increasing Health & Opportunity for All: An Interview with Terry Mason, MD
• Food Inequality: How Poor Nutrition Affects Health, Wealth, & Opportunity (And What We Can Do About It!)
• By Reconnecting With Soil, We Heal People — and the Planet

The post An Overlooked Public Health Crisis Among Black Farmers appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

That cornfield was a cornfield last year, and the year before, and it will be a cornfield next year, and into the foreseeable future. It’s a monoculture because corn holds a monopoly on that field — no other crops allowed. Because monocultures typically exist at large scale, and can accommodate both conventional and organic farming, the vast majority of the agricultural yield in industrialized countries comes from monocultures.

The question is, why? It’s obvious that nature doesn’t monocrop. You’ll never see an area untouched by humans that is completely dominated by a single species of plant. Nature abhors not just a vacuum, but sameness. Biodiversity is the signature of a natural system.

To understand the reasons behind the global shift to monocultures, and why the agricultural sector has embraced it so wholeheartedly, we have to look at the Green Revolution of the 1960s, and the hopes of the scientists, policy makers, and farmers who were struggling with the twin scourges of poverty and starvation.

How Did Monocropping Come About?

Monocropping was a cornerstone of a series of initiatives intended to address hunger throughout the world by increasing agricultural production. The plan was to develop a wide array of effective pesticides and herbicides, create and teach farmers to use new synthetic fertilizers, breed new and improved “high-yield varieties” (HYVs) of calorically dense crops, and mechanize farm equipment.

The thing that was going to make all of these innovations work was a shift in how agricultural land was used. Traditionally, subsistence farmers and smallholders planted a variety of crops, from grains to pulses to nuts to vegetables to fruits to herbs. But the new technologies and systems of mass production were only going to work, the thinking went, at a large scale.

The big machines were expensive and were designed to handle a specific crop. You don’t harvest wheat with the same equipment you use to harvest soybeans. Each crop required a custom application of biocides and fertilizers, as well. In order to get the most out of these technological advances, farming had to change from the workshop model to the factory model.

To replace biodiverse gardens and farms with industrial-sized agriculture, vast swaths of arable land were converted into single-crop use. That way, the farmers could use their new equipment and synthetic chemicals on new HYVs that were bred to tolerate the toxins and make the most of the fertilizers.

As a result, farms around the world increased in size, on average doubling the number of acres under cultivation, in order to produce more food with less labor. With a single farmer able to produce more food, the number of farmers and farm laborers decreased, as human inputs were replaced by machines and by chemicals, often delivered from the air. Over time, more and more farms relied solely on these high-yielding crops, in the form of monocropping, to increase yields and profits.

This logic led to vigorous efforts to bioengineer HYVs to produce heartier, faster-growing, and more resilient crops that define monoculture, rather than relying on trial and error or “natural” breeding.

Now, let’s look at some of the monoculture advantages and disadvantages for farmers.

Economic Advantages of Monocropping for Farmers

At first, farmers thought they were on to a good thing. They could now produce more food, and opted to cultivate the one crop that had the greatest profit potential for their soil and climate.

Another monocropping benefit to farmers was the perceived simplicity that saved them time and money, at least in the short-term. Focusing solely on a single crop meant the costs for seeds, equipment, fertilizer, and so on, remained relatively consistent over time, and farmers didn’t have to keep looking for new suppliers.

GMOs and Monocropping

As bioengineered (BE) crops (formerly known as GMOs), such as Roundup Ready corn, soybeans, and sugar beets hit the market, the pairing process got even simpler. The farmer had a standing order of glyphosate (one of the active ingredients in Bayer’s — formerly Monsanto’s — weed killer Roundup) that accompanied every purchase of BE seeds.

Harvesting also got much simpler, as a single machine designed specifically for corn, wheat, or beets could do the work of hundreds of human laborers.

The Emergence of Factory Farms

And last, but certainly not least among the perceived benefits of monocultures, monocrops became inextricably interlinked with a massive expansion in factory farming (or what the industry calls Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs). Today, much of the world’s corn and soy are fed to livestock, not to humans. And CAFO-raised cows, pigs, and chickens represent an almost limitless market for these crops.

The overall result of monocropping, for the first couple of decades, appeared to be mostly positive — at least in terms of the goals of bringing the world more and cheaper calories and increasing the economic security of the farmers who provided it. But all those perceived savings came with hidden costs that added up over time.

Monocultures (and the Green Revolution in general) were promoted to increase the global food supply. While that’s happened, there have been several attendant negative consequences. (I’d say “unforeseen consequences” but I’m not sure that’s true. It didn’t take psychic powers to imagine the effects of a dietary pattern made up largely from factory farmed animal products and processed corn, soy, wheat, and palm oil replacing traditional diets.)

Economic Disadvantages of Monocropping for Farmers

The fundamental issue with monocropping is the “all the eggs in one basket” problem. Crop failure is an inevitable part of farming. For myriad reasons that farmers can’t control (most of them falling under the categories of weather, pests, and disease), not all plants thrive and produce a bountiful and profitable harvest every single year.

In a biodiverse ecosystem, a threat to one crop may not be a threat to others. An infestation of stem borers can destroy summer squash but may leave eggplant untouched. An unexpected hail may crush corn and not bother beets.

But when fields contain just one crop, from genetically identical stock, every single plant is equally vulnerable to threat. A pest population can jump easily from one plant to another, especially when there are no other species of plants in between and when crops are planted close together for efficiency.

Monocropping Through History

To see the devastating results when a monocrop comes under threat, check out the history of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, in which a single genetic variant of potatoes was wiped out by a water mold. The Irish people’s dependence on that variant for the majority of their calories meant that over a million people starved to death (an eighth of the entire Irish population), and millions more left the country as refugees.

The history books offer at least one more example of the dangers of relying on monocrops. The world’s most popular banana up until the 1950s was a variant known as Gros Michel. You can’t find a single one anymore, as the world’s supply was knocked out by a fungus that caused Panama disease, which led to banana wilt.

In response, banana producers turned to a less tasty variety, the Cavendish, which is the fruit we know today. Unfortunately, the banana industry didn’t learn its lesson, as the Cavendish comprises 99% of the world’s banana production, and is now under attack from a new variant of Panama disease called TR4. Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, predicted in an NPR interview that the Cavendish could become extinct in the next 10–30 years.

A Trap for Farmers

Monoculture farming can become a trap for the farmers, who often have no choice but to keep purchasing the same seeds and biocides from their agribusiness vendors. Since the seed and agrochemical market was consolidated through mergers and acquisitions into just four main global players, these firms can exert monopolistic power over the farmers who depend on them for seeds and chemical inputs.

The result is increased costs and eroded profit margins for farmers. For example, the price of corn seed rose from under $27 per planted acre of seed to over $90 from 1990 to 2019, far outstripping the rate of inflation. And because monocrop corn farmers have invested so heavily in machinery and infrastructure for growing and harvesting corn, they can’t easily exercise free choice and move to another crop or growing model.

The consolidation of seed and supply companies into just a few global companies isn’t the end of the “bigger is better” story. Farms themselves are growing larger, by buying up competitors’ land or squeezing family farmers out of business. Bigger farms that buy at large scale are rewarded with favorable pricing, which makes it much harder for smaller farms to compete fairly in the marketplace.

Many farmers are forced to buy Bayer seeds and pesticides even if they don’t want to. When neighboring farms spray so much of the weed killer dicamba that the air turns hazy, those toxic clouds can waft for two to three miles, killing any soybean plants that aren’t bioengineered with dicamba-resistant genes — which is to say, any soybeans not made by Bayer.

Government Subsidies and Monocultures

Not coincidentally, crops produced in a monoculture system are often the same ones that are subsidized by the government (at taxpayer expense, of course). Subsidization is generally delivered in the form of insurance for farmers, guaranteeing that they can sell their crop above a certain price, no matter how low the actual market value for that crop falls. The primary subsidized crops in the US are corn, soy, wheat, and rice.

