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

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

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

Unfortunately, it’s now been over 50 years, and cancer is still very much with us.

But cancer science has indeed made progress. Some cancers, like childhood leukemia, which had a 99% fatality rate in 1955, are largely curable these days. New drugs can add years of life to many people diagnosed with multiple myeloma. And many cancers have morphed from death sentences into manageable chronic conditions. Gene-editing technology also promises many more potential medical treatment advances in the years to come.

That’s the good news.

The less good news is that cancer is still a leading killer worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths every year (that’s nearly one-sixth of all deaths from all causes). And there’s a concerning uptick in cancer cases among people younger than 50, with the largest increases among those aged 30–39.

No matter what age it occurs, cancer can be a devastating disease physically, emotionally, and financially. And those burdens are often shared by friends and families. The financial toll can be especially disastrous if the person and their family lack the financial resources to take time off work or don’t have insurance.

Globally, the cost of cancers diagnosed between 2020–2050 is estimated to reach an almost incomprehensible $25.2 trillion. (To help wrap my head around that amount, I calculated that it would be enough money to provide $3,000 to every human being on Earth — with a trillion dollars to spare.)

Some researchers wonder, then, if the original framing of waging a “war” against cancer was a mistake. Viewing cancer as an external enemy took focus away from the value of prevention, which, in all likelihood, could have kept many cases of cancer from developing in the first place.

A lot of research over the last 50 years has pointed to the pivotal role of dietary and lifestyle choices in influencing cancer risk. In fact, one conservative estimate found that 30–40% of all cancers may be preventable with diet and lifestyle measures alone. (In case you’re keeping track, that could lead to savings of up to $10 trillion, and 120 million lives, over the next 30 years, which doesn’t sound too shabby to me.)

So what are these measures? How can you potentially prevent cancer in yourself or a loved one? In this article, we’ll look at 12 ways to reduce cancer risk.

What Can You Do to Help Prevent Cancer?

While many diet and lifestyle strategies have research behind them showing they can help prevent cancer, there are no guarantees in life. There are many different factors that may contribute to a cancer diagnosis. Everyone is biologically different. And what works for one person may not work for another.

But if you want to give yourself the best chance of preventing a cancer diagnosis, there are a few strategies that may help eliminate exposure to harmful cancer-causing chemicals and dietary compounds, along with preventing oxidative stress — a known contributor to carcinogenesis — in the body.

1. Don’t Smoke or Vape Tobacco

Tobacco smoking is the leading cause of cancer in the US and accounts for 25% of all cancer deaths globally (including the majority of lung cancers). Cigarette smoke contains numerous carcinogens, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), N-nitrosamines, aromatic amines, 1,3-butadiene, benzene, aldehydes, and ethylene oxide.

And while smokers’ risk of lung cancer can be a whopping 22 times higher than that of nonsmokers, smoking increases the risk of many other types of cancer as well. Associations also exist between smoking and skin cancer, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma, endometrial carcinoma, and breast cancer

While the long-term effects of vaping and e-cigarettes are as of yet unknown, preliminary research suggests that they may also increase cancer risk. Similarly, vaping can expose you to nasty-sounding carcinogens such as nicotine derivatives (nitrosonornicotine and nitrosamine ketone), PAHs, heavy metals, and complex organic compounds such as formaldehyde.

While quitting smoking at any age can improve your health, doing so at a young age can significantly lower cancer incidence and increase life expectancy.

2. Avoid Plastics

Plastics are another environmental toxin linked to an elevated risk of cancer. This is most clearly seen where plastic exposure is the greatest such as in occupational exposure during manufacturing.

But as industrially-produced plastics continue to grow and infiltrate our lives, it’s harder and harder to find water, food, or soil that doesn’t contain microplastics. Even more concerning is their ability to find their way into living tissue due to their tiny size. While researchers first noticed microplastics in the flesh of marine creatures, now studies show they’re increasingly prevalent in human bodies as well.

Even if you avoid seafood and don’t work in a factory that produces or uses plastic, you still risk exposure to potentially carcinogenic chemicals from plastics found in everyday items.

Plastic packaging for food products can leach harmful chemicals into that food, especially if the contents are heated or acidic (like tomato sauce). Two of the most frequently implicated plastic chemicals are BPA and phthalates.

BPA may cause metabolic disease, obesity, infertility, and ADHD; while phthalates, as endocrine disruptors, can compromise pregnancy, child growth, and reproductive system development. Both chemicals have links to cancer.

BPA has a role in promoting several hormone-dependent cancers (breast, ovarian, and prostate). Exposure to phthalates during childhood is associated with an increased incidence of childhood osteosarcoma (bone cancer) and lymphoma (blood and lymph cancers).

BPA and phthalates aren’t limited to food packaging, however. They’re also in toys, medications, and beauty and personal care products.

The plastics industry has responded to growing concern by using plastics touted as “BPA-free” and “phthalate-free.” But the problem is, other chemicals found in plastics — nearly every type of plastic — turn out to be toxic as well.

It’s not clear whether swapping one type of plastic for another will pay health dividends, at least not nearly as much as finding ways to reduce overall exposure to plastic. Reducing your plastic footprint benefits not just you, but the wider environment.

You can replace plastic food containers with safer ones that have the added benefit of being long-lasting. And for both health and environmental reasons, you can eliminate, as much as possible, highly wasteful and polluting single-use plastics from your life.

Here are nine tips to help you live without plastic (yes, it really is possible!).

3. Avoid Processed Foods and Meats

Now it’s time to talk about food. Many processed foods contain harmful cancer-causing ingredients. While many countries have banned these ingredients, they’re still very much a part of the ultra-processed US food system.

A 2023 study found that eating large amounts of ultra-processed food is associated with a higher risk of developing cancers of the upper digestive tract, such as mouth, throat, and esophageal cancer.

Processed meat, in particular, has been associated with increased cancer risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified it as a class 1 carcinogen back in 2015. Specifically, a comprehensive 2021 meta-analysis found that processed meat consumption was associated with “a 6% greater breast cancer risk, an 18% greater colorectal cancer risk, a 21% greater colon cancer risk, a 22% greater rectal cancer risk, and a 12% greater lung cancer risk.”

Fortunately, it’s possible to replicate a lot of the taste and texture of processed meats with plant-based alternatives. Some are definitely kinder to your health than others. And the healthiest will generally be the ones you make yourself. You can even make bacon out of plants!

4. Filter Your Water

Multiple carcinogens exist in drinking water, too. Some, like arsenic, occur naturally, while others are the result of contamination from industry or agriculture. Still others are created when chlorine, used to disinfect tap water, comes into contact with organic material.

The 2000 movie Erin Brockovich told the true story of a town’s contaminated water supply. Unfortunately, a 2022 survey of US federal and state water testing found that the tap water of more than 250 million Americans still has dangerously high levels of this contaminant (chromium-6).

A 2023 study found that the tap water consumed by half of all households in the US is contaminated with cancer-causing PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” so named because they’re extremely resistant to breaking down, either in the environment or the body.

Microplastics are also increasingly concentrated in drinking water.

For tips on how you can treat your drinking water to reduce health risks, check out this comprehensive article on drinking water treatment.

Editor’s Note: Having a good home water filter is a great way to protect your family (and to save money over buying bottled water, which typically comes in plastic). One option that FRN likes is the AquaTru — a countertop RO unit that includes excellent carbon filter technology, delivers high-quality water and flavor, slashes the purchase cost, requires no installation fees, is remarkably water-efficient, and has extremely minimal maintenance costs. The manufacturer, AquaTru, states that their system removes chromium-6, arsenic, PFAS, and a great many other contaminants. It’s available for a $100 discount for FRN members. If you’re interested, you can find out more here.

5. Filter Your Air

While many people think that lung cancer only happens to smokers, up to 29% of all lung cancer deaths are attributable to poor air quality. Some of this comes from outdoor pollution, including car exhaust, factory and power plant emissions, and wildfire smoke, which can travel indoors, where the carcinogenic particles can become even more concentrated.

Your home is also a potential source of airborne cancer-causing chemicals. Cooking with a gas stove, it turns out, can be more of a contributor to carcinogenic air than even second-hand cigarette smoke. Gas stoves can raise indoor levels of benzene, a carcinogen linked to leukemia and other blood cell cancers.

VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are chemicals that can off-gas from cleaning supplies, paints, insecticides, lacquers and stains, and many other products. Some of these are suspected human carcinogens, as well as having multiple other health effects.

Another chemical that can build up in the home and raise the risk of cancer is radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. You can get your home tested, and if levels are high, you can either increase the rate of airflow, get a suitable home air filter, or install an underground ventilation system to divert the gas before it enters your living spaces.

To find out more on the top sources and stunning health effects of indoor air pollution, and what you can do about it, see our article, here.

6. Reduce Your Stress

There are also internal contributors to cancer development: how we process stressors. While the stress response is a crucial system that has evolved to keep us safe in the presence of a threat, many people experience a chronic stress response that remains active even in the absence of an external threat.

Animal studies (our view on the use of animals in medical research is here) and lab-grown human cancer cells have provided evidence that chronic stress may cause cancer to get worse and spread. That’s because prolonged stress triggers inflammation, suppresses immunity, and promotes tumor growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis.

There’s also evidence that persistent and chronic stress exposure might also contribute to tumor initiation in specific cancers.

While you can’t avoid all of life’s stressors, there are some proven strategies that can help you manage stress more effectively. Certain foods can help (here are seven of them.) And adaptogens are plants and herbs that could be especially useful in helping your body deal with stressors and come back into balance.

Exercising and spending time in nature are also documented ways of lowering stress levels. For an added boost of calm, you can do both at the same time, an approach known as green fitness.

7. Use (Natural) Sunscreen

Skin cancer accounts for almost one-third of all diagnosed cancers, and the incidence of both melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers has been increasing over the past decades.

The main factors that predict the development of melanoma appear to be a combination of a history of sunburn from ultraviolet radiation and continued recreational exposure to the sun.

One way to keep the sun from damaging your skin is by using sunscreen. Studies have shown that it does reduce the risk of skin cancers. Unfortunately, not all sunscreens are benign. Some contain benzophenone, a suspected carcinogen that also can interfere with key hormones and reproductive organs.

It’s ironic that many people who seek to avoid one type of cancer end up doing so with products that promote other cancers, as well as additional health problems. To avoid this “from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire” scenario, look for natural sunscreens or other forms of natural sun protection. There are even foods that can protect your skin from harmful UV radiation.

For advice on what to look for in a natural sunscreen, see our article, here.

8. Wash Produce to Remove Pesticides

The greatest cancer risk associated with pesticides is occupational, affecting farm workers who apply pesticides. However, there may also be a risk from dietary sources. Estimates put more than 90% of the US population with detectable concentrations of pesticide biomarkers in their urine or blood.

While many fruits and vegetables are potent cancer-fighters, some of the pesticides used to grow them promote tumor growth, as well as cause harmful gene expression and DNA modification. For example, a 2021 study found a correlation between dietary exposure to pesticides and increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women.

But there are several things you can do to minimize your exposure to these potentially carcinogenic compounds. If you can access and afford organic produce, that’s a great way to keep some of the worst pesticide offenders off your plate.

If a 100% organic shopping cart is out of your reach, you can get the most pesticide-free bang for your buck by going organic with the most pesticide-contaminated produce aka “the Dirty Dozen.”

And while you can’t remove all pesticide residue by washing your produce, a water and baking soda mixture can get rid of some pesticides.

For more on how to wash produce to remove the vast majority of pesticide residues, see our article here.

9. Use Nontoxic Cookware

Even after buying organic and washing off as much pesticide residue as you can, you may still be cooking your produce in ways that increase cancer risk. That’s because some nonstick cookware has a coating of carcinogenic chemicals.

