Bionutrient Food Association - Nutrient Density Listening Session - Netherlands.

Category: Agriculture Innovation

Tags: DensityHealthNutrientSoilSpectroscopy

Entities: Acres USABiionutrient Food AssociationBlue BlancorDan KridgeHubble Space TelescopeJames Webb Telescope

Transcript

00:00

to say bye.

00:19

>> Thank you all for coming. Um, my name is Dan Kridge.

I'm guessing most people know that much. Um, it seems like almost no one knows why they're here.

Um, which is kind of exciting. So um let me give a little bit of context and then we'll step into the process.

Um

00:35

this is the third in a series of uh global listening sessions around this treaty um proposed treaty uh for the definition of nutrient density in food. So um for a bit of context um I grew up

00:51

on an organic farm in the US. My parents were leaders in the organic movement.

They wrote some of the first organic standards in the US in 1980s. I've been um you know through my professional career as a farmer um realized that there was more to it than just not using chemicals.

Um sort of delve deeply into

01:09

the principles um of how nature worked. I call them principles of biological systems.

learned from a bunch of elders in a community called Acres USA started in the 1970s by a guy named Charles Walters that had it was sort of a big tent and integrated wisdom from permaculture and biodnamics and

01:25

agroecology and organic and biochemistry and microbiology and quantum and indigenous traditions sort of a really of a broad a broad perspective. Um this was in the early early um 2000 2006 2007 um was exposed to this concept called

01:42

bricks which some people may here be familiar with. Um bricks was a Austrian chemist from the 1830s um who got a scale named after him.

Um people oftenimes mis state that bricks measures sugar. It is not.

It measures total

01:58

dissolved solids and angle of bend of light. Um, but when I got exposed to the concept of bricks and realized that there was a dramatic variation in nutrient levels in food that could be measured.

Um, and just because I was organic did not mean my stuff was better. Um, it sort of set off this

02:14

chain of insights in my head about um, what I was doing as a farmer and a whole bunch of other deeper implications. Um, I looked around at the permaculture community, at the organic community, the biodnamic community, the locavores.

Um, and everybody was basically talking

02:29

about how they were better. Um, and I thought if the better was nutritional value of food, um, there should be some way to measure it.

And if a bricks refometer was a way you could measure it and what we were actually finding was that there was a

02:45

profound variation across the board in everybody. Um maybe we should be focusing on the quality of food, not our our tribal identities.

I'm biodnamic, you're permaculture, we're organic, you're local. Um I asked the question to

03:00

the elders in the community, what is the term for this variation in nutrient levels in food? And they said basically there is none.

Um, and I said, "Well, it seems like it's a really important thing. Would you mind if I worked on it?" And I actually created a little manifesto and went to the mall and I

03:16

said, "I won't do this unless you give me your signature. Um, but I really think this is important and I want to do it." So, they all signed it.

Um, uh, at that point we coined I coined this term nutrient density. Um, to refer to this concept of that there's a dramatic variation in nutrient levels in food.

Um

03:34

and um you know um as I was farming and I was applying these principles got to the point in fairly short order where I was making a living working 20 hours a week on the farm because actually when you work with nature things are much more efficient. Um pests were gone,

03:50

diseases were gone, yield was up, shelf life, flavor, aroma, all these dynamics were dramatically improved and I had spare time. Um so I started giving workshops which turned into courses which turned into an educational nonprofit called the biionutrient food

04:05

association founded in 2010. Um spent a number of years uh doing courses uh set up an annual conference um teaching you know workshops etc.

um spread across North America with this information spread

04:21

into other other other countries um effectively helping farmers understand how to how nature evolved things to work and you know supporting them in shifting their practices to optimize system function from a biological perspective. Um and what we saw was that regardless

04:37

of the soil type, the climate zone, the crop, um the um individual practices, um you know, when you optimized soil health, system function improved, um carbon sequestered, ecosystem function

04:53

improved, pest and disease resistance improved, fertilizer applications dropped, um farmer profitability improved, shelf life, aroma, flavor, all these things improved when you worked more well with life. And we said, "My god, if this is true that by working well with life, we can

05:10

effectively solve a number of problems simultaneously. Wouldn't this be a great thing to um bring to scale?