One out of every five dollars earned by US farmers comes directly from government payouts. These subsidies now buffer farmers not just from the threat of a bad harvest or market crash, but from any marketplace fluctuation. Without subsidies, it would be economic insanity to grow just one or two crops. If the price of corn dropped sufficiently, a farm that relied entirely or mostly on corn for its income could get completely wiped out in a single season.

Finally, subsidies tend to favor large farms, as government payouts often disproportionately go to the biggest producers.

Monoculture’s Impacts on the Food Supply & Food Insecurity

At a large scale, monocropping means that poor countries must compete with wealthy ones, in the open market, for a slice of the same global food supply. While traditionally a poor country might be able to grow its own food more cheaply, since wages were also lower, now the entire world bids for commodity crops, which places lower-income nations at a disadvantage.

Because the Green Revolution, in general, and monocropping, in particular, prioritizes efficiency over resilience, there’s very little slack in the system when anything goes wrong. And in agriculture, things often do go wrong. Shocks and uncertainties are part of the web of life, which is why nature builds redundancy and diversity into its design.

When humans decimate that diversity through monocropping, any event that leads to a diminished harvest has ripple effects, such as increasing food prices and bringing about greater food insecurity.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Monocropping

We’ve seen this play out during the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank, a long-time supporter of industrialized agriculture at scale, has admitted that even before the pandemic, monocropped agriculture was collapsing. Here’s a remarkable sentence from an article on the World Bank’s website: “Even before COVID-19 reduced incomes and disrupted supply chains, chronic and acute hunger were on the rise due to various factors, including conflict, socio-economic conditions, natural hazards, climate change and pests.”

As the pandemic unfolded, the article continues, these already scarce resources became even more expensive, with the Agricultural Commodity Price Index increasing 25% from January 2021 to January 2022. Again, the global economically poor were getting priced out of access to food grown on their own lands, which replaced the diverse and healthful horticulture and subsistence practices that had fed their families for generations.

For example, monocropping has displaced regional staples, such as millet, sorghum, and cassava, all culturally and nutritionally important sources of calories throughout much of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and South America. These foods have been part of traditional healthy diets for hundreds of years, and their displacement threatens global crop diversity.

Monoculture’s Impacts on Human Health

Human health also suffers when factory-farmed animal products and processed grains and oils replace traditional whole foods in our diets. Monocultures of corn and palm oil can produce more calories — but far less nutrition — per acre than many other crops. In a world of cheap calories from fractionated foods, malnutrition now refers as much to micronutrient deficiencies as to starvation.

A 2021 research paper on the effects of monocropping on the health of the economically poor highlights the scope of the problem in its first sentence: “Approximately 2 billion people globally are affected by micronutrient deficiencies; much of which is attributed to consuming a monotonous diet of nutrient-deficient staple crops.”

Researchers have also documented a relationship between the decrease in dietary diversity and a reduction in the diversity of the human microbiome, with accompanying health challenges. And once a particular strain of beneficial microbes goes extinct in a population, there’s a risk that it will never return.

Monocropping also makes it harder for farmworkers to lead lives of dignity, freedom, and security. As pests become resistant to pesticides, and weeds gain resistance to herbicides, agricultural chemical manufacturers have engaged in an arms race, increasing both the quantity and toxicity of chemical applications. While there’s some debate about how much exposure to these agents harms consumers, there’s no doubt that farmworker exposure to biocides is extremely hazardous.

Monoculture’s Impact on Children

Children of mothers who work in pesticide-contaminated fields experience more neurological issues, cognitive impairment, and autism. Girls who grow up exposed to pesticides are at greater risk of infertility and breast cancer.

And throughout the world, children involved in monocropped agriculture, such as on oil palm plantations, are being exploited. Globally, millions of children and adults are essentially enslaved by their agricultural employers.

Environmental Impacts of Monocropping

Humans aren’t the only species being harmed by monocropping. The practice is making the planet more susceptible to the ravages of climate change by eroding the land’s ability to retain soil and water.

A 2020 study published in the prestigious journal Nature reported that land used for agriculture or tree farms, which comprises 40% of all the non-ice-covered land on the planet, “… is less able to withstand fires, pests, and extreme weather events.” And since monocropping farmers lack the agility to shift their planting strategies in the face of climate change, they’re extremely vulnerable to these effects.

Pest and Weed Resistance

As we’ve seen, monocropping and pesticide use go hand in hand. But insects and weeds are rapidly developing resistance to the most widely used pesticides, which creates a vicious cycle — when bioengineered, pesticide-resistant crops fail, agribusiness has doubled down on the strategy by unleashing an “arms war” of increased and more diverse pesticide deployment.

This creates two additional problems. First, since the costs of losing the battle to a pest or pathogen can mean economic disaster for growers and consumers, there’s little appetite to risk alternative approaches to pest management that don’t involve all-out chemical warfare. Second, climate change means that new pests can now thrive in areas where they until recently had never been seen.

Effect on Pollinators

I’m sorry to say this, but it gets worse. According to a 2019 report by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), monocropping, and the pesticide use that accompanies it, now threatens not just plant diversity, but pollinator diversity as well. According to the FAO, over one million species of plants and animals are endangered, including many insect pollinators without whose hard work we would be in real trouble. Of the 20 fastest growing crops in the world, 16 require pollination from insects or other animals. And the danger is not evenly distributed — the most affected countries are the emerging and developing nations in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Disrupts Water Supply

Monocropping also compromises our precious water supply. Fertilizers add nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates to our drinking water, as well as to other bodies of water. Nutrients leach out of our food supply and into water — which not only don’t benefit the ecology of rivers, lakes, and ponds but can harm them by creating the conditions for algal blooms that starve aquatic creatures of oxygen.

And impoverished monocropped soil is less able to absorb rainwater, leading to more flooding and more dependency on irrigation.

Decreased Soil Biodiversity

Fertilizers, pesticides, and factory farm waste also harm the ability of soil to sustain life. Monocrops keep adding the same things and depleting the same things, leading to less biodiverse, resilient, and mineral-rich soil (and more dependence on external inputs such as chemical fertilizers).

Monocropping reduces organic matter in soil and can cause significant erosion. This decreases the diversity and abundance of bacterial communities in soil, which in turn undermines plant health and ultimately the health of the humans who eat the plants.

Sustainable Alternatives to Monocultures

As scary and sad as all this is, there’s some good news that’s also part of the story — we know how to grow food in ways that heal rather than harm the earth and ourselves.

Regenerative Agriculture

What’s known as regenerative agriculture, and millennia-old, indigenous growing ways, prioritize practices that mimic natural ecological processes and promote biodiversity. Shifting to regenerative agricultural processes is also one of the most powerful levers at our disposal to combat human-caused global climate chaos.

Regenerative farming focuses on the health of the soil as a top priority. Unlike monocropping, which sacrifices long-term soil health for the short-term production of marketable crops (did none of these scientists or policy makers encounter the story of “the Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg” as a child?), responsible land stewards treat the soil as their primary asset, which produces wealth in the form of food year after year.

Regenerative practices have been shown to enhance soil health, increase soil-based carbon stores (which is good for the climate as well as the plants growing in that soil), improve the physical structure of the soil so that it can hold more carbon, water, and oxygen, and boost soil biodiversity.

Intercrops, Cover Crops, and Polyculture

Other examples of sustainable growing include intercropping — planting more than one crop in a field — and polycultures, which means planting multiple crops together that all help each other grow better.

A well-known example of such a polyculture is the “3 Sisters” of South and Central America: corn, beans, and squash. Planted together, all three do much better than any one on its own. The squash puts out big leaves that outcompete weeds, but only after the corn and beans have grown taller than the squash leaves. The corn provides a frame upon which the beans can climb. And the beans, like all legumes, fix nitrogen in the soil for the other two sisters. The result is healthier plants and higher yields without the need for so many (or any) chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

Another technique, planting cover crops on part of the land to serve as “green manure” for other crops, adds nutrients and reduces the need to import fertility from outside the farm.