The two biggest culprits are poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFOA is widely used in the manufacture of a bunch of industrial and commercial products, including Teflon coating on cookware. It’s associated with several cancers, including those of the testicles and kidneys, as well as pancreatic cancer.

To avoid these chemicals, check out some of our suggestions on healthy cookware options.

10. Drink Less (or No) Alcohol

While the media and wellness influencers debate the pros and cons of red wine for heart health, the evidence is clear and increasingly compelling that alcoholic beverages qualify as group 1 carcinogens. This doesn’t mean they get to board airplanes first. Rather, “group 1” is used by the WHO to indicate that there’s “convincing evidence that the agent causes cancer” in humans.

Drinking alcohol increases the risk of several cancer types, including cancers of the upper digestive tract, liver, colorectum, and breast. Worldwide, about 4% of cancers have a correlation with alcohol consumption.

But how much alcohol do you need to drink before your risk of cancer increases? According to the WHO, there’s no safe level of alcohol consumption. While the risk of developing cancer increases substantially the more alcohol you consume, even light or moderate consumption raises your odds of developing cancer.

Find out more on how alcohol affects your health here, and get some suggestions on nonalcoholic or mocktail recipes here.

11. Get Regular Cancer Screenings

Although no substitute for prevention, it’s often true that early detection can be a lifesaver. Getting regular cancer screenings can enable your health care provider to find precancerous cells as well as cancerous tumors.

Specifically, medical societies recommend screening for cancers that are easier to treat and cure when found early. For example, screenings can prevent colorectal and cervical cancers by identifying and removing precancerous lesions before they become cancerous.

Recent studies are also showing that mammography screenings decrease women’s risk of dying from breast cancer. A large-scale 2020 study out of Sweden found that women who participated in mammograms reduced their risk of dying of breast cancer within 10 years by a whopping 41%.

Another screening success has been the Pap smear, which I just learned was named after Dr. Georgios Papanikolaou, the Greek pathologist who discovered the test and publicized it in 1943. Over the past three decades, its widespread use has been credited with decreasing cervical cancer incidence and mortality by over 50%.

Colonoscopies that look for colorectal cancer may also be beneficial once people have reached a certain age. (According to the American Cancer Society, that age is 45 for folks with “average risk”).

Keep in mind, however, that there are also risks involved in all cancer screenings, including false positives that can lead to invasive treatments, as well as aggressively treating tumors that may be so slow-growing as to represent little threat to health.

Additionally, certain cancer screening tests may only be suggested for people who are high-risk. Others are routine tests done regularly after a certain age. To find out what cancer screenings are recommended by the American Cancer Society, here’s a resource they put together.

And remember the adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For most of us, the best prevention is a healthy diet and lifestyle. Starting with choosing to…

12. Eat Cancer-Fighting Foods

While most of the items on this list are things to avoid — tobacco smoke, plastics, processed foods, etc. — there are also things you can add more of to help prevent cancer.

Vegetable and fruit consumption is associated with a lower risk of many cancers, including those of the stomach, esophagus, lung, oral cavity and pharynx, endometrium, pancreas, colon, and others. The effects are likely due to the many positive qualities of whole plant-based foods. But two of the best studied are phytonutrients and fiber.

Phytonutrients and phytochemicals found in colorful plant foods, in particular, have been shown to possess anticancer effects. These and other antioxidants help neutralize free radicals in your cells and fight oxidative stress in your body.

Oxidative stress plays a major role in cancer cell metabolism. Cancer patients frequently have low antioxidant stores, and experience increased oxidative stress, leading researchers to seek ways to increase antioxidant activity as a cancer prevention strategy.

Fiber is another key nutrient for cancer prevention. There’s a clear link between fiber and colorectal health. You can think of fiber as the “broom” that sweeps your colon clean. Studies show that people who consumed just 10 more grams of fiber per day had a 10% reduction in their risk of developing colorectal cancer.

But fiber’s benefit doesn’t stop there. Multiple studies have found that the more fiber you eat, the lower your risk of breast and other hormonal cancers.

For more on why fiber is good for you, including a beautifully designed graphic showing 33 of the best high-fiber foods and a bunch of delicious fiber-rich recipes, check out this article.

And for more on anticancer foods, check out 7 Ways to Eat to Defeat Cancer Today and Every Day by Dr. William Li.

Cancer-Fighting Recipes

While some of the strategies shared in this article may take time and even a bit of expense to implement (changing cookware and sunscreen, replacing plastic containers with glass ones, getting a home air purifier, and so on), you can quickly make a dent in your cancer risk through the food you prepare and eat today.

Here are a few of our favorite anticancer recipes that taste so good, you’ll be forgiven for forgetting how good they are for you.

1. Smashed Edamame Avocado Toast

This easy toast recipe delivers a hefty dose of fiber, which is essential for digestive health and reducing the risk of certain types of cancer. Avocado is a nutrient powerhouse, rich in monounsaturated fats and antioxidants, and is known for its anti-inflammatory properties. The star ingredient, however, is edamame, which adds a substantial dose of plant-based protein and isoflavones. These phytonutrients may protect cells from damage and reduce the risk of cancer development. Enjoy the flavors, textures, and nutritional attributes of this craveable breakfast.

2. Strawberry Spinach Salad

Delight in a vibrant salad bursting with flavor and packed with cancer-fighting nutrients. This colorful ensemble features nutrient-rich spinach, known for its abundance of antioxidant cancer fighters like vitamin C and beta-carotene. It’s also complemented by sweet and succulent strawberries, offering a dose of ellagic acid — a phytonutrient that helps scavenge free radicals. The Strawberry Spinach Salad also provides quercetin — a plant compound with anticancer properties. Topped with a tangy beet balsamic dressing, this salad is a mouthwatering treat and a potential ally in your journey toward cancer prevention.

3. Pink Cauliflower Soup

Indulge in a flavorful blend of cauliflower, beets, garlic, tofu, and aromatic spices designed with potential cancer-fighting properties in mind. Cauliflower, a cruciferous vegetable rich in sulforaphane, may assist in reducing the risk of certain cancers by aiding in the body’s natural detoxification processes. Vibrant beets contribute betalains known for their anti-inflammatory properties. And garlic adds allicin, believed to possess powerful anticancer effects. With the addition of delicate microgreens, you’ll also get an extra boost of essential vitamins and minerals.

4. Plant-Powered Lunch Bowl

This Plant-Powered Lunch Bowl is a vibrant mix of nutrient-dense kale, antioxidant-packed turmeric, and carotenoid-rich sweet potatoes. Complemented by a vibrant matcha turmeric dressing, this bowl is more than just a delicious meal — it’s a cancer-fighting recipe. The abundance of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals from all of the ingredients creates a bowl bursting with health benefits.

5. Rainbow Smoothie

Indulge in a vibrant Rainbow Smoothie, a flavorful concoction blending the goodness of banana, apple, mixed berries, nutrient-rich spinach, and chia seeds, all with potentially cancer-preventive properties. This colorful smoothie offers a wealth of antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber. Both berries, particularly rich in anthocyanins and vitamin C, and spinach, abundant in folate and antioxidants, are believed to combat oxidative stress and inflammation, potentially reducing cancer risk. Combined with the fiber and omega-3 fatty acids from chia seeds, this refreshing smoothie is a nourishing and delightful treat!

Take Control of Your Health with These Cancer Prevention Strategies

Cancer can be devastating. And while medical advances have been largely modest and limited to certain families of cancer, there’s a lot of hope in the form of evidence-based strategies for lifestyle-based cancer prevention.

From steering clear of harmful substances like tobacco and plastics to embracing stress reduction techniques and consuming cancer-fighting foods, there are many steps you can take toward a healthier lifestyle.

While no approach guarantees immunity from cancer, the combination of these measures can significantly reduce your risk. And the collective impact of these lifestyle changes holds promise not just for individual well-being but also for a future in which the devastating impact of cancer is diminished.

Tell us in the comments:

• Which of the 12 cancer-fighting strategies above do you already engage in?
• What’s one thing you can do right now to reduce the risk of cancer for yourself and your loved ones?
• Which cancer-fighting recipe will you make next?

Featured Image: iStock.com/FatCamera

Read Next:

• The Top 10 Vegetables You Can Eat to Prevent and Reverse Cancer
• IGF-1: The Growth Hormone That Can Fuel Cancer

The post 12 Ways to Reduce Your Cancer Risk Using Diet & Lifestyle appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

At first glance, the operations of We Are The New Farmers and iwi could not look more different. One occupies a 1,200-square-foot space in a warehouse on the waterfront in Brooklyn, New York, where a microscopic organism called Arthrospira platensis grows in stainless steel tanks illuminated by grow lights. The other sits on 300 acres of scrubland in West Texas, where a similar single-celled species thrives in brackish ponds surrounded by mesquite and javelinas.

Despite the vastly different settings and scale, these companies are tackling the same challenge: producing food for a world in which fresh water and arable land are increasingly scarce.

With as many as 10 billion people crowding the planet by 2050, the world’s farmland, strained by extreme weather events, will be hard-pressed to churn out enough calories to feed everyone. It doesn’t help that the Western US is seeing the worst drought in 1,200 years, and American farmers are experiencing lower yields and livestock forage as a result. Or that the US has lost 11 million acres of farmland to development in the last 20 years.

Enter microalgae, a life-form that, like a plant, gets its energy through photosynthesis. It can grow in fresh, brackish, or salt water, and it doesn’t need soil.

While most often used in animal feed and nutritional supplements, algae like the kind We Are The New Farmers and iwi grow is gaining attention as a sustainable food for humans. It is “a crop for people who want to turn climate-stressed land into more productive, more resilient forms of agriculture,” says Jonas Guenther, cofounder of We Are The New Farmers, which started producing Arthrospira platensis — more commonly known as spirulina — in 2017. The start-up’s dark green food product, which has the consistency of hummus, can add protein, vitamins, and minerals to anything from smoothies to veggie meatballs.

The wide range of possible environments and the speed with which the single-celled organisms grow leads Miguel Calatayud, the CEO of iwi, to call microalgae “kind of perfection.” His nutraceutical company plans to make it a central ingredient in a line of protein bars and drinks later this year. “It’s unbelievable, like it’s coming from a different planet,” he says. “This is really a revolution in farming.”

Growing Algae

At iwi’s farm in West Texas, in a region where most conventional crops struggle to get enough water, the microalgae Nannochloropsis thrives. Iwi pumps brackish water from aquifers that have grown saltier over time from generations of agricultural use, and the algae love it. And since it’s grown in ponds, soil quality is irrelevant.

Algae is pretty much the most efficient organism at converting sunlight into nutrients.

Sean Raspet, Co-Founder and Product Developer of Nonfood

The growing process itself is also incredibly water-efficient. “It sounds counterintuitive because it grows in water,” says Guenther. During harvesting, the tank-grown spirulina makes several trips through a filter to remove more than 90% of the H₂O. The same goes for the Nannochloropsis grown in iwi’s open ponds. That reclaimed liquid nourishes the next round in a process that can be repeated several times.

Outdoor ponds inevitably lose more water to evaporation than indoor operations. “We can’t get around that,” says Jakob Nalley, iwi’s director of agronomy. But those losses are offset by how much protein algae provides with the relatively little water and land it requires, he says.

One analysis found that microalgae yields between 22 and 44 tons of protein per hectare, depending on the region. That’s as much as 36 times the amount from soybeans. It helps that the entire organism is edible — algae has no stems, no roots, and no leaves. It also grows at a staggering rate; under ideal conditions, spirulina, for example, can double its biomass in as little as 48 hours.

“It’s explosive growth,” Guenther says. Given that, algae can be harvested as often as every few days. And indoor systems can be customized with the ideal temperature, light, and salinity levels for a given strain, making the yields even higher and more consistent throughout the year. (It’s even possible to grow it without any light at all.)