There's a lot of problems in the world. This is the kind of thing that could be a solution." Um and so the question then became how would you take this and bring

05:25

it to scale? And the idea effectively was that um economics is a powerful force in today's day and age.

And if we could align economic incentive with ecological benefit with human health benefit um maybe we could get somewhere. And so so the grand vision um was that

05:43

we could give or make available to anybody who purchases food the ability to identify the quality of that food in real time with a flash of light. Um the science is called spectroscopy and um um people maybe have heard of the um the

06:00

Hubble Space Telescope. or the James Webb telescope.

Um we know that we can read what stars are made up of 10 million lighty years away uh with a flash of light. Um because every

06:16

element in chemistry is a vibration in physics. Copper vibrates at a certain frequency which effectively is a certain color.

Uh polyphenols and protein etc vibrate at certain frequencies. So the idea was the fantasy was the vision that

06:32

we could build a handheld consumerpriced flash of light meter that could be used at point of purchase to empower people who buy food for their families to choose the food that's most nutritious and leave on the shelf that which is least nutritious. Um and so this is a a

06:50

bit of work that we've been working on now for a number of years. I've got a slideshow that I'm going to present to walk people through some of the more specifics and get sort of frame frame the concept.

Um we have worked now uh for the past 4 years on defining what we call nutrient density in a crop which is

07:06

beef. Um and that nutrient density we're saying is a 1 to 100 standard.

So we can say that this steak is 20 out of 100, this steak is 40 out of 100, this steak is 80 out of 100 from a comprehensive systemic definition point. Um um we are

07:24

proposing to do this now on 20 crops in the next two and a half years. Um as we are a small NGO and have been doing all this work for a number of years based on effectively just impetuousness.

Um we think it's important so we're going to do it figured out one way or another. Um

07:42

you know that's great to get have gotten this far and to have not fallen apart and you know maintain forward motion etc. But um we now think it's time to to broaden this process to open it up and to see if we can coalesce a broader global um you know coalition around this

08:00

process. So so the process is um we've got a draft treaty.

I use the term treaty um intentionally. People may be familiar with um maybe a you know a human rights treaty or a treaty on I don't know um

08:17

uh fishing in the ocean you know um somebody drafts a treaty and then those participants who were interested in being part of it edit it. They review it.

They add comments. They critique it.

They rewrite stuff. Um and when that treaty process is complete, when there's

08:33

a final draft, people sign it. Um and so um what we're doing right now is we're engaging a a series a global series of listening sessions where we're bringing this treaty around the planet.

Um we did a couple sessions in Australia last month. We're doing a couple here in Europe.

This month we'll do some in

08:49

North America. Next month we're looking at um South America and Africa.

And we're hoping by the end of November to have a final draft that we'll be presenting at the Congress of Blue Blancour in France. People may or may not be familiar with Blue Blancor.

It's

09:04

the only certification label in the world that is connected to the nutritional caliber of food. And Blue Blancor has been around for a very long time.

They've got a brilliant ecosystem of of allies. It's a it's a wonderful community.

So, we're very honored to be able to present this final draft of the

09:20

treaty to their Congress at the end of November. Um, so we're in this window of time now of a couple months when we're engaging people globally in the conversation.

Um a few people are showing up in person, many more engaging online, editing, you know, commenting,

09:35

posting, etc. So, um all these events are being recorded.

Um the recordings are being put on the website for people to anybody wants to listen to any one of them. Some of them are live fed.

This one is not. Tomorrow in Budapest, we'll be um so that's the context for the

09:52

event. For those of you who didn't know why you're here, um, I'm going to present for an hour and then we would like you to offer comments, critiques, and suggestions.

