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Musings Report 2017:37 9-16-17 Is This One Reason Why We're Getting Fatter (and Undernourished)?
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Is This One Reason Why We're Getting Fatter (and Undernourished)?
Every once in a while you run across a story that's based on common-sense science that pretty much any high school graduate can understand that has languished because it doesn't fit existing narratives or silos in the scientific community.
This is one such story:
The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
The basic idea here is straightforward: fossil fuels are increasing the amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere; CO2 boosts plant growth, specifically the production of complex sugars(carbohydrates). As a result of higher CO2 levels, there are now measurably higher levels of complex sugars in our food.
So where a 100 gram serving of plant-based food contained X (quantity of) complex sugars 40 years ago, now the same 100 gram serving contains X+10 complex sugars. These might be small additions of complex sugars when viewed in isolation, but over time they may well add up to an extra pound or two of weight gain per person in a year's time, an incremental increase that adds 10 to 20 pounds per decade. An additional 20 pounds has significantly negative impacts on human health.
At the same time, levels of nutrients and micro-nutrients are significantly lower than they were a few decades ago.
There are a number of hypotheses about why this is so, one obvious one being that crops are selected (or engineered) for traits such as increasing yield, rapid maturity, ability to withstand being packed and shipped without bruising, etc.--in other words, all the traits that increase profitability.
As a generality, few crops are selected for better flavor and higher nutritive density at the expense of profit-maximizing traits.
I think a major factor in the decline of nutrients in our food that also gets little notice or research is the exhaustion of soil. Soil is a complex ecosystem, and it's effectively disrupted by plowing, over-watering, herbicides and the constant use of chemical fertilizers.
If you garden or tend fruit trees, you have probably observed the dramatic effects of NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) fertilizers on nitrogen-deprived struggling rose bushes, shrubs and fruit trees.
My own experience is that fruit trees and other large plants are often nitrogen-phosphorus deficient, even when you've applied compost and occasional manure-based fertilizers. No wonder for-profit agriculture applies so much NPK fertilizer.
But NPK fertilizers don't provide any micro-nutrients, nor do they provide a full spectrum of nutrients for the soil itself--all the micro-organisms that make up productive soil.
For this reason, I apply compost and organic fertilizer that includes complex natural fertilizers such as bird guano and composted materials, and sparingly apply NPK with compost only when severe deficiencies need to be addressed.
In other words, if you want healthy food, you need healthy plants, and if you want healthy plants, you need healthy soil. Slamming soil with NPK gets results in terms of yields (and therefore profits), but it doesn't restore soils depleted of nutrients or nurture healthy soil.
Unfortunately, an "organic" or "bio" label doesn't tell us much about the soil or micro-nutrient content of the food; all these labels tell us is that no pesticide or herbicide or chemical fertilizer was used. As a result, even organic/bio plant-based foods might well be deficient in nutrients and micro-nutrients.
The take-away for me is two-fold: if our food contains increasing quantities of complex sugars, it behooves us to identify foods/grains that are packed with enough other nutrients that a modest increase in complex sugars won't make much of a difference in our over-all diet or health.
The second take-away is the only way to really know about the quality and health of the soil your food was grown in is to have your own garden or farm, and/or become well-acquainted with the people and land that are producing your food.
I realize this isn't entirely practical for most of us, but it can be a goal and principle we try to follow whenever possible.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Hey Advertisers: The Data-Mining Emperor Has No Clothes 9/15/17
Dear Jamie Dimon: Predict the Crash that Takes Down Your Produces-Nothing, Parasitic Bank and We'll Listen to your Bitcoin "Prediction" 9/14/17
Yes, This Time It Is Different: But Not in Good Ways 9/13/17
Housing Bubble Symmetry: Look Out Below 9/12/17
On Repairing/Rebuilding 100,000+ Damaged Houses 9/11/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Saw a PBS program on Mitsuo Aoki, Religion professor at University of Hawaii-Manoa when I attended 1971-75. Aoki became a guiding light in the "living your death" hospice movement. He died in 2010 at age 95. When taking his class in 1972, my girlfriend and I went to his house to make Buddha's Feast as our class project. This was a bit unusual, as the class had over 200 students and was held in a movie theater off campus. We were both nervous 19-year olds, cooking a famous professor a meal at his house, but he and his wife were very gracious. After that, he would recognize us on campus and come up to chat.
Market Musings: Doc Copper and the Global Reflation
Copper is widely considered a gauge of global economic health--when demand for copper rises, the global economy is expanding. When demand for copper fades, the global economy is recessionary or stagnant.
I last looked at copper in May of this year; it broke out of the descending wedge and rose to new heights in August.
It has since declined a bit, raising the question: is this the top of copper and the Global Reflation Trade, or just a pause that refreshes?
The 50-week and 200-week moving averages offer us some guidance. The sharp rise in November 2016 catapulted copper above the 50-week MA, up to the resistance/support of the 200-week MA.
After six months of noodling around, copper has surged above the 200-week MA.
The area around $2.65 is now critical, as the moving averages have converged at this level: the 50 is crossing bullishly through the 200.
If the global economy is truly sound and expanding, copper might come down and touch the 200-week MA in a standard test of support, and then rocket higher in another extended Bull leg.
On the other hand, if copper falls decisively below both the 50 and 200-week MAs, that is a strong signal the Global Reflation Trade story has either ended or is in serious peril.
From Left Field
How Rich Chinese Use Visa Fixers to Move to the U.S. (via Adam T.) -- $500K is way too cheap; $2.5 million should be minimum, $5 million even better--and must hire 10 citizens in a new enterprise for at least 5 years.
The myths of recovery: Why American households aren’t better off -- as I've been saying...
This Fascinating City Within Hong Kong Was Lawless For Decades -- too bad it was demolished...
The Lewis Model Explains Every Culture In The World --or not....
How did 'The Prisoner' ever get made? -- essay on the dark Brit TV series...
What's Really Warming the World? -- info-graphic....
The Situation In The Markets Is Much Worse Than You Realize -- too bad we don't have 'markets' any more...
These Are Not the Robots We Were Promised (Amazon's Alexa and Echo, Google Home and Apple HomePod)
Cold War lessons in coercive diplomacy for dealing with North Korea today -- common sense suggestions...
Why Oil Prices Can’t Bounce Very High; Expect Deflation Instead -- the conundrum of our era...
How the Top 1% Keeps Getting Richer The wealthiest invest less in housing and more in stocks, generating higher returns -- which the central banks are engineering with trillions in asset purchases...
We Lived Through a Flood. Now We Have a Very Long To-Do List. (from Houston)
What the Rich Don't Tell Us -- the hidden guilt of those inheriting millions...
"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise." Tacitus
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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