“Algae is pretty much the most efficient organism at converting sunlight into nutrients,” says Sean Raspet, cofounder and product developer at Nonfood, which produces a microalgae powder meant to supplement savory food dishes. Raspet and others also celebrate the crop’s minimal “resource footprint” —  most algae operations do not use pesticides, and although they all require electricity to run, they don’t need fossil-fuel-intensive equipment like tractors.

Eating Algae

When Guenther first learned of spirulina in 2017, he recalls asking himself: “If we have this magic crop, if you will, why is it not something that we eat a lot more?”

Of course, you can’t eat the scum on the sides of a pool or poisonous algal blooms, but humans have been enjoying a handful of edible algae varieties for hundreds of years, if not longer. The Aztecs harvested spirulina and ate it as a dried cake. And it has long been harvested from Lake Kossorom in Chad, as well as in many countries in Asia. But algae is not a regular part of the modern diet in the Western world.

Guenther learned that microalgae’s primary market for humans is in the form of nutritional supplements because many varieties are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein. Companies like EarthRise, Nutrex Hawaii, and iwi grow algae for exactly that purpose. But Guenther saw an opportunity to use algae as the foundation of a whole range of foods.

“We want to create a world in which microalgae is a staple in every kitchen, making any meal better, brighter, and more sustainable,” says Guenther.

The folks at Nonfood had a similar idea: The best way of expanding algae production, they thought, was to produce an appealing product consumers could easily add to almost any dish. Nongredient, which is microalgae in powdered form, can be used in stews, curries, salads, and more, enriching them with protein and healthy fats. Cofounder Lucy Chinen says it has an umami flavor profile, and she compares it to nutritional yeast, a product vegans turn to for its savory, cheesy flavor.

Chinen isn’t aiming to create the next fake meat product. Algae stands on its own as both a historical food and something novel. “There’s a lot of talk… about meat replacements and stuff like that,” she says. “Nonfood is not really a replacement for anything.”

Scaling Up Microalgae Production

According to the Department of Energy, 139,886 square miles of land in the United States is suitable for microalgae ponds — a figure that does not include current cropland, forests, or environmentally sensitive areas. That’s larger than New Mexico. Although that analysis was aimed at expanding biofuel production, the fact remains there is plenty of land available to grow algae, regardless of its end use.

But a few hurdles need to be addressed for the algae industry to reach its full potential. Algae start-ups are tackling consumer barriers to embracing algae as a food by demonstrating just how many ways it can be eaten.

Another barrier to seeing algae in more kitchens is its cost. But We Are The New Farmers believes it can make algae more affordable by increasing yields. It is experimenting with injecting carbon, which drives algae growth. They predict the increased productivity, along with expanding production, will bring down retail prices. Iwi, which uses about 20% of its ponds, hopes its new algae bars and drinks will bring production to full scale.

Guenther hopes that by 2050, one-fifth of protein consumed worldwide will come from algae. While most of it won’t be produced in high-density areas, like the New York warehouse his company occupies, he sees growing algae in cities as a way to decentralize the supply chain. “Instead of building one large facility somewhere in the middle of nowhere where it’s super cheap, I’d rather have six facilities close to a major population,” he says. “And if there’s one thing we learned during the pandemic, it’s that being reliant on just one single stream of output is not the best way of operating.”

No one is arguing algae will become humanity’s primary source of food. But there is a growing understanding among environmental scientists, algae producers, and consumers that the magical single-celled organism, which thrives pretty much everywhere, could be a critical part of our culinary future. “We believe in the potential of microalgae to reimagine how we eat,” says Guenther. He hopes for “a circular future in which what we consume supports — rather than depletes — the planet we live on.”

For any environment, from abandoned industrial buildings to regions where the water is too salty for terrestrial crops, there is a type of algae (and a type of growing method) that can work. And that versatility is its power. “We can bring farming to places in the world where farming wasn’t even a concept,” says Calatayud.

Tell us in the comments:

• Would you eat algae?
• Have you ever had spirulina or another algae-based food product?
• What other sustainable crops are contributing to the future of food?

Featured Image: Mihály Köles on Unsplash

Read Next:

• Are Sea Vegetables Good for You and the Planet? — And Are Some Better Than Others?
• Are Green Powders Healthy?

The post Why Algae Could Be a “Magic Crop” for a Drought-Stricken World appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

According to economists (who, it seems to me, are a lot better at explaining the past than predicting the future), this massive food inflation is actually caused by a perfect storm of rising demand and lower supply — both intensified by several calamities (like droughts, floods, wars, and knock-on effects of the COVID-19 pandemic) — as well as rising costs for fuel and fertilizer.

For perspective, food prices have typically been rising by about 2% a year for a long time. But from 2021 to 2022, they went up by an average of 11%. And while things seem to have calmed down a bit since then, it’s still easy to get sticker shock any time you visit a cash register.

Even if you’re not paying more outright, you might be paying more in subtle ways. The food industry has recently implemented a tactic known as “shrinkflation,” whereby they offer the same product for the same price — in a smaller quantity, thus avoiding the appearance of higher prices. (“Hey, this is one expensive cornflake!”)

So why exactly have food prices gone up so much? Why do some foods always seem to cost more (or less) than others? And what can you, as a consumer, do about it?

What Influences Food Prices

Did I mention that I’m not an economist? That might be good news here because I’m going to try to simplify the issue of food pricing. There are a few major factors that always influence food pricing. These include how much it costs to produce the food (including the cost of labor for everyone involved in growing and processing it), the cost of transportation and distribution, good old supply and demand, and global trade policies.

Why have food prices gone up so much in the last few years? Three factors stand out, in particular: the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the intensifying climate crisis.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

Starting in 2020, the pandemic disrupted nearly every link in the food supply chain. The food processing sector was hit particularly hard, with COVID-19 outbreaks racing through the workforce, due to many people working in close, inadequately ventilated quarters. And the increase in worker turnover, in addition to new COVID protocols, further increased food production costs.

The same labor shortages affected the shipping industry, causing delays and increasing competition for limited shipping space. This led to rising transportation costs. It also increased the price of labor: In order to attract workers, companies had to increase wages, a cost they largely passed directly on to consumers.

As many people shifted their food spending from restaurants to grocery stores, suppliers could not keep up with the change in demand, resulting in massive food waste that effectively decreased supply.

And while 2020 is in the rearview mirror, there’s a funny thing about economics. When prices go up, they rarely come down again. So in some ways, we’re still feeling the effects of the price increases that started in 2020. And now, some additional factors have intensified the situation.

The War in Ukraine

Before the war, Russia and Ukraine were among the largest wheat producers in the world, together accounting for 30% of all exports — and a staggering 12% of all agricultural calories traded on earth. Both production and export have dropped dramatically due to the war.

Russia set up blockades of Ukrainian food exports in the Black Sea, stranding food in ports and creating global shortages. Western countries responded with sanctions against Russian grain exports, intensifying those shortages.

In addition to embargoes on food, the West has also implemented partial bans on Russian exports. These have included oil and gas, which have increased the energy costs associated with food production around the world.

Another blockaded product is fertilizer. As Russia is a major exporter of synthetic fertilizers, accounting for almost 30% of all exports globally, fertilizer prices have also been soaring — impacting farmers and, therefore, food prices.

Increasing Climate Chaos and Disasters

As temperatures continue to rise, crops are sustaining damage from excess heat. And as precipitation patterns change, droughts and flooding (sometimes alternating in the same place) also prevent crops from thriving. This can harm crops by eroding soil, depleting soil nutrients, and increasing runoff.

No farmer wants to try to coax crops out of the ground in conditions of extreme and prolonged drought. As more and more of the arable land on Earth suffers under multiyear drought, farmers are increasingly relying on groundwater, which they’re depleting at an alarming rate.

Additionally, rising temperatures increase pest populations and sometimes allow new pests to take up residence in regions that had previously been inhospitable for them. Temperature shifts can also cause a mismatch in pollination cycles, so the “good” bugs can’t do their jobs — leading to low pollination rates or delayed pollination.

One more disastrous effect of a warming planet is the danger to agricultural workers. More and more of them are suffering from the effects of extreme heat as they toil in parched fields. The National Institutes of Health tells us that farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die of heat exposure than workers in other industries. As conditions become less hospitable, it can be harder for farm owners to find the skilled laborers they need to get their fields planted and harvested. And dynamics in US immigration policy have contributed to a shortage of these workers.

As the planet continues to overheat, and as groundwater gets depleted and droughts and floods intensify, food prices are expected to continue to increase in the coming decades.

Why Do Some Foods Always Cost More (or Less)?

Governmental policies cause some foods to be more expensive than they would be otherwise — while others are made artificially cheaper. To see this in action, let’s look at a category of foods whose price is inflated (organic foods) and another whose price is deflated (grains and the products derived from grains).

Organic and Healthy Food Costs

Organic foods are more expensive than their “conventional” counterparts for several reasons. For one, organic food typically costs more to produce because the process is more labor-intensive than large-scale industrial agricultural methods.

Supply and demand play a role here as well. There’s a much smaller supply of organic food than nonorganic, even though demand for organic foods has more than doubled in the past 10 years. While this demand has caught the attention of some farmers who have decided to convert part or all of their operations to organic methods, this process takes time. In the meanwhile, prices continue to rise as demand grows, but supply lags.

There’s also a policy choice that makes organic food more expensive, which is that organic certification is costly, and getting that certification can be time-consuming. Organic farmers must keep extensive records and pay for organic certification, while farms that use synthetic pesticides don’t have to do either.

Another reason for organic’s higher prices has to do with the concept of “externalities” — that is, costs that arguably should be included in the market price but aren’t.

For example, what are the true costs of topsoil erosion, pesticide exposure for farmworkers and consumers, water and air pollution, or of the routine use of antibiotics in modern factory farms? If these were factored in, we might find that organic food would cost less, not more, than its conventional counterparts.

The fact is that organically grown foods tend to be better for environmental protection and carbon sequestration, deliver higher standards for animal welfare, and contribute to a safer and healthier food supply.

But consumers still have to pay more, and sometimes a lot more, to purchase foods that are grown organically.

Despite this, there are still some compelling advantages to go organic if you can afford to do so. And if you can’t, then you might want to soak your produce in a dab of baking soda to help rid it of pesticide exposure (for our article on what works best, click here).

Government Subsidies

The US government provides agricultural subsidies — monetary payments and other types of support — to farmers or agribusinesses. This ensures that farmers receive a minimum price for their crops while also incentivizing overproduction and inflated production costs. That way, subsidized foods and products made from them appear cheaper than nonsubsidized foods.

Generally, only the largest producers can take advantage of farm subsidies. According to a report from the Environmental Working Group, between 1995 and 2021, the top 10% of all US farm subsidy recipients received almost 80% of all subsidies, while the bottom 80% got less than 10%.

The five major “program” commodities are corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.

Most soybeans and corn are produced by massive monocrop farms rather than small family enterprises. A lot of this subsidized corn and soy is fed to livestock, which artificially lowers the price of animal-derived foods produced on factory farms. All told, the US federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Without these subsidies, a pound of hamburger meat could cost $30, rather than the $5 price seen today. But the true cost plays out in its impact on our health, animals, and the environment — and in the form of taxes and expansion of the national debt.

Is it better in Europe? Well, in many ways, it’s not. According to a 2019 report from Greenpeace, nearly one-fifth of the EU’s entire budget goes to subsidizing the livestock industry.

In effect, these subsidies consistently decrease the price of things like factory-farmed meat, high-fructose corn syrup, white bread, and many of the additives in our food supply — creating a marketplace distortion that makes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and other healthy staples more expensive in comparison.

To my eyes, it’s a bit like we’re all being fined for wearing our seatbelts. If we want to do the safer and more responsible thing, we have to pay extra.