So, you have a draft treaty in your hands. If at any point in time what I'm saying is boring to you, you can read a treaty while I'm

10:08

speaking. Um, I'll try to give you five or 10 minutes when I'm done speaking to read it and then our hope is that you will offer comment, critique, suggestion, insight, etc.

um we're really trying to um you know engage

10:24

thoughtful inter interlocutors in this conversation. So with that being said, I welcome anybody who doesn't want to be here to feel welcome to get up and walk out of the room if you didn't know why you came.

Um this is the agenda. So um

10:41

no no shame >> no shame >> in getting up. Okay.

Well um with that I'll I'll I'll proceed. Um, okay.

I think I said a bit about nutrient density. Uh, this is the farm I grew up on in central Massachusetts.

For what it's worth, this is the context. This is

10:56

my context. Um, um, I think I said that the BFA was founded in 2010.

Our mission is to increase quality in the food supply. And by quality, we're talking about flavor, aroma, nutritive value.

We're not talking about aesthetic and uniformity. Um, we're talking about

11:13

nutritional caliber. Um our our vision is that um the ambient level of from a nutritional standpoint of food on the planet for all people next year is higher than it is this year and the year after that is higher than it is next year.

We want to increase quality in the

11:29

food supply full stop for humans on the planet year on year on year. That's our vision.

Um and we're just going to be as strategic as we can about accomplishing it. Um I said this before we were founded in 2010.

Our original um intentions were to

11:47

um our work was education. These are um pictures of some of the speakers we've had at our conferences over the years.

Anybody who's in the movement probably recognizes a number of these faces. Um um so yeah, we've been attempting to curate um wise elders and and cutting

12:05

edge thoughts. uh every single presenter at every conference we've ever had has been recorded and is on our YouTube channel for free.

We are of the opinion that with our privilege uh here in the west, we should do what we can to capture the best insights and make them freely available to all on the planet.

12:21

So um actually I'm speaking tonight at our conference. This is a global conference.

So, we got people from um Europe, North America, Africa, Australia, and and Martin who's in the back is actually is actually on our on our is on our uh he's our young upand

12:39

cominging um it's a bunch of gay beards and elders and uh and um yeah, we try to bring some young people who are doing beautiful, passionate, wonderful thing in the community. Um so, yes, last week we were in England and we spoke with um Charles Dowing.

May have heard of

12:54

Charles Dowing. So he was on this he was I got to hang out with him at his farm uh for the lecture last night.

Oh, last week. Um and here we're in Nether ones this week.

So um anyway, that's all part of a living a living ecosystem that happens between 7:00 and 9:00

13:10

local time tonight. Um all right.

So the meat the meat of the presentation is the science the the work we've done to attempt to build sort of empirical veracity around this conversation. Um um uh when we sort of were first looking

13:27

into this conversation, we we had we thought, you know, in our in our ignorance, simple farmers um that there was a dramatic nutrient variation in food. Um it was our experience that you could plant the same seed, same variety, same soil, shift the practices and

13:44

experience dramatic variation in things like flavor and aroma. And we thought maybe that connected to nutrition.

And we we thought that maybe there was a dramatic variation in nutrient levels in food. Um when we went to the university professors um specialists and they and talked to them about this, they said, "No, you're wrong.

Um nutrient variation

14:01

is 2% 5% maybe 10% in some circumstances, but basically all food is uniform." Um they thought maybe that was not true. Um our second question was um what causes nutrient variation?

Our experience was it was something along the lines of soil health. when we

14:18

increased the system function of the microbiome, it seemed like all these things began to come together. Um, again, for anybody who's been, you know, properly studied in the agonomic literature, there's this thing called G by E by M, which means genetics by

14:34

environment by management. And so all variation was presumed to be either the soil um soil type or climate dynamics or genetics of the seed or individual management practices.

So, um, that was a thesis of what caused nutrient

14:50

variation. Um, our third question was, is it possible to build a handheld consumerpriced flash of light ray gun?