Integrated Pest Management

A sophisticated method of dealing with insects that eat crops, integrated pest management (IMP) also mimics nature, which doesn’t try to eliminate species entirely but keeps them in check through predation. Rather than killing life and reducing biodiversity, IMP takes the opposite approach, nurturing the presence of organisms that prey on the critters that prey on the crops.

Agroforestry

Nature, of course, doesn’t grow food in rows, but produces its bounty in meadows, orchards, glens, jungles, and forests. All these ecosystems are characterized by robust biodiversity that’s expressed in vertical layers, with roots, ground cover, shrubs, bushes, short trees, and tall trees all sharing the sun, soil, and rain to their collective benefit. Agroforestry is an approach to growing crops that mimics the design and function of a grove, with crops and trees interplanted.

While there is always more to learn, and there are many new breakthroughs to be had, this isn’t entirely new science. Indigenous farmers have been refining these techniques for millennia, to protect their crops from extreme weather events, maximize the resources that can be harvested from a single location (legumes and lettuce and lumber, oh my!), increase soil fertility, and store carbon.

Indigenous farmers also save and treasure many varieties of each crop, which increases the odds that any disease that attacks a particular strain won’t be able to destroy the entire crop. And the genetic variability also provides nutritional and usage variability, so the community can get far more from its arable land than a single crop would provide. This approach truly provides the farmers with land for life, rather than cash crops for a few seasons.

What Can You Do as a Consumer?

Given the urgency of our collective generational challenge — to produce food sustainably and ethically so that all may be fed — what can each of us do to participate in the shift from industrial monocropping to regenerative agriculture?

At a personal level, we can start by directing our hard-earned money towards foods that align with our values.

1. Eliminate Factory Farmed Meat and Dairy

A strategy with a particularly big impact is to steer clear of industrially produced animal products such as meat and dairy. That’s because much of the monocropped and bioengineered corn and soy grown around the world goes to feed livestock.

2. Cut Down on Processed Foods

You can also say no to monocropping by reducing your purchases of processed foods, especially those made with palm oil, non-organic corn, and soy by-products. This isn’t as simple as looking for “corn” or “soy” on a food label: corn by-products can hide behind words like maltodextrin, sorbitol, and fructose (here’s a primer on avoiding these substances in packaged foods), while soy can be found in mono- and diglycerides and monosodium glutamate, among many other sources.

3. Buy Sustainable and Ethically Sourced Food

If that’s what not to buy, what shopping strategies encourage more environmentally friendly and regenerative methods of growing food? As much as possible, buy a diversity of locally grown, non-BE, fair trade, and organic produce. The good news is, most of the world’s farms are still small and family-run, and typically don’t grow crops in monocultures. Smaller-scale farms are more likely to practice composting and other sustainable methods that reduce soil erosion and in some cases, even sequester carbon into the ground.

4. Shop Local and Small

To really increase your odds of supporting an environmentally responsible farm, frequent your local farmers market, support a nearby farm stand, or join a CSA (community supported agriculture) collective. It’s a great way to connect with small-scale folks who are more likely to practice crop rotation, companion planting, and other sustainable techniques. You can ask them how they grow their food and learn about what they are doing, too. A lot of thoughtful farmers love to be seen for, and to brag about, the good things they do. And by spending money within your local economy, you help your community become more abundant.

5. Go Organic

Buying organic can be another way to steer clear of monocrops, as organic farming methods are typically not compatible with monocropping. While some large-scale organic operations may adopt aspects of monocropping for certain crops, this is more often the exception than the rule.

The majority of organic farms are practicing polyculture and crop rotation, prioritizing soil health, and using cover crops. And by definition, they also can’t use most conventional pesticides or bioengineering, so overall their farming practices tend to be better for people and the environment.

6. Grow Your Own Food

You can also lead by example by growing some of your own food. It’s a great way to reduce or eliminate your reliance on industrial agriculture in all its problematic forms. You’ll also buffer yourself from future disruptions in the world’s food supply such as we saw during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you have a lawn, you’re actually tending your own tiny monoculture of grass. You can show your neighbors (and yourself) what’s possible by turning that lawn into something more diverse and useful. You can grow food, or you might also plant a pollinator garden, grow food for birds, or sequester carbon by planting small trees. All of these options can improve the health of the soil and give a hand to your local wildlife.

Say No to Monocropping

Monocropping is an unsustainable farming system that has serious negative impacts on farmers, farmworkers, society, and the environment. What began as a proposed solution to world hunger turned into a race for ever-higher yields and short-term profits.

For humans and the environment to thrive, we need to shift to farming methods that are sustainable and even regenerative, putting more back into the soil than we extract.

And all of us can play an important part by not buying food produced using monocropping methods on large-scale industrial farms — instead supporting local, small-scale, and organically produced food.

Tell us in the comments:

• What’s one change you can make to support regenerative agriculture?
• Do you support farmers’ markets, CSAs, or local family farms?
• Do you grow any food?

Feature Image: iStock.com/FrostRoomHead

Read Next:

• Seed Saving: Every Seed Has a Story
• What Are GMOs or Bioengineered Foods? And Are They Safe?

The post Monocropping: A Disastrous Agricultural System appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Before you get too excited, I want to make it clear that I’m referring to the phenomenon of sexual reproduction. That’s the incredibly cool process that creates variety, diversity, and new life.

Humans have understood this process for a long time. I’m not just referring to making more human babies, but engaging in selective breeding of plants, as well. Cross-pollination, hybridization, and replanting of specimens with a particularly desirable trait (sweeter fruit, more resistant to frost, etc.) have led to us consuming a diet that is almost entirely different from that of our Paleolithic ancestors.

While humans have made our mark on the flora of the planet, until about 30 years ago we did so according to certain rules. The main one being, we bred individuals of the same species together. When we broke that rule (say, in crossing horses and donkeys to create mules), the new organism was typically unable to reproduce.

We didn’t engineer romances across plant species because, well, we couldn’t (you might call this limitation the “Tevye Principle,” after the protagonist in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, who pondered, “… a bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?”).

With the advent of genetic modification (also known as genetic engineering) technology, however, not only can fish date birds, they can also make babies with tomatoes. If this seems like a questionable idea to you, you’re not alone. But while many people have been raising questions about the short- and long-term safety of this technology, agribusiness has created and disseminated GMO products at what, from an evolutionary perspective, is nothing short of lightning speed.

Genetically Modified Food Examples

GMOs have been around since the 1990s. You might even remember when they were first introduced in the US in 1994, with the debut of the Flavr Savr tomato. It had been genetically engineered to slow its ripening process, delaying softening and rotting, increasing its shelf life, and maintaining its aesthetic appeal. The Flavr Savr wasn’t a hit with wary consumers, however, and wound up leaving the marketplace within just a few years.

But GMOs have come a long way since their rocky beginnings. Today, the vast majority of corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, and sugar beets grown in the US, and many grown around the globe, are genetically engineered. These GMO crops are not meant to increase flavor or nutrition. Instead, they’ve been engineered mainly for one or both of two traits: pesticide production, and herbicide resistance.

Controversy Around GMOs

From the start, GMOs have been viewed with skepticism by consumers and many scientists. Concerns about their safety to consumers, as well as their impact on small-scale family farmers and the environment, abound. But despite the concern, the development of GMO foods continues to progress. As of 2015, genetically engineered crops were being grown in 28 countries and on 444 million acres. That translates to over 10% of the world’s arable land. The leading producers of GMO crops are the United States, Brazil, and Argentina.

Biotech companies claim that GMOs are safe and that they will help feed the world, increase nutrition, produce better yields, save water, and reduce the need for pesticides. Those are some pretty enticing promises, especially given the state of the planet right now. But what’s the reality around GMOs? How can you identify GMO foods? What foods currently have GMO varieties? And how can you avoid them if you choose to?

What Is a GMO?

The term “GMO” — short for genetically modified organism — is often used interchangeably with “genetically engineered” or “bioengineered” when describing a food made using these ingredients. The US Food and Drug Administration defines a GMO as an organism (usually a plant or animal) produced through genetic modification. Typically this means inserting the genes of another species into a plant or animal. For instance, taking genetic material from a fish and adding it to a tomato to make it more cold-hardy (yes, that’s really been done), or inserting genetic material from a microbe into corn to make it resistant to herbicides.