What You Can Do About Rising Food Prices

If you’re feeling the pinch of rising food prices yourself, there are several strategies that can help you stay within your budget without sacrificing your family’s health.

Make a budget and shop from a list to avoid making impulse purchases while at the store. Prioritize nutrient-dense foods over calorie-dense ones. The latter may seem cheaper by the pound or the calorie, but in terms of what foods can do for you (or to you), good nutrition is more economical than impaired functioning or chronic disease. And buy and cook in bulk to save money and time.

Try to shop locally if you can to avoid incentivizing costly supply chains. If you’re in the US and use SNAP benefits, keep in mind that you can use them to shop for fresh produce at many farmers markets.

Also, buy organic when you can. If you are in a position financially where you can afford to spend more, you can “vote with your dollars” (or euros or pounds or rupees) to make the system fairer and more accessible to everyone. But if you can’t afford the organic price premium, then aim for non-GMO produce items and wash them thoroughly to reduce your pesticide exposure as much as possible.

If you have to choose which fruits and veggies to buy organic, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen and Clean 15. Choose organic members of the Dirty Dozen club, and don’t sweat nonorganic Clean 15 items.

Frozen fruits and vegetables can sometimes be more affordable than fresh ones, and they contain abundant nutrition.

And reducing your consumption of animal products can not only help feed the world’s population because we aren’t cycling our crops through animals (a process that wastes at least 9 out of every 10 calories, depending on the crop and the animal eating it), but it can also lead to reductions in costly greenhouse gas emissions, too. Plus, beans tend to be a lot less costly than beef (to animals, the environment, and your wallet, too).

Food Pricing Is Complex, But Healthy Eating Shouldn’t Be

The recent surge in food prices has highlighted the intricate web of factors influencing the cost of our food. From labor shortages and technology costs to climate change and war, the forces at play are vast and interconnected.

But there are ways to navigate these challenging times. By adopting conscious strategies, we can mitigate the impact of rising food prices on our wallets and well-being. Through awareness and mindful decision-making, we can not only do right for our health, but we can also contribute to a more healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system.

Tell us in the comments:

• What foods that you buy frequently have gone up the most in price recently?
• Have you made any changes or substitutions because of food price inflation?
• Which cost-saving strategies could you try?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Ilija Erceg

Read Next:

• A Guide to Going Plant-Based: What to Eat, Benefits, and How to Succeed
• 7 Healthy Recipes for Eating Plant-Based on a Budget

The post The Price of Food: What’s Making Food So Expensive & What You Can Do About It appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Well, that’s the experience I just had researching this article about figs. I thought I knew a lot about this yummy fruit until I started digging into the topic. Spoiler alert: They’re not even fruits! And when I discovered how they get pollinated — that’s a drama worthy of a Game of Thrones episode!

But aside from their storied pollination method, figs have a lot to offer. In addition to being a delicious food, figs have also traditionally been used for healing and for some very practical purposes. For countless generations, people around the world have made poultices from fresh or dried figs, fig leaves, and fig wines. Fig stems and leaves contain latex. And, of course, fig leaves have served as, well, strategically placed garments since the Garden of Eden (at least according to some Renaissance painters).

You can also find mention of figs in both the Bible and the Quran. Biblical writers often use figs as metaphors for the physical and spiritual health of the people, with phrases like “everyone under their own vine and under their own fig tree” depicting a time of peace and prosperity. The Quran quotes the prophet Muhammad as telling his followers to eat the fig “as it cures various diseases.”

In this article, we’re going to focus on the culinary uses of figs. We’ll explore what figs are, how they taste (and how they differ from dates), the nutritional value of fresh vs dried, and their health benefits and downsides.

We’ll also look at how they get pollinated (so dramatic!), and if that process might render figs unfit for a vegan diet.

What Are Figs?

Fig trees (or Ficus carica) are native to the Mediterranean region and were one of the first plants to be cultivated.

Figs are members of the mulberry family, which, contrary to the nursery rhyme, is mostly populated by trees, not bushes to “go ‘round and ‘round.” (Other family members include the banyan, breadfruit, jackfruit, and Osage orange.)

A fig fruit (which, again, is not really a fruit) is known as a syconium. According to the Ecological Society of America, “a fig is not actually a fruit; it is an inflorescence — a cluster of many flowers and seeds contained inside a bulbous stem.” And as we’ll see, it’s that structure that makes its pollination so darn interesting.

Because the fig flower is arranged so unusually, the seeds — which are actually the ovaries of the fig — can’t be pollinated by ordinary flying insects like bees, moths, and butterflies. Instead, it requires a pollinator with the skills of a safecracker who can operate in dark, confined quarters (more on that later).

Types of Figs

There are more than 750 different varieties of fig. Some of the types you’re likely to encounter include Adriatic, Black Mission, Turkish/Brown Turkey, Calimyrna, Kadota, Celeste, and Tiger. Different types have different flavor profiles, and feature in a variety of dishes, from sweet desserts to more savory fare.

The most common dried figs in the US are Black Mission and Golden, both of which are grown in California.

Figs are light green as they grow. They may remain green or change color as they ripen, ranging from yellow to brown to dark purple, depending on the cultivar.

The Differences Between Figs and Dates

Figs and dates are two very different foods that people sometimes get confused with one another, kind of like the actors who play Harry Potter and Frodo. Here are some key differences. Frodo didn’t go to Hogwarts — oops, I mean, here are some key differences between figs and dates.

While figs originated in the Mediterranean region, dates are native to several geographical locations, including North America. Figs grow on trees, while dates are the fruits of palm trees, which are technically grasses and not trees (this is such a genus-bending article!).

Furthermore, figs grow on fig tree branches, while dates grow in clusters on offshoots from the main trunk of the palm tree. Dates contain a single pit, while figs have many small edible seeds.

When it comes to eating the fruits, they’re also quite different. Figs have three times the amount of water as dates, which also makes them much lower in calories (about four times lower, if you’re counting). So dates are a much more concentrated source of carbohydrates, mostly in the form of simple sugars. Dates are also richer sources of some minerals, such as calcium and potassium.

Nutrients in Figs

The good news is figs deliver a lot of essential nutrients. The predominant macronutrient (the one that provides calories) is carbohydrates, but they’re also rich in some vitamins and organic acids. As whole plant foods, they also provide important dietary fiber.

According to the US National Nutrient Database, two medium raw figs contain roughly 3 grams of fiber. Doing the math, this means that if you ate just 8 figs a day and nothing else, you’d still get about half as much fiber as the average US resident consumes in a day. (To be clear, I am NOT recommending the “8 Fig a Day Diet,” although someone could probably write a best-selling diet book with that title.)

However, some researchers have measured much greater amounts of fiber in different fig cultivars. According to the American Botanical Council, two fresh or 4–5 dried figs provide a whopping 12 grams of fiber.

So we have credible authorities telling us that two figs provide 3 grams of fiber, while others say the correct figure is 12 grams of fiber. It reminds me of the old saying, “A person with one watch knows what time it is. A person with two watches… is never quite sure.” So for now, let’s just say that figs are high (potentially very high!) in fiber, and leave it to the good folks at the US National Nutrient Database and the American Botanical Council to duke it out on the details.

Figs are a good source of many bioactive phytonutrients, too, including flavonoids, phenolic acids, carotenoids, and tocopherols.

(Here’s a fun article all about flavonoids, which starts with a weird story about a bunch of soldiers trying to cross a bridge.)

They’re also solid sources of potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and phosphorus. What’s more, figs provide essential trace elements, including iron, manganese, zinc, and copper.

You’ll get the most nutrients if you don’t peel your figs; the highest concentrations of phytonutrients are in their skin. And darker fig varieties contain more polyphenols and antioxidant power than lighter ones.

Figs also lose some phytonutrients when dried. Studies show a loss of 29% to as much as 86% of the polyphenol content when figs are dried.

Health Benefits of Figs

In the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, figs have long been revered for their contributions to human health and longevity. The fruit, leaves, latex, bark, and roots of fig trees have been used to treat gastrointestinal, respiratory, inflammatory, and cardiovascular disorders, as well as ulcerative diseases and cancers. The various parts of the fig tree possess a wide variety of properties; they can help you poop, relax muscle spasms, fight viruses and bacteria, bring down high blood sugar, and even help your body expel parasites.

And modern scientific research has only added to our understanding of the power of figs to promote health.

Figs and Gut Health

When patients with irritable bowel syndrome add figs to their diet, they often experience decreased symptom occurrence and severity. A 2019 study gave IBS patients 90 grams of dried figs per day for four months. Compared to controls who didn’t get anything, the fig-enhanced group had reduced frequency of pain, less intestinal distention, more frequent pooping, and softer stools. Unsurprisingly, they also reported “a significant increase in quality of life.”

In a 2018 animal study, rats with induced ulcerative colitis were fed a liquid extract containing figs. The treatment had a natural laxative effect but did not lead to diarrhea, and it improved their gastrointestinal functioning. (Our view on the use of animals in medical research is here.)

Figs and Diabetes

Figs (and fig leaves) can also be deployed to treat diabetes. A 1998 study found that people with type 1 diabetes who drank tea made from fig leaves were able to lower their blood sugar immediately following meals. And a 2019 study showed that a fig leaf decoction was able to lower blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes by about half as much as the drug metformin (after two months of treatment).

It’s not just the leaves, though — fig fruits contain a compound called abscisic acid (which should definitely be included in spelling bees) that has been shown to reduce blood sugar levels after meals.

Figs and Cognitive Decline

Studies with experimental animals have shown that figs may help us stay sharp and avoid or delay cognitive decline. One animal study compared the effects of a diet that included figs to a fig-free diet in mice that were genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The mice who ate figs did better on memory tests, displayed fewer anxiety behaviors, learned new things more quickly and fully, and had better motor coordination. Furthermore, the fig-eating mice had lower levels of the toxic amyloid beta proteins that are associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Are Figs Vegan?

This may seem like an odd question, but remember that Game of Thrones reference from earlier? It turns out, fig tree pollination is a bit controversial.

You see, there are two types of fig trees: wild and cultivated. And wild-growing fig trees require pollination to bear fruit. The critters that have volunteered for the job are fig wasps, a term that describes any of several hundred different, mosquito-like tiny creatures from the Agaonidae family. Each species of fig wasp pollinates only one variety of fig.

Basically, here’s how it works.

A female wasp, loaded with pollen, flies to an unripe fig and burrows into its center to deposit her eggs. While she’s doing this, two things happen. One, she spreads her pollen onto the female flowers. And two, the effort of fighting her way through the flower strips her of her wings.

Now the fig goes to work, building structures called galls over the wasp eggs and producing seeds in the flowers that don’t contain the eggs. Meanwhile, the mama wasp dies, whereupon her exoskeleton is dissolved by figgy enzymes. (Cue the emotional orchestral music.)

The heroic male wasps hatch first, and travel around the syconium fertilizing their sisters who are still pupating in their galls. (This is definitely HBO-worthy stuff!) Then they dig holes through which the fertilized females can escape with their wings intact. Once the females hatch, they fly off to repeat the process, leaving the males to die in the maturing fig.

Pretty intense family drama, huh?

As a result, some vegans do not eat figs because they don’t want to consume dead wasps, and also because animals died as part of the process that produced them. However, there’s good news if you want to adhere to a vegan diet and still enjoy delicious figginess.

First, the wasps are completely dissolved by the plant enzymes, so you are not likely to encounter a dead insect in your fig. And second, almost all figs produced and sold in the US are of the cultivated variety and are self-pollinating. This means they don’t need the sacrificial services of the fig wasps, and are considered vegan-friendly.

Fig Downsides

Aside from the fig wasp controversy, there are some other things about figs to consider. For one, some people may have to avoid them because of allergic reactions, including oral allergy syndrome. The latex in the plant may also be a source of irritation and allergy, especially if you’re harvesting figs.