Can we actually create a dynamic where people could hold in their hands something with with a flash of light they could test nutrient levels in food? Um, we had this thesis that if we could

15:06

do that, if nutrient variation was significant, if it did connect to soil health, if meters could be built, that we could use that economic incentive of people choosing what's best for their families to shift the world. Um, effectively, if you can go to the grocery store, take three bags of carrots, burp 20, 40, 80, you know, your

15:25

Bunny Love and your Calorganic and your Bolt House Farms. I don't know what your brands are here in Europe, but um, those are three we couldn't get off the shelf in the US.

If you could flash a light at three and get three different readings, our thought is the average person would take the 80 and leave the 20 and that

15:40

pull through of all the 80s leaving the shelf because that person who's be able to do that might put on Facebook or Instagram, hey, this week Bunny Love is really good and Bolt House Farms and Caliganic are crappy. You know, all the people in town might

15:56

begin to pull all those good ones off the shelf and leave the worst. And so the thought is let that economic incentive pull through the better stuff that'll inspire the supply chain to focus on nutrition instead of volume.

Um so for that to be a true vision for it

16:11

to be plausible nutrient variation had to exist meters had to be able to be built at a consumer price point. And our thought about the regenerative implications of all this, which is that agriculture can have a positive impact on ecosystems, was that the cause of that nutrient variation, if it existed,

16:26

had to be something like systemic ecological, you know, health, not something like genetics or soil type or individual management practice. We thought it was that was a dynamic.

So we set about testing this thesis. In 2017, we began the work.

In 2016, we

16:43

identified the three questions. Is nut treat variation significant?

If so, what causes it? And can that variation be assessed with handheld instrumentation at a consumer price point?

Um, I will say we are a charity. We're an NGO.

We're we call it nonprofit where I come from in the US. Um, which means we're

17:00

not a for-profit entity. Um, so all the work that we're talking about here that I will talk about has been done in the commons.

Um, with >> Hello. You're welcome.

There's no chair for you, but you're welcome. >> Yes.

17:17

>> Hello. >> There's a couple comfortable chairs in the back, actually.

>> Yeah, I'll go there. >> Yeah, that's that's where you guys that's where I would have sat if I was had a choice.

Um

17:36

um so yeah. So all the work we've done um has been with charitable donations.

Everything that we've we've done is open source. It's in the commons.

It is not proprietary. It is not patented or

17:51

copyrighted. It is copy lifted which means it is legally in the commons for all.

It can never be locked up. So um everything I'm talking about just so you understand um is in that ethos for the greater good and then therefore has been funded through charitable donations not

18:07

through investment. um which will be one of the key points at the end of this conversation.

Um year 1 2017 we were able to raise enough money to build our first handheld spectrometer. Um we had a big party at our conference that year.

We released

18:23

it. A bunch of people came and saw it and like oh my god this is amazing.

You've been talking about it for years. Dan, this is great.

We had a meter. Um it couldn't do anything.

I mean it could flash lights and take a picture of what came back. But it didn't wasn't calibrated to anything.

But at least we were able to build a handheld consumerpriced flash of light meter.

18:38

That was 2017. 2018 we built our first lab in Michigan.

Um we uh we asked people to send in carrots and spinach from across u the US from grocery stores, farmers markets, farms, organic, not organic. We wanted to survey the supply chain from point of purchase.

We

18:55

weren't doing side-by-side randomized replicated trials. We were saying what's the nature of nutritional variation in the supply chain.

U we only looked at a few different elements and a couple compounds. Um but that was the basic question.

Um does variation exist in the supply chain? Our second year of lab

19:12

work was 2019. We set up our our second lab at Chico State University in California.

Um that year we got uh up to six six crops sent in. Um we farmers that were working with us, we had them, you know, pull the carrots in triplicate or pick the spinach in triplicate.

Um

19:29

and then we took the soil in triplicate at multiple depths. So top 10 centimeters from each underneath each carrot and the next 10 centimeters.

So we would be able to overlay the dynamics of the soil against the dynamics in the crop. And then we asked them 50 management questions like what was the variety?