The US definition of a GMO is as follows: “Those that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) techniques and for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature.” That’s a mouthful, and I challenge you to sing it to the melody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General.”

GMOs vs Hybrids

More simply put, genetic modification happens naturally, all the time, without interference from humans. And humans have also used practices like hybridization and selective breeding to nurture certain traits, like making a sweeter peach or a bigger squash, for hundreds if not thousands of years. Carrots weren’t even orange until the 1700s, tomatoes used to be marble-sized, and corn was once basically inedible unless you had titanium teeth.

But now we have a new practice of creating GMOs, in which lab scientists splice genes, often across the species barrier, to create what might even be considered new life forms. Unlike mules, these new bioengineered life forms breed in perpetuity. So if anything goes wrong, we can’t put the “gene”(ie) back in the bottle.

Bioengineered vs GMO

Officially, as of January 1, 2022, the term for this in the US became bioengineering (BE for short) — and for the sake of simplicity, we’ll also be using that term throughout this article. Although to be frank, it’s hard to see the shift to calling GMOs by this new name, bioengineered, as anything but a calculated ploy to undermine the efforts to see these foods clearly labeled.

What Are the Concerns Around BE foods?

There are two main arguments against genetically modified food: potential health effects from consuming bioengineered foods, and potentially detrimental environmental impacts.

There’s currently no hard evidence of harmful effects in either domain, though it’s hard to know with certainty, because very little effort goes into looking for harm. As the saying goes, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” In other words, just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Nobody knows with certainty, because these are relatively new technologies, and there are no long-term studies. Bioengineered foods may be safe — and in fact, the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the World Health Organization all tell us that they probably are.

But many people express concerns about the potential risks. Some controversial studies link BE crops to toxic and allergic reactions in people; to sickness, sterility, and fatalities in livestock; and to damage to organs studied in lab animals.

Are Bioengineered Foods Safe?

So is the jury still out? Some would say it absolutely is, and we have a lot more to learn. Others would argue that it’s no longer an issue, that the case is closed, and that BE foods pose no inherent risk to the consumer.

Whether or not BE foods are safe in and of themselves, there’s another huge piece of this puzzle. With BE foods, we don’t just have to worry about what’s in the crops. We also have to worry about what’s on them.

Genetically Modified Herbicide-Resistant Plants

Most bioengineered foods on the market today are engineered for one reason: to withstand herbicide use. This means that farmers can use more and stronger herbicides to kill the weeds that compete with their crops without causing obvious damage to the plants themselves.

The most widely used herbicide in the world is Bayer’s (formerly Monsanto’s) Roundup, their trade name for a chemical whose primary active compound is glyphosate. When Bayer bought Monsanto in 2016 for $57 billion, Roundup was one of the most valuable assets they acquired. The company had come up with a fairly ingenious business model in which it genetically engineered seeds that were resistant to its famed herbicide.

Before the invention of genetically engineered Roundup Ready seeds, no one ever consumed a plant that had been sprayed with an herbicide, because to do so would have killed the plant. But now, thanks to genetic engineering, for the first time in history, an herbicide, Roundup, was being sprayed directly on food crops destined for human consumption. This created a historically unprecedented reality: The vast majority of us began consuming weed killer on a daily basis.

As Roundup became widely used on herbicide-resistant crops, Monsanto (now Bayer) came up with another discovery. They could spray Roundup on cereal crops that were not bioengineered, too — as a desiccant to dry the crop out and speed up the harvesting process. Never one to pass up an opportunity to make more money, the company promoted this idea enthusiastically to wheat, oat, and other cereal grain farmers. Now many non-organic grains may be sprayed with pesticides like Roundup, too.

Monsanto-Bayer’s Misleading ‘Studies’

Monsanto-Bayer and other biotech companies have stated these chemicals are safe. But most of the studies they use for validation are conducted by the company itself, using whatever methodology they deem desirable. And what’s more, they are known to have paid scientists to uphold their claims, giving rise to the elegant portmanteau “biostitute,” defined as “a biologist who lies for money.” In fact, in 2015 it was discovered that Monsanto had paid a scientist at Stanford University to allow their PR department to ghostwrite a Forbes magazine editorial under his name, arguing against the WHO’s decision to classify glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. If you’re in the skeptic camp, thinking, “Why would they have to bribe a scientist to lie if the truth were what they wanted us to believe,” I’m right there with you.

Monsanto-Bayer, it seems, has repeatedly crossed major ethical and potentially even legal lines in order to keep its product’s reputation from being undermined.

Bloomberg reports that the company “was its own ghostwriter for some safety reviews,” and an EPA official reportedly helped Monsanto “kill” another agency’s cancer study.

An investigation in Le Monde detailed Monsanto’s effort “to destroy the United Nations’ cancer agency by any means possible” to save glyphosate.

Reporter, Food Revolution Summit speaker, and former Reuters senior correspondent, Carey Gillam writes:

“Monsanto and its chemical industry allies have spent decades actively working to confuse and deceive consumers, farmers, regulators, and lawmakers about the risks associated with glyphosate-based herbicides. As they’ve suppressed the risks, they’ve trumpeted the rewards and pushed use of this weed killer to historically high levels.

The evidence that has come to light from Monsanto’s own internal documents, combined with data and documents from regulatory agencies, could not be more clear: It is time for public officials across the globe to act to protect public health and not corporate profits.”

What the Science Says About the Safety of Herbicides like Roundup

Pesticides are a class of products that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides — all of which are biocides (meaning that they kill life). Insecticides target insects. Herbicides target plants. And fungicides target fungus.

Herbicide-resistant crops are genetically engineered to be resistant to certain herbicides which, not surprisingly, are manufactured by the very same companies doing the genetic engineering. While this may be a great business move for the companies involved, it presents a number of concerns for human health, the environment, and farmers themselves.

Health Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops

Glyphosate

Independent research has found that glyphosate-tolerant plants accumulate glyphosate residues at unexpectedly high levels. And these residues are passed on to consumers when we eat them.

In 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, putting the weed killer in the same category as arsenic, asbestos, and infection with Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus, one of the most virulent known herpesviruses. And recently, the state of California listed Roundup as being carcinogenic.

Subsequently, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto-Bayer by people alleging that their cancers resulted from exposure to Roundup. There have now been more than 100,000 such cases filed against the company by farmers, gardeners, groundskeepers, and more. In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion in an attempt to settle these suits, but more are being filed almost every day. Bayer may have thought it was making a brilliant move when it bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018. But the value of Bayer fell by nearly $100 billion after the acquisition, perhaps entirely due to the legal exposures it acquired when it made this purchase.

Even when ingested below “safe” regulatory levels, glyphosate may still have concerning effects on health. For instance, it’s been observed to disrupt hormones and alter metabolic processes in the human body, as well as promote tumor formation.

And glyphosate is increasingly widespread. In 1987, only 11 million pounds of Roundup were used in the United States, but today nearly 300 million pounds of Roundup are applied each year.

In 2018, the Environmental Working Group released results of a report finding elevated levels of glyphosate in 31 out of 45 breakfast cereal samples tested. The contaminated samples included Cheerios, Quaker Oats, and other breakfast foods, and the quantities of Roundup could increase cancer risk for children.

Dr. Jennifer Lowry, head of the Council on Environmental Health for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said she was “shocked […] We don’t know a lot about the effects of glyphosate on children, and essentially we’re just throwing it at them.”

Glyphosate Could Affect the Liver

Glyphosate might also impair the function of the liver. A 2017 animal study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that with exposure to low, environmentally relevant doses of glyphosate-based herbicides, rats experienced signs of enhanced liver injury as well as notable biochemical changes. The rats actually developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and liver dysfunction as a result of chronic ultra-low dose exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides. (Our view on the use of animals in medical research is here.)