Also dried (but not fresh) figs are high in compounds called salicylates, which may cause swelling, itching, hives, worsened asthma, and food intolerance symptoms in people who are sensitive to them.

The other thing about figs is that it takes a lot of water to grow them. Although they’re not as needy as some other crops like citrus, almonds, alfalfa, and pasture grasses, in places straining under multiyear droughts, such as California and Spain, this can be a problem.

On the other hand, fig trees, like almond trees, are drought tolerant, so they can be a good solution in some cases. While they may not bear fruit during times of drought, they can survive until the rains return. There are several strategies growers can implement, including mulching, thinning fruit to help the remaining fruit develop fully, and protecting trees with shade cloth during the hottest parts of the day.

One other challenge with growing figs, and I say this from personal experience, is that for some reason gophers love their roots. So if you aim to grow a fig tree, it may be wise to place a wire gopher barrier in the planting hole to protect the root ball from those sharp little teeth.

Overall, growing figs appear to be a net positive for the environment. Offsetting their water needs and their moderate carbon footprint, they don’t require heavy use of pesticides. Plus, fig trees sequester carbon in their biomass, keeping it out of the air and not contributing to the climate crisis.

We Dig Figs!

As you’ve probably gathered by now, figs are pretty unique! Their biology is fascinating, and the saga of their pollination is dramatic, to say the least. They also offer a wide range of essential nutrients and health benefits. From their versatile culinary uses to their historical uses as healing agents, figs have proven themselves valuable partners to the humans who have loved, cultivated, and revered them for millennia.

If you’re inspired to add more figgy goodness to your diet, we’ve got you covered: Here’s an article all about different ways of preparing and eating figs.

Tell us in the comments:

• What’s the most surprising fig fact you got from this article?

• Can you find fresh figs where you live? If so, what do you do with them?

• Have you ever planted a fig tree?

Featured Image: iStock.com/SGAPhoto

Read Next:

• Are Dates Good For You, or the Planet?
• Are Grapes Good for You?

The post Figs: Are They Good for You and the Planet? appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

We know that meat has a substantial impact on the planet and that plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable. But exactly how much impact does the food we eat have on environmental outcomes, and what difference would following a vegan diet make compared to consuming a high-meat, or even low-meat diet?

We studied 55,000 people’s dietary data and linked what they ate or drank to five key measures: greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use, water pollution, and biodiversity loss. Our results are now published in Nature Food. We found that vegans have just 30% of the dietary environmental impact of high-meat eaters.

The dietary data came from a major study into cancer and nutrition that has been tracking the same people (about 57,000 in total across the UK) for more than two decades. Those who participated in our study reported what they ate and drank over 12 months, and we then classified them into six different groups: vegan, vegetarian, fish eaters, and low-, medium-, and high-meat eaters based on their self-reported dietary habits.

We then linked their dietary reports to a dataset containing information on the environmental impact of 57,000 foods. Crucially, the dataset factored in how and where a food is produced — carrots grown in a greenhouse in Spain will have a different impact from those grown in a field in the UK, for instance. This builds on past studies, which tend to assume, for example, that all types of bread, or all steak, or all lasagna have the same environmental impact.

By incorporating more detail and nuance, we were able to show with more certainty that different diets have different environmental impacts. We found that even the least sustainable vegan diet was still more environmentally friendly than the most sustainable meat eater’s diet. In other words, accounting for region of origin and methods of food production does not obscure the differences in the environmental impacts between diet groups.

Vegans vs Carnivores

Unsurprisingly, diets containing more animal-based foods had higher environmental impacts. Per unit of food consumed, meat and dairy have anywhere from three to 100 times the environmental impact of plant-based foods.

This can mean huge differences between the two extremes, vegans and high-meat eaters. Vegans in our study had just 25% of the dietary impact of high-meat eaters in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, for instance. That’s because meat uses more land, which means more deforestation and less carbon stored in trees. It uses lots of fertilizer (usually produced from fossil fuels) to feed the plants that feed the animals. And because cows and other animals directly emit gases themselves.

It’s not just emissions. Compared to the high-meat eaters, vegans also had just 25% of the dietary impact for land use, 46% for water use, 27% for water pollution, and 34% for biodiversity.

Even low-meat diets had only about 70% of the impact across most environmental measures of high-meat diets. This is important: You don’t have to go full vegan or even vegetarian to make a big difference.

Global Impact

These findings are crucial as the food system is estimated to be responsible for around 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of the world’s freshwater use, and 78% of freshwater pollution. Around three-quarters of the world’s ice-free land has been affected by human use, primarily for agriculture and land use change such as deforestation, which is a major source of biodiversity loss.

In the UK, meat-eating declined over the decade to 2018, but in order to meet environmental targets, the National Food Strategy and the UK’s Climate Change Committee recommend an additional 30%–35% reduction.

The choices we make about what we eat are personal. They are highly ingrained habits that can be difficult to change. But our study, and others, are continuing to solidify evidence that the food system is having a massive, global environmental and health impact which could be reduced by a transition towards more plant-based diets. We hope that our work can encourage policymakers to take action and people to make more sustainable choices while still eating something nutritious, affordable, and tasty.

Tell us in the comments:

• Does sustainability factor into your food choices?

• Are you surprised by these findings?

• Will these results change how you eat or think about your diet?

Featured Image: iStock.com/Aamulya

The post Vegan Diet Has Just 30% of the Environmental Impact of a High-Meat Diet, Major Study Finds appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood.

Today, PFAS are pervasive in soil, dust, and drinking water around the world. Studies suggest they’re in 98% of Americans’ bodies, where they’ve been associated with health problems including thyroid disease, liver damage, and kidney and testicular cancer. There are now over 9,000 types of PFAS. They’re often referred to as “forever chemicals” because the same properties that make them so useful also ensure they don’t break down in nature.

Scientists are working on methods to capture these synthetic chemicals and destroy them, but it isn’t simple.

The latest breakthrough, published Aug. 18, 2022, in the journal Science, shows how one class of PFAS can be broken down into mostly harmless components using sodium hydroxide, or lye, an inexpensive compound used in soap. It isn’t an immediate solution to this vast problem, but it offers new insight.

Biochemist A. Daniel Jones and soil scientist Hui Li work on PFAS solutions at Michigan State University and explained the promising PFAS destruction techniques being tested today.

How do PFAS get from everyday products into water, soil, and eventually humans?

There are two main exposure pathways for PFAS to get into humans — drinking water and food consumption.

PFAS can get into soil through land application of biosolids, that is, sludge from wastewater treatment, and they can leach out from landfills. If contaminated biosolids are applied to farm fields as fertilizer, PFAS can get into water and into crops and vegetables.

For example, livestock can consume PFAS through the crops they eat and water they drink. There have been cases reported in Michigan, Maine, and New Mexico of elevated levels of PFAS in beef and dairy cows. How big the potential risk is to humans is still largely unknown.

Scientists in our group at Michigan State University are working on materials added to soil that could prevent plants from taking up PFAS, but it would leave PFAS in the soil.

The problem is that these chemicals are everywhere, and there is no natural process in water or soil that breaks them down. Many consumer products are loaded with PFAS, including makeup, dental floss, guitar strings, and ski wax.

How are remediation projects removing PFAS contamination now?

Methods exist for filtering them out of water. The chemicals will stick to activated carbon, for example. But these methods are expensive for large-scale projects, and you still have to get rid of the chemicals.

For example, near a former military base near Sacramento, California, there is a huge activated carbon tank that takes in about 1,500 gallons of contaminated groundwater per minute, filters it, and then pumps it underground. That remediation project has cost over $3 million, but it prevents PFAS from moving into drinking water the community uses.

Filtering is just one step. Once PFAS is captured, then you have to dispose of PFAS-loaded activated carbons, and PFAS still moves around. If you bury contaminated materials in a landfill or elsewhere, PFAS will eventually leach out. That’s why finding ways to destroy it is essential.

What are the most promising methods scientists have found for breaking down PFAS?

The most common method of destroying PFAS is incineration, but most PFAS are remarkably resistant to being burned. That’s why they’re in firefighting foams.

PFAS have multiple fluorine atoms attached to a carbon atom, and the bond between carbon and fluorine is one of the strongest. Normally, to burn something, you have to break the bond, but fluorine resists breaking off from carbon. Most PFAS will break down completely at incineration temperatures around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,730 degrees Fahrenheit), but it’s energy-intensive, and suitable incinerators are scarce.

There are several other experimental techniques that are promising but haven’t been scaled up to treat large amounts of the chemicals.

A group at Battelle has developed supercritical water oxidation to destroy PFAS. High temperatures and pressures change the state of water, accelerating chemistry in a way that can destroy hazardous substances. However, scaling up remains a challenge.

Others are working with plasma reactors, which use water, electricity, and argon gas to break down PFAS. They’re fast, but also not easy to scale up.

The method described in the new paper, led by scientists at Northwestern, is promising for what they’ve learned about how to break up PFAS. It won’t scale up to industrial treatment, and it uses dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, but these findings will guide future discoveries about what might work.

What are we likely to see in the future?

A lot will depend on what we learn about where humans’ PFAS exposure is primarily coming from.

If the exposure is mostly from drinking water, there are more methods with potential. It’s possible it could eventually be destroyed at the household level with electrochemical methods, but there are also potential risks that remain to be understood, such as converting common substances such as chloride into more toxic by-products.

The big challenge of remediation is making sure we don’t make the problem worse by releasing other gases or creating harmful chemicals. Humans have a long history of trying to solve problems and making things worse. Refrigerators are a great example. Freon, a chlorofluorocarbon, was the solution to replace toxic and flammable ammonia in refrigerators, but then it caused stratospheric ozone depletion. It was replaced with hydrofluorocarbons, which now contribute to climate change.

If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that we need to think through the full life cycle of products. How long do we really need chemicals to last?

Tell us in the comments:

• Had you heard of PFAS or “forever chemicals” before reading this story?

• Do you filter your tap water?

• What other chemicals in our food supply are concerning to you?

Featured Image: iStock.com/SolStock

Read Next:

• Drinking Water Treatment: When It’s Necessary & What Your Options Are
• Safe and Healthy Cookware: What You Need To Know When Choosing Non-Toxic Pots & Pans

The post How to Destroy a “Forever Chemical” – Scientists Are Discovering Ways to Eliminate PFAS, but This Growing Global Health Problem Isn’t Going Away Soon appeared first on Food Revolution Network.

And that’s a good metaphor for okra’s complex culinary and cultural history. Rooted in Africa, okra traveled to the Americas and the Caribbean with the slave trade, its seeds literally woven into the hair of captive African women and girls. Once in the US South, the plant thrived in its fertile soils and long hot summers, even as many of the humans who cultivated and subsisted on it were forced to endure the brutalities of slavery. Today, okra is a staple of US Southern cuisine, where it is often served pickled, stewed with tomatoes, grilled, roasted, and — most commonly — mixed with celery, bell peppers, and onions in bowls of gumbo.

Okra grows eagerly in tropical and subtropical climates and offers many nutritional benefits. Despite these wonderful traits, okra isn’t universally appreciated, largely because of its unusual interior texture, which is sometimes described as sticky or slimy (especially when cooked). Some people are unfamiliar with it, don’t find it appetizing, or haven’t gotten the hang of cooking it in a way that works for them.

And some health-conscious plant-eaters may avoid okra because they associate it with deep frying, either solo or in hush puppies, or with animal products such as sausage gumbo.

Yet okra has a lot of potential, in terms of nutrition, health, culinary pleasure — and even environmental healing. In this article, we’ll explore what okra has to offer.

What Is Okra?

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is a six-foot-tall annual herb in the mallow family. Its relatives include such diverse cousins as cotton, hibiscus, and hollyhock. The okra you see in the grocery store or at the farm stand is the seed pod, which can grow up to a foot long once mature.