Where did you source it? When

19:46

did you plant it? How did you prepare the soil?

How many passes with what? What historically had been done to the soil?

What was your fertility program? Did you inoculate?

Did you side dress? Did you irrigate with what?

How often? So as many different environmental conditions factors as possible we

20:02

captured so we could overlay those dynamics against the soil metrics against the nutrient levels. In 2020 we set up our third lab here in France that was actually in partnership with blue lancer.

Um then we got a bunch of samples from across across Europe that year. Um and I'll just show you a

20:19

graph or a graphic. Um you can see u this is the the number of crops we assessed that year.

Here's a total. Um these are the number of samples per crop.

Um um al all told at the end of this process we had about 10,000 crop

20:35

samples. So a reasonable data set right for anybody who knows about science this is 10,000 samples is it's enough.

Um 25 different crops, roots, leaves, fruits and grains. Um this is just this year we had over 200 farms.

Uh each one of these

20:51

green icons is a farm sending in samples. Each one of the orange icons is a we call citizen scientist.

So people they were going to the grocery stores and the farmers markets and pulling stuff off the shelf and sending it in so we could survey what was in the supply chain. We didn't get the management data or soil from that but this was sort of our representative what's normally

21:08

available to people. Um you can see here the metrics we assessed in the in the crops.

So antioxidants polyphenols in the grain only we protein a bunch of elements. Here's the metrics we looked at in the soil.

Um, and again, we took our meter that we built every and with

21:25

every crop, every sample of crop that came in, every sample of soil that came in, we flashed a light with a meter first. We took a picture to light the bounce back, saved that, and then overlaid that on this is a level of copper, level of polyphenols, so we can begin to back calibrate later.

So, um,

21:41

um, so what I'm going to show you now is some of the basic results we found from this preliminary level of our work. This is not this is not the endgame.

This is just our first three questions. How dramatic is variation?

What causes it? And can meters be built?

21:56

Okay, so this slide is elements. Um, this is carrots.

All these slides are carrots. I've got slides like this for 20 other crops.

20 other crops. So what you see here, these patterns you see here, understand they're applicable for wheat and oats

22:11

and potatoes and blueberries and Swiss chard and leaks and cucumbers and apples, right? Every single crop we looked at.

These are the patterns we found. Sulfur 8.41 milligs per 100 gram of fresh weight is the least we found.

22:29

33.19 is the most we found. That's a 4:1 variation.

So this carrot has four times as much sulfur as that one. Um fifths of the range.

So if this is zero and that's 100, there's 20 40 60 and 80. So these colors are basically there to just sort

22:45

of help you see where things sit in a continuum. Um that makes this point right here the 23rd percentile.

There's the 50th percentile. So there's a here's what 20 40 60 samples.

So there's a bunch more samples

23:00

below the 50th percentile than above the 50th percentile. The variation is 4:1, but most of what we found was relatively poor in relationship to what was possible.

And all the nutrients we looked at here are nutrients that are understood to be human health beneficial

23:16

and that are deficient in the average person who consumes a modern western diet. Whatever that means for people who consume modern western diets, these are nutrients which are health beneficial and deficient in the am in the in the in the in the in the

23:32

mean. Phosphorus 11.7 93.69.

That's an 8:1 variation. Peak of the curve is here in the 20 um 7th percentile.

Anybody here go to university, college?

23:47

Couple people don't want to talk about it. No, I went I barely got out, but um I mean I barely graduated, but um when I went to school, we had this thing called grades.

And so um anything after the

24:05

final exams, the papers, everything else happened, right? you had the final number.

I'm not sure you guys do that here in Europe. Yeah, sometimes.

Okay. 90 and above was called an A.

80 to 89 was a B. 70 to 79 was a C.

60 to 69 was a D. 59 and below was an F.

24:24

Okay, >> here's 60. If we want to apply that standard to food, if the purpose of growing food is nutrition, if we've identified a spectrum of optimal and most

24:39

rudimentary, and we probably haven't, this is probably not the best carrot possible. What percentage of the sample set is this?