Glyphosate’s Impact on the Microbiome

There’s also some evidence that glyphosate consumption may impact the gut microbiome, or the balance of bacteria that live in your digestive tract, too. It turns out that glyphosate has been patented as an antibiotic by Monsanto-Bayer. And increasing numbers of scientists believe that this chemical may disrupt and kill beneficial bacteria in your gut, leading to impaired immune function and a cascade of other ill effects.

Other Herbicide-Resistant Crops

In addition to being engineered to be resistant to Roundup / glyphosate, many BE crops have also been engineered to be resistant to other herbicides. But these herbicides have serious problems, too.

Glufosinate: The use of Glufosinate in agriculture was banned in the EU as of July 2018, because of great concern around the risk of neurotoxicity and reproductive damage. However glufosinate-resistant corn, soy, rapeseed, and cotton are still being grown in the US and many other countries (and sprayed, not surprisingly, with glufosinate).

2,4-D: 2,4-D is one of the two primary compounds (along with 2,4,5-T) found in Agent Orange — the infamous chemical that was responsible for an estimated 400,000 deaths during the Vietnam war. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has named the weed killer a possible human carcinogen. Studies have also linked 2,4-D to endocrine disruption and disturbing estrogen, androgen, and thyroid hormones.

Dicamba: This pesticide poses an elevated risk for liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer. The EPA actually canceled registration of three dicamba-containing pesticide products because they “have the potential to cause unreasonable adverse effects to human health.”

Environmental Effects of GM Foods

In addition to health concerns, the frequent and widespread use of herbicides that goes hand in hand with bioengineering also poses some alarming environmental risks.

For instance, glyphosate and other pesticides have been detected in soil, crop products, animals that feed on crop products, humans, fresh water, and the organisms that live there. So pretty much every part of the planet and ecosystem is now awash in these compounds whose sole function is to kill life. The release of glyphosate and other herbicides can be toxic and even lethal to fish, animals, pollinators, and a vast array of other life-forms.

And now that the spraying of nearly 300 million pounds of glyphosate are occurs on US crops each year (almost a pound for every person in the country), we have a new problem on our hands: herbicide-resistant “superweeds.” And these weeds aren’t just resistant to Roundup. This trend also occurs with Glufosinate, dicamba, and 2,4-D resistant weeds.

Not to be outdone by a bunch of pesky weeds, Bayer engineered crops that are resistant to five different herbicides all at once. So now farmers mix and match different herbicides — spraying more and more on our fields.

But all this herbicide use doesn’t just impact the targeted weeds. It winds up on the crops that are being grown, and it can also drift to other farms, whereupon the pesticides carried on the wind can damage any crops that are not engineered to withstand them. They can also impact genetic diversity and threaten the balance of life in the entire ecosystem.

Impact of BE Crops on Farmers

Bioengineered crops can have a major impact on small family farms. Traditionally, many farmers have saved their seeds every year, for planting the following year. But they aren’t allowed to save bioengineered seeds, because doing so amounts to “patent infringement.” Small farmers risk getting stuck in cycles of dependency, adopting practices like buying new seeds every year instead of saving their own, and buying herbicides that just happen to be made by the same companies that sell the seeds (ahem, Bayer).

The allure of being able to swiftly wipe out weeds from an airplane is real, and it can save farmers real money when compared to other weed control methods. But once hooked, the need for herbicides and herbicide-resistant crops to deal with weeds grows like any addiction — over time, farmers need to buy and apply more and more weed killers as herbicide-resistant superweeds develop. While it might be hard on some farmers, this business model is lining the pockets of major agribusiness corporations, who are also gaining an alarming degree of control over the world’s food supply. It’s a great business model for these companies and for mega monocrop farms, but it has painfully negative effects on self-reliance and local family farms.

Farmer Suicides

It’s also concerning for farmers who are already struggling for a number of other reasons, including the impacts of climate change, increasing debt, and plummeting prices. While it’s not often discussed, suicide rates for farmers have increased by 40% in the last two decades, thanks largely to these kinds of factors. In fact, farmers are now among the most likely to die by suicide, compared to other occupations. A 2017 paper discusses how the increased role of biotechnology has led to an increase in suicide among Indian farmers, citing the monopolization of genetically engineered seeds, centering on patent control, application of terminator technology, marketing strategy, and higher production costs.

Pesticide Exposure of Farmers & Families

Plus, pesticide exposure from pesticide-tolerant BE crops is also impacting farmers, farmworkers, and their families. As even low dose exposure to these chemicals can be harmful, especially to children, a constant daily exposure could have serious health effects and long-term health outcomes.

Other Types of BE Crops

Now that we’ve talked about pesticide-tolerant BE crops, what about the other varieties? These are the foods you’re more likely to see in the produce section.

Some of these have the potential to actually save farmer livelihoods. For instance, SunUp, also known as Rainbow, papayas were created to combat the papaya ringspot virus, which nearly wiped out papayas in Hawaii altogether. There aren’t known health dangers with these papayas, though as with other BE crops, there also hasn’t been any long-term study done.

Additionally, food storage can be more efficient with certain types of BE crops. For example, BE squashes seem to have greater resistance to chilling and oxidation than other forms of squash. BE technology also suppresses ethylene biosynthesis in Pinkglow pineapples to prevent early flowering and improve shelf life. This may promote more uniform growth and development of the pineapple plant to aid fruit production, harvest, and quality.

Are BE Crops More Nutritious?

In general, BE crops have similar nutritional profiles to non-BE crops — with a few exceptions.

In tests Monsanto conducted soon after the release of Roundup Ready soybeans, BE soy contained 29% less of the brain nutrient choline, and 27% more trypsin inhibitor, a potential allergen that interferes with protein digestion, than normal soybeans. Soy products are often prescribed and consumed for their phytoestrogen content, but according to the company’s tests, the genetically altered soybeans had lower levels of phenylalanine, an essential amino acid that affects levels of phytoestrogens. And levels of lectins, which are frequently allergens, were found to be nearly double in the modified variety.

What might be happen from consuming soybeans containing higher levels of trypsin inhibitor and lectins? At the very least, slower growth in children. And possibly, unexpected and even dangerous allergic reactions.

So far, it appears that, in general, BE foods aren’t more allergenic than their conventional counterparts, and no compelling data exist that consumption of BE proteins causes an allergy to a particular food in individuals who don’t already have an allergy to that food. A 2011 study concluded that there was no enhanced risk of food allergy from the proteins found in BE papayas. But Monsanto-Bayer and the other companies who have brought us genetically engineered food are notorious for hiding data from the public, particularly data that finds problems with the products that their business depends on selling as widely as possible.

How Can You Avoid GMOs?

Organically grown foods are, by definition, non-BE and grown without the use of glyphosate. In addition, certified organic livestock farmers can’t give their animals BE feed. So if you want to avoid BE foods and glyphosate, choosing organic is more important than ever.

(Find out more about the difference between non-GMO / non-BE and organic food labels here.)

But not everyone can afford to go organic. If that’s the case for you, it may be comforting to know that most fruits and vegetables are still not being genetically engineered or sprayed with glyphosate. Also, it can help to know which non-organic foods are likely to contain them.

List of GMO Foods

The major crops that are GMO or bioengineered are:

• Corn, much of which is fed to livestock and used for ethanol for our cars but also to make many refined foods. In 2017, 32% of all global corn production was bioengineered, most of which was field corn for animals. As for sweet corn, an estimated 10-25% grown in the US is BE.
• Soy, also often turned into animal feed, though much of it is processed and eaten by people in the form of refined foods. BE soybeans make up more than 80% of total soybean production in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, South Africa, the US, and Uruguay.
• Sugar beets, which supply about half the sugar in the US, and almost all of which are bioengineered (though cane sugar is not bioengineered).
• Rapeseed, which is used for canola oil. Most of the rapeseed grown in North America is bioengineered.
• Alfalfa, used primarily as animal feed.
• Cotton, mostly used for clothing as well as for cottonseed oil.