Okra is picked and eaten, though, when the pods are still unripe and tender, and typically between three and six inches long. (Any longer and they get very fibrous, and not even lots of cooking can soften them up.) Okra has a unique texture and slightly sweet flavor.

The big thing about okra pods is that they exude a mucilaginous juice (some say slime) once cut. Some folks are really turned off by this texture, and as a result, miss out on lots of okra goodness. (Spoiler alert — later in this article you’ll see how to prepare okra in a totally slime-free manner.) But it’s partly due to its mucilaginosity (sorry, spell checker, I like the word, and I’m sticking with it) that okra has become such a key part of many cuisines in the US South — the juice helps cooks out by thickening stews, such as gumbos, inexpensively and deliciously.

If you’ve never tried it, I can try to explain what okra tastes like by saying it’s a cross between asparagus and eggplant, but that totally doesn’t do it justice. So I hope this article will convince you to give it a try, so you can come up with your own description.

We’re not sure who first cultivated okra — Southeast Asia, India, and Africa are all contenders, as each region has a long culinary history with the pod. One likely theory posits that okra originated from the Abyssinian area that now includes Ethiopia, a portion of Eritrea, and the eastern, higher part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. From there, okra may have spread first into Egypt, and then Arabia, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and eastward.

Cultural Importance of Okra

Okra arouses strong feelings, and not just because of its texture. Its history in the Western hemisphere is a story replete with love and hope, cruelty and suffering, oppression and self-determination. Long before it found its way to the Americas and the Caribbean via the slave trade, okra was (and still is) a staple food in many African cultures. In fact, the word “okra” comes from “nkuruma,” the name of the vegetable in the Twi language spoken in a region of West Africa that is now known as the Republic of Ghana.

The word “gumbo,” which originally was a synonym for okra but later referred to any dish in which okra appeared, derives directly from the Angolan word for okra, “ngombo.” Oral history accounts tell of enslaved African women bringing a number of important seeds to the Americas — including not just okra, but also rice and other vegetables and grains — by hiding them in their braided hair. To see how this might have been accomplished, check out this video of Maroon women in the Republic of Suriname demonstrating a hair braiding technique passed down from their ancestors to hide seeds:

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Okra, which had been an essential crop in Africa, thrived in the Southern US and helped enslaved Africans survive in a new land. They were sometimes responsible for growing their own subsistence rations, in addition to working for plantation owners. Crops like okra became staple foods for enslaved peoples. Okra, in particular, grew extremely well throughout the long, hot, Southern summers and eventually became a staple in Southern American cooking.

In addition to its African culinary roots, okra is also embedded in Southeast Asian and Indian culinary traditions. The okra pod is known as “lady finger” across some Asian and European countries, “bhindi” on the Indian subcontinent, and “bamia” in the Middle East.

Okra Nutrition Facts

Okra has been valued as a staple despite not being a high source of energy — a pound of cooked okra provides only 100 calories. In other words, if you were going to live on okra, you’d pretty much have to make eating okra your full-time job. But while it’s low in calories, okra shines by providing many important nutrients. It’s a good source of fiber as well as multiple vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C, vitamin K1, and folate.

Okra fruits contain phenolic compounds, which are powerful antioxidants that combat oxidative stress in the body. Okra seeds, in particular, are antioxidant treasure troves. Compared to okra skins and flesh, the seeds have 10 times higher concentrations of one type of phenolic compound, flavonols, and almost 15 times higher of another, catechins.

In 100 grams of cooked okra (which is about 1 cup), you’ll find the following nutrients:

• Calories 22 kcal
• Protein 1.87 g
• Carbohydrates 4.51 g
• Fiber 2.5 g
• Calcium 77 mg
• Magnesium 36 mg
• Phosphorus 32 mg
• Potassium 135 mg
• Vitamin C 16.3 mg
• Folate 46 mcg
• Vitamin A 14 mcg
• Vitamin K 40 mcg

Health Benefits of Okra

As the proud provider of so many vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other phytonutrients, okra’s unique biochemical profile makes it particularly relevant to a number of specific conditions.

Okra for Gut Health

If you were busy in the fall of 2015, you might have missed the riveting study in the journal Molecules titled, “Acetylated Rhamnogalacturonans from Immature Fruits of Abelmoschus esculentus Inhibit the Adhesion of Helicobacter pylori to Human Gastric Cells by Interaction with Outer Membrane Proteins.” On the off chance that you missed it, let me fill you in.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a bacterium that can infect your stomach and damage the tissues in your digestive tract, as well as cause inflammation and painful sores known as peptic ulcers. German and Indian researchers isolated compounds from okra and pitted them against the H. pylori in a test tube that also contained human stomach cells. While the okra compounds didn’t kill or harm the bacteria, they did prevent them from sticking. In theory, this can prevent H. pylori from causing damage even if someone is infected.

What’s more, some health researchers believe that the sliminess of okra, known as mucilage, could be helpful in the treatment of the condition known as leaky gut.

And a study completed in 2020 found that powdered okra fruit helped obese mice maintain healthy blood sugar levels, body weight, and liver composition. The powder appeared to achieve its effects by increasing the ratio of “good” to “bad” bacteria in the mice’s microbiomes. (Lest you get all warm and fuzzy at the idea of researchers seeking to alleviate the health problems of mice, I need to point out that the researchers were the ones who made the mice fat in the first place. Our view on the use of animals in medical research is here.)

Okra for Diabetes

The ability of okra to regulate blood sugar that we saw in that mouse study also makes it a useful plant food in the management of all forms of diabetes. Like other plants in the mallow family (no, that doesn’t include s’mores), okra appears to improve cells’ ability to absorb insulin. Unfortunately, most of the evidence comes from trials conducted on diabetic rats. For some reason, okra has not been extensively studied for its effects on human health. This is unfortunate since as a prolific tropical and subtropical plant, okra could be an inexpensive and widely accessible part of diabetes treatment.

Okra Can Help Fight Malnutrition

In that vein, okra may also be a potent ally in the effort to eradicate malnutrition globally. Specifically, okra plants accumulate several minerals critical to human health and store them in their seed pods. These include calcium, zinc, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and sodium.

If you’ve ever grown okra, its ability to bioaccumulate minerals from the soil will make sense — the plants’ roots are strong, thick, and tenacious (I know more than one person who had to replace their digging fork after attempting to clear the okra bed for fall or winter planting).

Real-world efforts show that okra’s promise to provide minerals to undernourished populations is no myth. Okra grown in kitchen gardens in Ethiopia and Uganda improved the health of the most vulnerable residents of refugee camps, including young children and pregnant and lactating women. Indeed, some cultures in Indonesia and Southeast Asia have encouraged pregnant women to eat okra or even drink okra water — its high folate content might explain why. (And there’s a tradition that consuming okra may lead to pregnancy by acting as an aphrodisiac — I couldn’t find any scientific evidence for this, so here’s a case where you might want to do your own experimentation.)

Okra May Help with Pain Relief

A very cruel-sounding 2013 study found that mice who received powdered okra extract exhibited reduced responses when subjected to various forms of pain, leading the researchers to assume that the powdered okra had an analgesic (pain-relieving) effect.

In 2020, an international team of food scientists assessed the chemical makeup and nutritional profile of Tunisian okra pods. They found several potential analgesic compounds among the dozens of phytonutrients. And for good (or bad) measure, they repeated the mouse experiments and reproduced the results of the 2013 study. The mice who consumed okra appeared to weather the pain inflicted by the researchers with less distress than those given a placebo.

Okra May Help Cognitive Performance

Okra may also enhance cognitive performance, or at least mitigate cognitive impairment. A 2014 study found that okra seed extracts improved the performance and reduced the stress of cognitively impaired mice on various tasks, including mazes and forced swims.

And a 2021 study found that okra can raise levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein related to the brain’s ability to learn new information, in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.

(My hope is that researchers can drop the animal experiments and focus on the effects of dietary excellence in people, since giving humans okra seems a lot kinder and also more relevant to humans than inflicting pain or forced swims on mice.)

Environmental Impacts of Okra

With okra, there’s both good and bad environmental news. On the plus side, it turns out that some of the carbohydrates in okra, when combined with fenugreek and tamarind, can remove microplastics from water.

This is a big deal. Microplastics are ubiquitous in our oceans, and end up in the tissues of fish. In 2019, the World Wildlife Federation estimated that the average person consumes around five grams of microplastic every week, with potentially devastating health effects, including endocrine disruption. And the microplastic-removing chemicals commonly used in water treatment facilities can themselves be toxic to humans, so these plant-powered polymers of polysaccharides (how’s that for putting p’s into production?) are welcome news.

On the other hand, conventionally grown okra can come with a large side of organophosphate pesticides. These chemicals are potential neurotoxins and have been found to cause cancer in both humans and animals. Indian researchers found over 18 kinds of organophosphates on okra sold in markets in the city of Hyderabad.

In addition to the organophosphate pesticides, conventional okra production relies heavily on the pesticides belonging to organochlorine, carbamate, pyrethroid, and neonicotinoid groups. Neonicotinoids may be harmful to bees and other pollinators, which is why the European Union has banned several of them.

The answer to avoiding pesticides is pretty simple — we can grow okra organically. And it’s fairly easy to do because the plant is resistant to most pests and diseases. Stink bugs and beetles can colonize the plants and chew up their leaves, but in small-scale growing operations such as home gardens and small farms, these are relatively easy to pick off by hand. So look for organic okra, or okra grown using integrated pest management protocols, or better still, if you live in a warm enough climate, grow your own!

Okra Side Effects

While okra is a nutritional powerhouse, some people should limit their consumption, or avoid it outright. Those with sensitivity to the salicylates or FODMAPs in okra may experience gastrointestinal symptoms upon eating it. Also, the saponins in okra (and other foods, including quinoa) are typically poorly absorbed and may cause irritation or other gastrointestinal symptoms in some people. Fortunately, soaking raw okra pods and cooking them (in the plant science community, these techniques are referred to as “standard processing methods” — gotta love some good jargon!) can mitigate these effects. Just like with quinoa — it’s best to soak okra first and rinse it well before cooking.

Okra is also known to interact with a couple of very common medications — the diabetes drug metformin, and the anti-clotting compound warfarin (due to okra’s high vitamin K content). So check with your health care professional if you’re taking either of those drugs before adding okra to your diet.

Finally, let’s talk about allergies. While the World Health Organization hasn’t found any research showing that eating okra can produce full-blown allergic reactions, there is some evidence that workers who pack or process okra may experience immediate hypersensitivity, or type I, allergic reactions. These immunoglobulin-mediated reactions, which trigger histamine production in response to exposure to the allergen, have only been documented in Nigeria.

Where to Buy & How to Choose Okra

When shopping for okra, look for bright green pods with no discoloration, scarring, or shriveled ends. A good length for an okra pod is 2–4 inches, although the main thing is that the fresh pod isn’t woody. You should be able to snap it in half or cut it easily with a sharp knife. If you find yourself reaching for a chainsaw, you are dealing with a post-consumption pod. Some farmers sell “baby okra,” which are simply smaller and less mature pods.

You can also find presliced, frozen okra, as well as commercially prepared canned or jarred pickled okra. Glass jars are preferable because the cans may contain BPA in the lining, but check the ingredients if you’re trying to avoid preservatives, excess sodium, or added sugar.

In terms of availability, you can generally find frozen, canned, or pickled okra in most grocery stores and supermarkets. Some will offer fresh pods in the produce section — this is common in regional stores and markets that serve Southern US states.

If you live in an okra-growing region, you are likely to find fresh okra at farmers markets from midsummer through fall, when it’s in season. And you can also procure fresh okra at international markets and grocery stores, especially South Asian or Indian markets.