>> 90 plus, I would guess. >> Yeah.

90 plus% of the sample set is a failing

24:58

grade based on that like below the 60th percentile is a is a definition of failure. Yes, >> there's a thought that comes to mind but when relating it to grades it is not relevant in terms of human nutrition.

Whereas if you would compare it to daily intake and recommended daily um I'm not

25:15

sure how to translate that properly but how much you're supposed to eat on a daily basis. I would be much more curious with comparison to that because maybe the carrots that are in the red and the in the orange and the red area are fine.

Um I can't tell that from these levels. So I'm curious, have you

25:31

looked at it from that perspective as well >> as what the RDA is? >> Well, we're saying when we're comparing the grades, we're saying well it's in the it's in the let's say an insufficient amount, but school grades aren't relevant in this context, right?

So I

25:46

>> it's a rough metaphor. could be in the context of daily intake recommendations, right?

>> And so all of these nutrients we're looking at are at insufficient levels in the ambient population in the west. >> Yes.

But that might have to do with the amount of carrots you're eating. And I would be curious, let's say, eat 100

26:03

grams of the carrots that are in the red >> that you still have enough on a daily basis. So that would be comparison.

I'm I'm a nutritionist. >> Yes.

Perfect. >> That's what that's what comes to mind when you're saying I'm not trying.

I'm very very happy with what you're >> Yes. Yes.

But that is what comes to my

26:19

mind in terms of comparing it to sufficient levels or not. >> Um, and >> is there a reason why people don't eat 100 grams of carrots a day?

>> Yes. >> And would there be reason why they might eat 100 grams of carrots a day?

Um,

26:35

here's the next couple compounds. Here's antioxidants, which people understand, people may be familiar with the term antioxidant.

These are generally health beneficial compounds. They're they're anti- they they they cancel out oxid oxidation which is bad for you.

Um generally causal in a lot of chronic disease 4.92

26:54

195 that's a 40 to1 variation. This one has these ones have 40 times as many antioxidants as these ones over here.

Peak of the curve in the 13 17th percentile 13th percentile. Um here's polyphenols.

The things we

27:09

call flavor and aroma. Those plant secondary metabolites.

Those things that nature evolved us with the sophisticated nutrient monitoring system to assess those things which are understood to be powerfully anti-cancer, anti- heart disease, anti-diabetes, etc. Um 2.34

27:26

49.75 that's a 20 to1 variation peak of the curve in the 7th percentile. Now there's a broader thesis here which is that we are animals who have evolved sophisticated instincts with which we discern what is good and what is not

27:42

good for us. And when you eat a carrot that is soapy experience as soapy, you don't want to eat it.

You spit it out. Especially if you're a 2-year-old child.

Some people who are adults can convince themselves that it doesn't taste good, but it's good for them. But people are much more

27:58

likely to eat things that actually have strong powerful aromatic flavor compounds. It seems that those things we call flavor and aroma are these strongly health beneficial compounds which only exist in plants at high levels when a whole suite of other biochemistry is in

28:14

place. And the vast majority of the supply chain is below the 20th percentile.

This is the nature of the data we found. These are these are curves, right?

These are these are the is for anybody who knows statistics these are these are

28:29

natural distribution curves. This is not like you have to try to find the pattern.

We're finding these curves and they basically have long tails on the high end which basically means most stuff is not as good as it could be. So this is the answer to the question about variation.

There sure looks like there's variation.

28:46

Um and all of this data is on our website biionutrientinstitute.org for those who want to look. Um we got a bunch of papers and reports and things published there.

and some stuff published in in in peerreview journals. Um okay so here's a question about genetics.

People some people said

29:02

genetics is a thing that vary that causes causes variation. Um in carrots we got napoli bolero nanties mochum romancia rooong these are different genetic types of carrot.