In addition, the BE versions of the below crops occupy a smaller share of acreage — but anyone wanting to avoid BE foods needs to be aware of them, too:

• Apples: The apple varieties most commonly bioengineered include the Arctic types of Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Fuji that come out of the US and Canada.
• Papayas: This sweet tropical fruit should be presumed to be BE when produced in the US, but BE varieties are also grown in China and Canada.
• Pineapples: Pinkglow pineapples, grown in the southern region of Costa Rica, have been bioengineered to have pink inner flesh. These are currently only available in Canada and the US, with the exception of Hawaii (because the state prohibits the importing of pineapples).
• Potatoes: Some Atlantic, Ranger Russet, Russet Burbank, and White Russet varieties available in the US and Canada are BE. Additionally, known BE brands of potatoes include Innate, New Leaf Russet, Shepody New Leaf, Hi-Lite New Leaf, Atlantic New Leaf, and Superior New Leaf.
• Salmon: Only farmed salmon, not wild-caught salmon, has the potential to be bioengineered. The AquAdvantage varieties are the main BE salmon available in the US and Canada. They are not necessarily labeled.
• Squash: Some varieties of summer squash in the US and Canada, like green zucchini, yellow straightneck, and yellow crookneck squash, are bioengineered.

GMO Food Additives

Also keep in mind that corn and soy, in particular, are used as the raw ingredients for all sorts of food additives.

These include:

• Aspartame, sodium ascorbate, and vitamin C,
• Citric acid, sodium citrate, ethanol, and natural flavorings,
• Artificial flavorings, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein,
• Lactic acid, maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, and
• Sucralose, textured vegetable protein (or TVP), and xanthan gum.

If a product isn’t certified organic or certified non-GMO or non-BE, and if it has more than a few ingredients, there’s a pretty good chance that it contains bioengineered ingredients.

Is Labeling Required for GMO or BE Foods?

In the US, a national BE labeling law went into effect on January 1, 2022. The law passed in 2016 as a federal response to state-level labeling campaigns for GMO foods.

The law mandates that foods that contain BE ingredients must disclose so with “bioengineered” on the package.

But there are some pretty big loopholes in this law. For one thing, companies that use BE ingredients also have the option to simply post a phone number that consumers can call for that information (since we all love making calls about every item we buy while in the grocery store!), or a scannable QR code (which effectively discriminates against people who don’t have access to a smartphone or fluency in the use of QR codes).

Another loophole is that the USDA sets an exemption threshold at 5% of “unintended” genetically engineered ingredients. (In the European Union, the standard is markedly lower at 0.9%.) Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says that this leaves consumers “not knowing if it’s not present or if a food company just chose not to disclose.”

You may have heard of the Non-GMO Project, which is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization offering independent product verification for GMOs. If you truly want to avoid GMO or BE foods, your safest bet is to look for foods that are certified organic, and/or that are Non-GMO Project Verified.

Are Non-GMO Foods Healthier?

A word of warning: Just because something is non-GMO does not make it healthy. It could still be loaded with processed ingredients, and grown with glyphosate and other pesticides. Heck — there are even non-GMO Cheetos. And they still aren’t an especially healthy food.

Avoid Factory Farmed Animal Products

More than 95% of BE crops become part of the feed for animals like cows, chickens, and farmed fish. So even if you’re paying attention to BE labeling and/or choosing organic when it comes to your produce, any animal products in your diet, unless they’re certified organic, are still likely to be directly linked to bioengineering.

Although BE supporters claim that research shows the ingestion of BE crops by livestock doesn’t have an effect on the health of the animals, nor is it transferred via human consumption, these studies are often seriously tainted by conflicts of interest.

For example, a 2014 study published in the Journal of Animal Science explicitly makes statements like, “…there are no detectable or reliably quantifiable traces of GE components in milk, meat, and eggs following consumption of GE feed,” yet the study got support from a Kellogg grant as well as state-funded agricultural research.

And another study, published in the journal Animal Frontiers in 2017, makes bold claims in support of GMOs in animal agriculture, including:

• GMO crops have been widely adopted by growers and are a significant source of feed for animal agriculture.
• Most GMO crops used for animal feed do not change their composition or nutritional value for animals.
• Feeding GMO crops to livestock does not result in their detection in meat, milk, or eggs.
• GMO crops help reduce greenhouse gases and use of agricultural chemicals, and increase how much money a farmer makes.
• GMO crops provide better pest protection and weed control, which increases yields and preserves more land for wildlife and biodiversity.

The kicker? The author works for Monsanto-Bayer, as evidenced by his monsanto.com email address.

More Research Is Needed on BE Feed

But the truth is that due to the differences in the anatomy and eating habits of livestock, it’s impossible to fully evaluate the safety of BE feed with a single test. More research is needed to know with confidence. But that research needs to be unbiased. And if it’s funded by the biotech companies, it probably isn’t.

And what doesn’t need more research is a simple reality: BE feed crops go hand in hand with glyphosate and other herbicides. The more livestock we raise on these crops, the more herbicides will be turning up in our rivers, streams, groundwater, air, and bodies. If you want to say “no” to glyphosate, the #1 thing you can do is to eat less (or no) grain and soy-fed animal products.

Stay Skeptical About GMOs

Way back in 1999, Rachel’s Environment and Health Weekly, published by the Environmental Research Foundation, noted:

“Neither Monsanto nor any of the other genetic engineering companies appears to be developing genetically engineered crops that might solve global food shortages. Quite the opposite. If genetically engineered crops were aimed at feeding the hungry, then Monsanto and the others would be developing seeds with certain predictable characteristics: 

• Ability to grow on substandard or marginal soils; 
• Plants able to produce more high-quality protein with increased per-acre yield, without the need for expensive machinery, chemicals, fertilizers, or water; 
• They would aim to favor small farms over larger farms; 
• The seeds would be cheap and freely available without restrictive licensing; and 
• They would be for crops that feed people, not meat animals. 

None of the genetically engineered crops now available, or in development (to the extent that these have been announced) has any of these desirable characteristics. Quite the opposite. The new genetically engineered seeds… produce crops largely intended as feed for meat animals, not to provide protein for people. The genetic engineering revolution has nothing to do with feeding the world’s hungry.”

Meanwhile, the pesticides used on herbicide-tolerant BE crops have documented and alarming negative effects on people and the planet, based on independent studies. If you choose to avoid BE crops, the best ways to do so are by buying organic, reading food labels, and minimizing or avoiding your consumption of animal products.

Tell us in the comments:

• Do you feel comfortable eating GMO or BE foods?

• Do you look for disclosures of “BE” or “genetically modified” on food labels?

• What are some ways you might minimize bioengineered foods in your diet?

Feature Image: iStock.com/WildPixel

Read Next:

The post What Are GMOs or Bioengineered Foods? And Are They Safe? appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

But if that country were the United States, you’d be severely disappointed. When it comes to health care results, the US ranks 22nd out of 78 developed countries, according to the US News 2021 Best Countries Report. Compared to 10 other high-income countries (Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, and Canada), the US is dead last in performance. Despite spending significantly more than the others, the US trails the field in access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and — most tellingly — actual health outcomes. In other words, we’re paying for the Tesla and driving out of the lot with a 1987 Yugo.

There are a lot of reasons for the US’s dreadful performance. Many of them are political, as the rancorous health care debates of the past 30 years clearly show. And the issue of health inequity and differential access to care makes everything worse, as we’ve witnessed over the last few years around racial disparities and COVID-19 health care. But there’s an underlying problem that, until addressed, means that there will never be enough money to take care of everyone properly.

And that problem is, the US health care system — isn’t.

It’s actually a disease-care system. It focuses not on preventing disease but treating it once it occurs. Even the elements we call “prevention,” like health screenings, are about detecting an already occurring disease process sooner rather than later, rather than actually preventing it. (Which, to be clear, is usually a good thing, as sometimes early detection of a problem, perhaps even before symptoms appear, can lead to more effective and less invasive treatment options.)

Unfortunately, once a problem is diagnosed, the disease-care system often focuses on managing symptoms rather than addressing root causes. We can lower blood pressure with medication without ever examining what caused hypertension in the first place. We can manage blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes with insulin and alpha-glucosidase inhibitors and never explore what is preventing their cells from absorbing glucose from the bloodstream.