How to Cook Okra & Use it in Recipes

The key thing when cooking okra is, for most people, to neutralize the sliminess while highlighting its uniquely pleasant flavor. One method involves roasting or baking whole pods. Depending on your oven, 10–15 minutes at 425° F (220° C), with or without oil, should cook okra thoroughly and do the trick.

If you have an air fryer, it was pretty much made for preparing yummy okra. See Nichole’s recipe below.

Other methods include sautéing, boiling, and grilling. (Follow the links for instructions and recipes.) To ensure that your sautéed or boiled okra is slime-free, let the pods soak with salt and an acid like vinegar or lemon juice, or cook them in tomato sauce. Soaking isn’t necessary for air frying, grilling, or roasting/baking because the slime dries out in the heat.

Of course, you can make the sliminess your friend by using okra to thicken soups, stews, and gumbos as well as sauces. Okra shines in curries and other fragrant Indian dishes and can make an elegant appetizer or side dish. You can also preserve a large harvest (which you’ll get if you grow your own) by pickling or canning the pods.

Okra also adds pizzazz to salads, like this Japanese-style one, and stir-fries.

Here are some recipes to help you build your okra momentum.

Okra Recipes

Are you ready to give okra a try? Crispy Okra Fries with Garlic Cashew Cream are a crunchy, dippable, and craveable delight that makes okra a shining star. Red Bean Gumbo with Okra is a traditional and savory stew that is satisfyingly delicious and makes okra both appetizing (trust us, you’ll understand once you try it) and also exciting! And if you’re ready to take on the title of okra connoisseur, then Pickled Okra is a deliciously tangy way to enjoy okra. You’ll be surprised to find it’s bursting with lots of flavor, texture, and crunch — it may become your new favorite way to snack on vegetables throughout the day.

1. Crispy Okra Fries with Garlic Cashew Cream

These undeniably delicious fries and dipping sauce come together in just minutes to make the perfect snack or side dish for any of your favorite plant-based sandwich recipes. Crunchy, dippable, craveable, and incredibly delightful, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t tried okra this way before. Its versatility, flavor, and nutrient profile — boasting high calcium, zinc, iron, potassium, and phosphorus — make it a veggie deserving its time in the spotlight. We hope once you give it a try, you’ll love it as much as we do.

2. Red Bean Gumbo with Okra

As we have learned, okra can be a polarizing vegetable, but if you’re on team “no okra, please,” you might want to reconsider — starting with this dish. Okra is rich in magnesium, folate, vitamin C, vitamin K, fiber, and more! Add stewed red kidney beans, savory herbs and spices, and whole grains to it and you have a bountiful, nourishing, and tasty dish that will be hard not to love.

3. Pickled Okra

Pickling vegetables is a culinary tradition, not only as a means of preservation but also as a way to add briny and acidic pungency to dishes. You might wonder how to use this seed pod in pickled form — do you eat it on its own, top it on a salad, or add it to a soup or stew? The answer to all of the above is yes! Pickled okra is a deliciously tangy way to enjoy the veggie — it’s bursting with flavor, texture, and crunch, and best of all, none of the slime. Try it on any savory dish that needs a little extra tang and nutrition.

Okra IS Good for You!

Okra is a controversial food due to its tendency to be slimy when cut, and because of its complicated history and the tragic context of its journey to the Americas and Caribbean. If you didn’t grow up eating it, you may think of okra as exotic and it may feel at first like an acquired taste. But for many people around the world, okra is a beloved vegetable of great culinary value and deep historical roots.

And whether you know okra well or are just learning about it, the fact remains that it is a highly nutritious vegetable with multiple health benefits and few potential downsides. Raw, cooked, or pickled, okra deserves your attention, and — I predict — your appreciation as well.

Tell us in the comments:

• Have you tried okra? What was your first impression?
• If you have a cultural tradition of cooking with okra, what’s your favorite way to enjoy it?
• What plant-based okra recipe will you try?

Feature Image: iStock.com/HONG VO

Read Next:

• Making Food Accessible for All: An Interview with Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm
• Healthy Vegan Soul Food

The post What Is Okra & Is it Good for You? 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.

Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

You know what else is everywhere, and mostly inaccessible? Nitrogen. And in order to understand the science of nitrates and nitrites in food and water as they relate to our individual and planetary health, we have to learn a bit about the nitrogen cycle, and why this most abundant atmospheric element plays so hard to get with the organisms that depend on it for their existence.

But why do we care about nitrates and nitrites in the first place?

Nitrates and Nitrites: Friends or Foes?

Scientists began sounding the alarm in the 1960s when it was discovered that nitrates and nitrites, which were used to cure meats such as hot dogs, ham, and bacon, appeared to cause cancer in laboratory animals. (Our view on the use of animals in medical research is here.)

Paradoxically, at the same time, we were learning that the nitrates and nitrites in plants, which are chemically identical to their synthetic counterparts found in meat preservatives, seemed to be good for us. The 1998 Nobel Prize for Medicine went to three researchers who figured out that nitric oxide gas does our cardiovascular system a world of good, dilating arteries and blood vessels and thereby lowering blood pressure.

And we get nitrates and nitrites from environmental sources, like drinking water.

So what’s the deal? Should we avoid nitrates and nitrites from all sources, or only some? And if some are good and some aren’t, what’s the difference?

The Nitrogen Cycle

Before we define ‘nitrate’, let’s start with the basic science that you might have learned in high school biology. The most common thing in the air all around us is the chemical element nitrogen, abbreviated N in the periodic table. Nitrogen makes up 78% of our atmosphere, while oxygen comes in second at around 20%.

It’s a good thing there’s so much nitrogen because it’s a critical component of protein, as well as DNA, the genetic code that makes life possible at all. Without nitrogen, plants and animals simply wouldn’t exist.

But here’s the rub. Like Coleridge’s mariner, nitrogen that we can’t access surrounds us. The nitrogen in the air (chemically abbreviated as N2, since it’s two nitrogen atoms bonded together so tightly that nobody else stands a chance, like that popular couple from 12th grade) is biologically inert. Plants can’t use it for structure or growth, and animals can’t breathe it into their cells.

Nature compensates for this gap in two very cool ways. One is lightning, which “fixes” nitrogen (no, there’s nothing wrong with it; “fixing” is just science-speak for “making bioavailable by adding oxygen”). The other is a wonderfully complex process involving bacteria that live in the soil, either freely or attached to the root nodules of legumes. These bacteria perform the super-crucial task of adding hydrogen atoms to the inert nitrogen gas. This converts the nitrogen into ammonia and ammonium, which plants can turn into nitrogen-containing organic molecules, such as amino acids and DNA.

So What Are Nitrates and Nitrites?

Still with me? After the nitrifying bacteria does it’s thing, some of the ammonia and ammonium is converted into a chemical compound called nitrate (NO3) by other bacteria that strip out the hydrogens and replace them with oxygens. And some nitrates get converted to nitrites (NO2) by microbes, either in the soil or in the microbiomes of animals.

In essence, the definition of nitrates are chemical compounds, either natural or manmade, containing both nitrogen and oxygen atoms. Nitrates formed as part of the natural nitrogen cycle are major plant nutrients. Nitrites, while also part of the nitrogen cycle, are formed by the oxidation of ammonia and Nitrobacter bacteria.

However, the plot thickened when humans discovered how to produce nitrates and nitrites synthetically. That 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine, awarded for the discovery of nitric oxide, was funded from a bequest by Alfred Nobel, the guy who figured out how to turn nitroglycerin (see that “nitro” prefix there?) into dynamite. In addition to explosives, synthetically fixed nitrogen helped create fertilizers and food additives.

It’s the synthetic creation of food additives that triggered the initial concern about the health effects of nitrates and nitrites.

So, to answer the question, “What are nitrates and nitrites?” The layperson’s definition of nitrate is it’s a chemical compound (NO3) that combines nitrogen and oxygen, which plants need to grow. And the definition of nitrite is it’s also a chemical compound (NO2) that is often used as a food preservative.

The Controversy Over Nitrates and Nitrites in Food

So, are nitrates and nitrites bad for you? To answer that, we have to consider what source they come from, as well as the effects of nitrates and nitrites on the human body.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the puzzle: Naturally occurring nitrates and nitrites in plant foods appear to be really good for us, while the same compounds — when used to preserve and intensify the flavor of meats, smoked fish, some dairy products, and even beer — raise our risk for certain cancers. Processed meat also appears to increase our risk of other chronic conditions, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

How is this possible? Why does the source matter so much?

It turns out that nitrates and nitrites are heavily influenced by the company they keep. When they hang out with fruits and veggies, they convert into nitric oxide (NO), which helps our cardiovascular system operate at peak capacity. But when they’re paired with animal products, or created synthetically, they end up as nitrosamines, which may lead to malignancies in our digestive tracts.

Synthetic Nitrates & Nitrites

So what’s wrong with using nitrates and nitrites to preserve meat? There are a few key factors.

First, synthetic nitrates and nitrites are often combined with minerals, such as sodium. When you see sodium nitrate or sodium nitrite on a food label, that’s what we’re talking about. And these forms of the compounds cause disease in humans.

Sodium nitrates and nitrites react with other molecules, which is where the problem starts. Some of those molecules include degraded bits of amino acids that develop as proteins naturally break down in our bodies. The compounds that emerge when nitrates and nitrites are combined with degraded amino acids include N-nitroso compounds (mysteriously abbreviated NOCs, because I don’t see anything starting with “O” in there) and nitrosamines. We can start producing these compounds in our mouths and stomachs after ingesting sodium nitrates and nitrites.

Second, nitrates and nitrites in processed meat come packaged with their own generous supply of amino acids, right there in the food they’re preserving. Meat and other animal products naturally contain proteins, made up of amino acids, and the high heat used during the preservation process produces the NOCs and nitrosamine compounds even before we start digesting the meat or dairy.

Third, cooking preserved meats at high heat increases the conversion of sodium nitrates and nitrites into more dangerous compounds. Bacon, typically fried, is of particular concern here.

Nitrates, Nitrites, and Cancer

So what’s the problem with nitrosamines? They are strong carcinogens that may produce cancer in diverse organs and tissues including the lungs, brain, liver, kidneys, bladder, stomach, esophagus, and sinuses. One form, dimethylnitrosamine, causes liver tumors in rats. Of the other known nitrosamine compounds, 90% have been found to be carcinogenic.​​

It’s partly due to the nitrosamine content of processed meats that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared their consumption as “carcinogenic to humans.” The IARC assessed processed meat as a “highly probable” contributor to stomach and colorectal cancers.

It’s not just the body that gets messed up by synthetic nitrates in processed food. An analysis of more than 1,000 people with and without psychiatric disorders has shown that nitrates found in beef jerky, salami, hot dogs, and other processed meat snacks may contribute to mania — a potentially dangerous mood state that may involve sleeplessness, along with hallucinations, psychosis, grandiose delusions, or paranoid rage.

How are Nitrates and Nitrites in Vegetables Different?

Ok, so if nitrates and nitrites are so dangerous in processed meats, should we try to limit their consumption across the board? What about in plant foods?

It turns out that certain plant foods, especially green leafy vegetables and root vegetables, are loaded with nitrates. In fact, plants provide about 80% of the nitrates in our diets. The plants get them directly from the soil, as part of the nitrogen cycle we examined earlier.

Our contribution to this process is to chew these plant foods well. Bacteria in our saliva, along with the physical mastication of food, convert the nitrates into nitrites. We swallow that saliva, which exposes our gut to high levels of nitrites that then turn into nitric oxide.

Nitrates from plant foods are not harmful, for a few reasons.

1. Plant-Based Foods Contain Less Overall Protein

First, there’s significantly less protein in plant-based foods than animal foods, so there’s much less raw material out of which to make nitrosamines.