Taking Your Health Back from the Disease-Care System

If you want to be healthy — truly healthy, as in as free as possible from the conditions that foster disease, rather than relying on pills and procedures as first and only resorts to manage disease — then sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands. Because as the field of lifestyle medicine has made clear in the last several decades — and healers from around the world have always known — our diets, lifestyles, and environments determine, on average, at least 80% of our health outcomes. By ignoring these inputs, the US medical system more or less dooms its consumers to suffer preventable disease, disability, and premature death, for the largest price tag of any “health care” system on the planet.

Given all that, how can you take more control over your own health and health care? How can you head off problems before they manifest clinically, in decreased function and increased pain? How can you treat illnesses at their root rather than masking symptoms while the underlying process gallops on?

Becoming Proactive Rather Than Reactive With Your Health

At Food Revolution Network, we’re all about the science of lifestyle and health. We share information about healthy diets, healthy lifestyle practices, and steps you can take to mitigate environmental toxins that could damage your health.

And we also know that stuff happens. Eating the world’s healthiest diet puts the odds in your favor, but can’t guarantee that you’re not going to experience health challenges. Similarly, exercising regularly, meditating, taking ice baths, immersing yourself in nature, and practicing gratitude and forgiveness will not stave off all illnesses.

So it’s important to be proactive with your own health, and not wait for a reactive health care system to, well, react. Diagnostics, including lab testing, is a key tool for both getting to the bottom of things and helping to prevent health problems in the first place. Trying to get the most benefit from lab tests can be a daunting task in the current system in the US. But why?

Why You Can’t Always Rely on Doctors

First, many doctors are so focused on disease symptom management, that they don’t even know what tests to order that might be useful in prevention. And even when tests are conducted, lab results aren’t always shared automatically with patients. You often have to request them, which means you have to remember to call to follow up (sometimes multiple times).

Access to your test results isn’t enough. You also have to understand what they mean. And many physicians don’t take the time to explain what the numbers mean and how different results may relate to one another — or they may not even know. Under most managed care plans, you only have a few minutes with your physician, which is rarely enough time to get all your questions answered (unless you’ve both been to auctioneer school). Unless you’re a frequent visitor with the same provider, they don’t really know you. They just know your vitals and symptoms in that appointment.

Plus, many physicians are under-informed or even misinformed about how to interpret test results. And few medical schools teach how to implement diet and lifestyle factors to address emerging conditions.

Exercising Control Over Your Own Health

The bottom line is, it’s important to take charge of your own health. If you feel like you don’t know much about your health right now, it just means that now is a great time to start learning! After all, you are your own best advocate.

You’re the one who knows better than anyone if something is off or doesn’t feel right with your body and your health. And everyone is different in how they’re affected by symptoms. Not all diseases and conditions present the same way in everyone, and only you know what your healthy “baseline” feels like.

Knowledge is power. You and your trustworthy health care provider can make better decisions for your health when you know where you stand, and have objective data to help inform your choices.

Part of being able to make the best health choices stems from knowing what you can and can’t control. You can’t do anything about your age (except lying about it, which doesn’t count) or your genetics (sorry, The Fly is science fiction, and anyway, Jeff Goldblum didn’t exactly come out on top there). On the other hand, you do have some control over your lifestyle choices. And those choices can in turn help control how certain genes are activated or shut off, which in turn affects your susceptibility to disease. So, some of the best areas to focus on for optimal health control include your sleep, nutrition, exercise, smoking, social support, mental health, and reducing inflammation.

And when it comes to diet — which we know plays a huge role in our health — sometimes emphasizing certain foods, eliminating certain foods, or favoring certain supplements, can make a world of difference.

You don’t have to figure it out all alone, either. Part of taking charge of your health is knowing who and when to ask for help. Most doctors and other healthcare providers aren’t well trained in diet, lifestyle, or disease prevention — but some of them are. And when you get the right people on your side, it can make a world of difference. (Keep reading to the end for some resources to help you do just that!)

Ordering Your Own Blood Work: Direct Access Testing

Part of taking control of your own health can include getting the diagnostic tests that are most relevant to you. If your regular doctor will prescribe them for you, and insurance will cover them — hooray! But you may also need to take the initiative yourself.

In most US states, as well as some other parts of the world, you can order your own blood work and other lab tests. This is called direct access testing (DAT), which seeks to share the physician’s power to diagnose with their patient. One of the earliest examples of DAT was the availability of over-the-counter urine glucose tests in the 1950s.

While this is a positive direction, DAT has its limitations. For example, not all labs provide an interpretation of the results. You may have a false sense of security if your results are within the “normal” or “reference” range, even though such numbers may actually be problematic for you in particular. And, on the flip side, you may panic if you see an “abnormal” result, even though it may not represent any kind of a problem.

Two recent examples of this illustrate the point: One person, whom we’ll call Darnell, eats an incredibly clean plant-based diet. Darnell went for a checkup where they drew blood for a lipid panel. When he got the results, he was shocked at his sky-high triglycerides, which looked more like those of someone whose meal staples were pepperoni pizza and cheeseburgers. It turns out that the lipid panel is a fasting test, which Darnell’s doctor neglected to mention.

Another person, whom we’ll call Florence, got back a worryingly high alkaline phosphatase number on her comprehensive metabolic panel (a test we’ll discuss below), and immediately googled what it meant. She was overwhelmed with scenarios of liver damage, bone disorders, and cancers. When she talked to a physician friend, Florence was reassured that high numbers are usually temporary, and not to worry; just take the test again in a month. Again, her own doctor didn’t communicate any of this.

Without professional insight, you could be on your own to figure out what the numbers might mean for you. (Hence the value in working with a lifestyle-competent health care provider who can help you make sense of the results, and take positive action with them.)

Who Can Use Direct Access Testing?

And DAT isn’t available everywhere. Direct access testing state laws vary from state to state. Currently, 37 states and the District of Columbia allow direct access testing in some form, either with or without restrictions.

What about other parts of the world? The United Kingdom has home blood testing available. However, as of this writing, they’re experiencing a shortage of blood test tubes, so blood testing is being limited. Canada allows DAT, but all blood test requests must be made through a licensed doctor. There are also some Canadian companies, like LifeLabs, who will come to your home to do your blood tests. Australia also has DAT.

If you use DAT, which can be a great tool, it’s still best to work with a trusted health care practitioner, so you have the context you need and an advocate to help you make sense of the results and come up with action plans.

Your Lab Work on Your Terms

If you’re located in the US and want to order some bloodwork, one great DAT resource is Yourlabwork.com, a direct access cash-based lab testing platform. All you have to do is order the tests you want online, schedule a blood draw appointment with one of their 4,000 draw stations around the country, and receive your online lab report usually within 48 hours. (If you’re nervous because of painful shots when you were a kid, good news: there have been huge advances in technology, and a well-trained phlebotomist can insert the needle so that you hardly feel it.)

A List of Lab Tests and What They Mean

You’re probably wondering what lab tests should be on your radar. The point of lab tests is to assess your current state and monitor it over time, so you can take timely and effective action to maintain or restore your health should problems emerge.

Below is a list of common lab tests that many people (including whole foods, plant-based eaters) find useful.

Blood Tests for Inflammation

Tests: Hs-CRP, ESR (Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate)

High-sensitivity CRP (hs-CRP) looks for one of the major markers of inflammation, c-reactive protein (that’s the “CRP” in the name). Researchers are discovering that inflammation is at the root cause of many diseases. If high levels of CRP are detected in the blood, this can indicate a higher risk for developing coronary artery disease or having a heart attack, for example. CRP is measured in milligrams per liter (mg/L).

Note that there is also a regular CRP inflammation test, but the hs-CRP test tends to be more sensitive to chronic inflammation and therefore may be a better investment.

The ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) test can be helpful for monitoring the progress of certain inflammatory diseases. It looks at erythrocytes, or red blood cells, and their activity in your blood when placed in a test tube. If they clump together and settle to the bottom more quickly than healthy red blood cells, this can indicate inflammation. The more they fall in one hour, the stronger the inflammatory response of your immune system. (I imagine the lab technicians sitting and watching this test like it’s a red snow globe, but I could be completely wrong.)

For more on how to fight chronic inflammation, read our article here.

Lab Tests for Diabetes

Tests: Fasting Glucose, Hemoglobin A1c

The fasting glucose test tells you what your blood sugar is when you haven’t eaten recently, for example, first thing in the morning. Normally, your blood sugar rises after eating but then falls back within its normal range within 2–3 hours if you have a healthy insulin response. But in poorly managed type 2 diabetes, or when a diabetes management plan needs a little adjusting, fasting glucose may be higher than normal. As such, this test can be used to diagnose type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.

The A1c test indicates how well-controlled your blood sugar levels have been over the past three months. When levels are abnormal, it can indicate a prediabetic or diabetic condition.

To find out about the top foods to eat, and avoid, if you want to prevent or reverse type 2 diabetes, read our article here.

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Types of Thyroid Tests

Test: TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone)

The TSH test, which is also called the thyrotropin test, is an excellent screening test for thyroid disease. It measures TSH, or thyroid-stimulating hormone, which is made in the pituitary gland in your brain and is responsible for regulating things like weight, body temperature, muscle strength, and mood. Depending on the levels of your TSH, your pituitary gland makes more or less of it to keep it in a healthy range. So when a TSH test indicates that your levels are out of this range, it can indicate that your thyroid isn’t working properly. Elevated TSH results indicate that your body is working hard trying to stimulate your thyroid gland to produce more thyroid hormones.

Blood Tests for Vitamin and Mineral Levels

Tests: Vitamin 25(OH)D3, Vitamin B12, Homocysteine, Iron, Ferritin, Zinc, Selenium, Magnesium, Omega-3/Fatty Acids

It can be helpful to know your blood levels of some key nutrients, to make sure you’re getting and absorbing enough of them. Some nutrient deficiency tests are especially recommended for plant-based eaters who may need to supplement in order to have adequate levels.

• Vitamin D: For our article on vitamin D click here.
• Vitamin B12: For our article on vitamin B12 click here.
• Homocysteine: For more on homocysteine tests and what they mean, click here.
• Iron and Ferritin: While many people are concerned about getting enough iron, some of us actually get too much. And there are different forms of iron, that impact the body in unique ways. For our article on iron, click here.
• Zinc: For our article on zinc, click here.
• Selenium: For our article on selenium, click here.
• Magnesium: For our article on magnesium, click here.
• Omega-3s: For our article on omega-3s, click here.

Blood Test for Cholesterol (Lipid Profile, Lipid Panel)

Tests: Total Cholesterol, Triglycerides, LDL (bad) Cholesterol, HDL (good) Cholesterol, Total Cholesterol/HDL Ratio, Lipid Profile

Understanding your cholesterol and other blood fats levels is important, because high levels of certain kinds of cholesterol can indicate a higher risk for heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. Health care providers often do a lipid profile at an annual wellness exam.

Total Cholesterol: Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in your cells, and total cholesterol is calculated by adding together HDL, LDL, and 20% of your triglycerides.

Triglycerides: Triglycerides are a type of fat in the blood. Any calories your body doesn’t use, eliminate, or burn off from food right away may be stored as triglycerides in your fat cells.

LDL (bad) Cholesterol: LDL stands for low-density lipoproteins. It’s sometimes called “bad” cholesterol because having too much of it promotes the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries.

HDL (good) Cholesterol: HDL stands for high-density lipoproteins. It’s often called “good” cholesterol because its role is to transport cholesterol from other parts of your body back to your liver, where it’s removed.

Total Cholesterol/HDL Ratio: This ratio can help indicate whether you’re at risk for heart disease, heart attack, or stroke. Some research suggests that a ratio of 3.5 or below is ideal for helping to prevent or reverse heart disease.

For more on cholesterol, read our article here.

Comprehensive Metabolic Panel

Tests: Serum Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, Serum Creatinine, Blood Urea Nitrogen, estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate, Carbon Dioxide, Calcium, Total Protein, Albumin, Globulin, Albumin/Globulin Ratio, Total Bilirubin, Alkaline Phosphatase, AST, ALT

What is a comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP)? CMP tests measure your liver and kidney function, as well as looking at electrolytes and protein stores in your bloodstream. They’re sometimes a part of lab work at an annual wellness exam, and are helpful to understand, particularly if you have concerns about liver or kidney health and need to monitor them.

For example, the Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) is very frequently used as it’s considered to be the best measurement of your kidney function. It’s based on a value of 100, which means that your kidneys are working at 100%. If your GFR is 65, that indicates that your kidneys are working at 65%.

As for the liver, AST and ALT are two very important liver enzymes that can help identify toxins in your liver, if you have liver disease, or if there’s liver damage. Higher than normal values of these can indicate cause for concern.

CBC (Complete Blood Count)

Tests: White Blood Cell Count, Red Blood Cell Count, Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW, Platelet Count, MPV, Neutrophils, Lymphocytes, Monocytes, Eosinophils, Basophils

A complete blood count checks for anemia or any abnormal elevation in your blood cell counts. It’s also a great way to evaluate the function of your bone marrow. This is a standard test performed at many annual wellness checkups.

The CBC values indicate how many new blood cells your body is creating, as well as the number and shape of blood cells. It can also help identify anemia, bone marrow disorders, sickle cell anemia, infections, nutrient deficiencies, side effects of taking medications, and certain cancers.

For example, having a red blood cell (RBC) count that’s lower than normal could indicate anemia. You’ll likely also have lower than normal hemoglobin (Hgb) levels, because hemoglobin is carried by red blood cells. Having low ferritin levels can also indicate iron deficiency with or without anemia, as ferritin is a blood protein that contains iron.

And if your white blood cell (WBC) count is high, this most often indicates that your body is actively fighting an infection. This is because white blood cells are disease-fighting cells.

Interpreting Your Test Results

Getting your numbers isn’t enough. You also need to interpret your test results and take action where needed. And while we’re encouraging you to take charge of your health, that doesn’t mean you need to go it alone. You’ll probably want a health care provider who can help you understand what you’re seeing, guide you to make a plan, and in certain cases prescribe further tests or treatments that you can’t access over the counter or without financial assistance from insurance.

If your current doctor isn’t willing, or knowledgeable enough, to guide your journey, what kinds of doctors might be?

If you’re in the US and looking for a plant-based doctor, PlantBasedDocs is a helpful search engine that serves as a directory for health care providers who value a food-as-medicine-first approach to care. In addition to doctors, you can use this database to find registered dietitians, nurses, and health coaches that practice with a plant-based approach. Simply plug in your zip code to view local options.

You might also want to make use of a service called Plant-Based TeleHealth, which features doctors like longtime Food Revolution Network friend and frequent Food Revolution Summit guest Michael Klaper, MD. All you have to do is register as a patient and schedule your telehealth, or virtual, appointment with one of the plant-based health care professionals. They can help you interpret your lab tests and advise you with lifestyle changes and a health care plan. They advised us on the test recommendations listed in this article, and are prepared to support interpretation and action based on the results of the tests described.

Note that Plant-Based TeleHealth is a cash-pay service, and they do not accept health insurance. However, all prices are listed on the website, and you can even read about the doctors and the US states in which they’re licensed to practice. (As of this writing, they can prescribe tests and medications in all 50 US states. They can also provide coaching, but can’t prescribe medications, internationally.)

Take Back Your Power

Knowledge can be empowering, and lab testing can give you critically important knowledge. Working with a plant-based or other lifestyle-centered health care provider can help you interpret results and get you on the path to better health, whether that’s prevention, reversal, or optimization.

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you ever asked for your own lab tests or used direct access testing?
• How confident do you feel in your ability to interpret your own lab results? Do you feel supported by your healthcare provider in answering questions?
• Do you have a story to share about your experience with diagnostic testing? Leave it below!

Feature Image: iStock.com/Shironosov

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