2. There’s No Heme in Plant Foods

Second, even in the presence of protein, there’s another chemical that’s needed to form some of the most concerning nitrosamine compounds: heme. And heme, and the proteins that bind to it, are found exclusively in animal foods. Red meat, in particular, contains heme proteins (which give it that reddish color). And research shows that heme reacts with nitrates and nitrites in an acidic environment (and remember, your stomach is a churning vat of acid that would put any horror movie scene to shame) and forms nitrosamines in the lower intestine.

Plant foods are heme-free, with one recent exception: the Impossible Foods brand uses bioengineered (BE) heme from hemoglobin in soy root nodules in their meat analogues. Their goal, which they accomplish, is to create plant-based meat that “bleeds,” and that has the slightly bloody taste that many meat-eaters have grown accustomed to. We don’t yet know with certainty how the BE hemoglobin affects human health because it’s so new.

3. Plant-Based Foods Contain Antioxidants

In addition to plants being lower in protein and devoid of heme, they also contain compounds that actively inhibit the formation of nitrosamines in the gut or mouth. The big ones are the antioxidants, especially vitamins C and E. And neither occurs naturally in animal products.

A 2013 study of over 70,000 women found that the risk of colorectal cancer in those who ate a lot of red and processed meat increased only in those women who didn’t consume sufficient vitamin C. In fact, the bottom fifth in terms of vitamin C intake was 245% more likely to develop colon or rectal cancer than the top fifth.

The link between vitamin C and reduced cancer risk from nitrates prompted legislators to require some meat producers, particularly the bacon industry, to add sodium ascorbate or sodium erythorbate (both chemically similar to ascorbic acid, or vitamin C) to prevent the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines. Nice idea, but the science shows that it’s probably backfired big time. For reasons we don’t understand, adding these vitamin C analogues to bacon just turbocharges nitrosamine production, by up to a whopping 140 times.

Uncured Meats with Plant-Based Nitrates Are Still Harmful

Some processed meat brands claim not to include nitrates. The punchline is, they do. In an example of bureaucratic insanity, bacon that doesn’t contain synthetic nitrates or nitrites must contain the “uncured” label. But despite the “uncured” label, in reality they are cured — using a vegetable extract naturally high in nitrates (celery is the most common, but beets and other veggies are used as well).

Remember, the problem with nitrates and nitrites in animal-based foods is the company they keep — animal protein, heme iron, and high heat. Organic nitrates from celery act just like synthetic nitrites when added to bacon and sausage links.

Do Nitrates Offer Any Health Benefits?

It’s not just that plant-based nitrates and nitrites aren’t bad for you; they’re actually full of important health benefits, thanks to the wonderful effects of nitric oxide (NO) on cardiovascular function. When you eat leafy greens or root vegetables — and chew well — the bacteria in your mouth strip away one of the oxygen molecules from the nitrates, to make nitrites. Next, the nitrites metabolize into NO in your stomach and blood vessels.

Heart Health Benefits from Nitrates in Plants

Healthy arteries benefit from NO, which helps prevent atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, and erectile dysfunction in men. Plant foods high in nitrates, such as beets, also appear to aid athletic performance by allowing the cardiovascular system to work more efficiently under stress. In fact, one of the reasons vigorous exercise can be good for you might be the extra NO produced when you’re slightly oxygen-deprived.

In short, the more leafy greens and root veggies you eat, combined with other lifestyle habits like not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight, the more NO you make, and the less likely you are to suffer from heart disease.

Plant-Based Nitrates May Help with Aging and Memory

Nitrates in vegetables may also help in the prevention and treatment of age-related cognitive decline. NO has been shown to increase blood flow to at-risk areas of the aging brain, particularly the frontal lobes. A small 24-person study published in 2019 gave high doses of nitrate-rich beetroot juice or a placebo (sorry, but we won’t be sharing the recipe for “placebo beetroot juice” below) to a group of younger and older people, measured their vitals (heart rate and blood pressure), and gave them a cognitive challenge called a Stroop test. (It’s a fun test; you can take it yourself in 60 seconds.) Those who had just consumed real beetroot juice did significantly better on the test, suggesting that plant-based nitrites can help all ages think better.

Another study found that a single serving a day of leafy greens or other plant foods rich in antioxidants and nitrates may help to slow cognitive decline. Almost 1,000 participants (ages 58-99) of the Memory and Aging Project were followed for about five years. Researchers asked about their diets and gave them cognitive tests. The participants who consumed at least one daily serving of high-antioxidant and high-nitrate plant foods were found to be a whopping 11 years younger, on average, from a cognitive perspective, than those who ate the fewest of these veggies.

Nitrates in Our Water Supply

Nitrates aren’t just in veggies and processed meats; we can also get them from our water supply. And that isn’t a good thing.

The combustion of fossil fuels over the past couple of centuries has dramatically increased the amount of nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere. This can lead to smog and acid rain; that is, a transfer of active nitrogen compounds from the earth to the air and water. (Go here if you want a kid-friendly discussion of the nitrogen cycle.)

Since humans figured out how to produce nitrogen compounds for explosives and fertilizer, we’ve been using them like they’re going out of style (which wouldn’t be a bad thing, if you ask me). Farmers and large agribusinesses routinely apply nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizers and manure from factory farms to crops that are grown on nutrient-depleted soil. (Important sidenote: A large share of the corn, soy, and other fertilizer-intensive crops in North America go to livestock, not humans, so the meat industry’s fingerprints are all over nitrate-related pollution.)

​​Unless farmers build specialized structures to contain the runoff, heavy rains can shuttle these materials into nearby streams, lakes, and groundwater. Some of the highest levels of nitrate are in shallow wells and surface water subject to runoff from nitrogen fertilizers and confined animal feedlot operations. The problem isn’t just bad numbers on a water test; the excrement and contamination from agricultural runoff can make life all but unbearable for nearby residents.

Nitrates in Drinking Water

Nitrates in drinking water have been implicated in the development of methemoglobinemia, a mouthful and a half — known more colloquially as “blue baby syndrome.” In this sometimes fatal condition, the hemoglobin in blood is unable to carry oxygen throughout the body.

In general, the nitrate contribution to our diets from drinking water is low. But in places where synthetic fertilizer use is widespread, water may be a significant source of nitrate exposure in humans. If you have access to a test of your water quality, you can see if the nitrate levels are in the acceptable range. The nonprofit Water Quality Association recommends nitrate levels no higher than 10 mg/liter, and nitrite levels at 1 mg/liter or lower.

Unfortunately, conventional drinking water treatment processes (like those used by local treatment plants) do not remove nitrates from water. I’ll share more on what you can do about this below.

It’s not just humans who suffer when nitrogen compounds flood our waterways. Excess nitrogen from agriculture can also lead to toxic algal blooms in rivers and lakes. What happens is, the nitrogen acts as a fertilizer for algae that grow in the water. They proliferate, use up all the oxygen, and thereby suffocate all other aquatic life.

What You Can Do About Dietary Nitrates

While unwanted nitrates and nitrites in our food and water supplies are a global health and environmental issue, there are things you can do to reduce your personal exposure to the “bad kinds.” First, avoid or limit foods already high in synthetic nitrates or nitrites or which convert to harmful nitrosamines in the absence of antioxidants.

Examples of nitrates in food to avoid include:

• Bacon (for healthy alternatives click here)
• Hot dogs (for healthy alternatives click here)
• Sausages
• Many brands of beef jerky
• Processed deli meats
• Beef, pork, lamb, and other meats
• Some kinds of smoked fish and poultry (those cured with brines that contain sodium nitrite)
• Any other cured or smoked animal products
• Cow cheese (for healthy alternatives click here)
• Beer (for more on the health impacts of alcohol click here)

Determine your drinking water exposure and, if indicated, use a water filtration system. If you live in the US and don’t have access to a test, here’s an EPA chart that gives you a sense of how contaminated your water is likely to be, by state. If your nitrate levels are too high — or likely to be too high — you may choose to install a home water treatment system such as an ion exchange, distillation, or reverse osmosis system. If the nitrates are fine but the nitrites are high, you have an additional option: a Berkey water filter can remove nitrites, but not nitrates.

Plant-Based & Beneficial Nitrates

Of course, let’s not forget about the good guys! Even though nitrates in the wrong context can be harmful, nitrates in plant foods can be fabulous.

And eat foods high in beneficial nitrates that are also a rich source of antioxidants, such as:

• Leafy greens
• Herbs like basil and cilantro
• Beets
• Rhubarb
• Celery
• Radishes
• Green beans
• Broccoli
• Mushrooms
• Strawberries

Recipes Using Good Dietary Nitrates

Swap out dishes that aren’t serving you, like meat-based soup, cheesy salads, or beef burgers, with Creamy Arugula and White Bean Soup, Crunchy Kale Slaw, and Beet Burgers. These dishes are not only satisfying and bursting with flavor, but the leafy greens, beets, and celery also provide healthy nitrates and other plant-based nutrients — such as fiber, vitamin C, and folate — that can help you thrive and feel your best. Heck, if you’re going for the gold, enjoy all three as a meal, starting with the Creamy Arugula and White Bean Soup, followed by the Beet Burgers topped with Crunchy Kale Slaw. Yum!

1. Creamy Arugula and White Bean Soup

Get three nitrate-rich ingredients — cilantro, celery, and arugula — in just one soup! And that’s not all — you’re also getting plenty of fiber, vitamin E, and healthy fats from the avocado and hemp seeds, more fiber plus protein from the beans, and vitamin C from the tomato. And that’s just the short list of nutritional awesomeness!

2. Crunchy Kale Slaw

Nitrate-rich Crunchy Kale Slaw requires no cooking and just a little shredding (which may be therapeutic for some!), making this a dish that gives back oodles of nutrition in exchange for very little effort. The kale, cabbage, and carrots provide health-promoting nitrates, plus lots of other nutrients as well. Enjoy it solo, as a side dish, or on top of tacos and wraps.

3. Beet Burgers

Swap out carcinogenic meat nitrates with health-supportive plant nitrates in these oh-so-satiating veggie burgers. You’re also adding potent phytonutrients from the beets, beans, and spices that act as antioxidants and fight carcinogens. And did we mention that these tasty patties are simple to make?

In Conclusion

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the mariner brings about near-disaster by killing a helpful albatross. As punishment and in the hopes of appeasing the spirits that torment them, the sailors force the mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck. The expression “albatross around the neck” has referred ever since to a heavy burden of guilt that becomes an obstacle to success.

Our reliance on industrialized animal agriculture not only harms the animals involved; it’s also an albatross around our own necks, leading to individual and public health harms and environmental crises. Nowhere is this clearer than the widespread problems caused by excess nitrogen compounds added to meat products, and now found in our air, water, soil, and bodies.

But it’s important to remember that not all nitrates and nitrites are bad, nor do they act in similar ways in the body. Plant-based nitrates and nitrites, especially those from whole leafy greens and root vegetables, and especially when combined with plant-based antioxidants, contribute to cardiovascular, sexual, and cognitive health. The problematic nitrates and nitrites are those added to animal products, and those from industrial — especially animal — agriculture that make their way into our water supply and water ecosystems.

It may take a while for our society to stop killing the metaphorical albatrosses and find our way into a harmonious relationship with our environment. But while we strive together for that better world, we can take individual steps to come into right relationship with the natural world, for its sake and our own, through the food on our plates.

Bottom Line: Should You Avoid Nitrates or Nitrites?

The short answer is: Say yes to plant-based nitrites and nitrates. Say no to synthetic and animal-based nitrites and nitrates. And have your water tested if you are concerned about NO2 or NO3 in your water.

Tell us in the comments:

• What are your favorite leafy green and root vegetables?

• Have you ever had your water tested? What did you learn?

• What plant-based, nitrate-rich recipe will you try next?

Feature Image: iStock.com/Zbynek Pospisil

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