Um um this is measured in BQI bionutrient quotient index. This is that thing we just made up out of thin air which is six elements

29:20

and two compounds. of the stuff we were looking at.

We took six elements that were understood to be health beneficial, deficient in people's bodies and these antioxidants and polyphenols. Gave them each a equal weight and said average it all together.

So, so this is these are

29:36

the carrots. This is not nutrient density.

This is just something to begin to scale this thing. And by genetic we see that Napoli there's a bunch of people in the below bottom 20 percentile some the next 20th a couple here in the 60 to 80 bolero somewhat similar nanties

29:54

not too much different mochum showing the same kind of pattern romance we're not really seeing any connection between genetic and nutrient level what I see here is you can put that seed in this soil and get low levels of nutrients and that soil and get high levels of nutrients.

30:10

We generally see this pattern across the board. The genetics do not seem to be a a determinant factor in nutrient levels.

>> Here a mix of ancestral seeds and for example hybrid seeds. >> These are some open pollinated and some F1 hybrids.

>> Okay. Interesting.

30:26

>> Yeah. Um here's by climate region.

This is USDA climate regions. This is just the US.

Most of our samples are from the US. Not all not that many from Europe.

Um northeast, east, north, central, southeast, centrals, northwest, west, southwest. So, we have, you know, sandy

30:41

and and clayy. We've got hot and dry, cold and dry, hot and wet, cold and wet.

A bunch of bad ones, a couple good ones, a bunch of bad ones, a couple good ones. Not really seeing any connection between soil type or or or climate zone and

30:58

nutrient variation. We see the general pattern that occasionally people do a good job if more of these nutrients is good, but in general, most people are not.

We're not seeing a direct causal relationship there. Um,

31:15

here's point of purchase or sample source. This is from the farm.

Remember, these are people who are like organic, regenerative, no till, like biodnamic. These are people who are pretty damn sure they're good, >> right?

We are better. We are sending in

31:30

our samples because we know we're going to get good results. >> That's why most of these people sent in their samples was because they were pretty sure they were good.

Right. Farm, you got three out of 118 in the top 20th percentile

31:46

store. Two out of 110 in the top 20th percentile.

That one's actually better. That one's that one's the best one we found was was the grocery store.

Um, here's the garden. There's the garden right there.

And

32:03

here's farmers market. uncomfortable for some people.

>> Do you know anything or do you know anything about how um how long how much time there was between doing this taking the sample and

32:20

the product being harvested? >> No.

What we know is that the one thing that was kept uniform was that crops were taken from point of purchase. >> So some things take two weeks to get to point of purchase.

Some things take one day. >> Some things take three months.

The

32:35

question was what's this level of nutrients on the shelf for people? Is it uniform or does it vary and by how much?

That's the what's important is what do people have access to? There's we can we can tease out all kinds of other stuff

32:51

later, but that's that's the first question is are all carrots uniform? Your tongue tells you no.

The science now we can say now we can trust our tongue actually. Um, okay.

This is really if you This was uncomfortable for you. Here we go.

Uh, certified organic.

33:07

Um, yeah, this fat. So, this is called a violin plot.

So, where it's fattest is where like the preponderance of samples are. So, it's definitely fattest in like the 30th to 40th percentile, we'll say.

People who use cover crops, we're going to call that the 40 the 45th percentile where it's fast. No till, pretty

33:24

similar. Uh, people who do tillage, actually not a hell of a lot different.

kind of fatter on both sides. Here's organic, not certified.

These are like the small local people that don't bother getting certified, but are doing all the practices. Here's reference and none.

33:40

That's grocery store, not organic. I'm just going to point this out.

See where it's fat? Clearly fatter over farther into the yellow.

What does that mean? That means that some farmers operating on scale that are not organic

33:56

are good farmers. Just because you're local and friendly doesn't mean your nutrient levels are high.

There's two different things. One is that you're my neighbor

34:11

and the other one is that the nutrient levels are high. Right?

We sometimes make the mistake of conflating these things. This is the purpose of science.

This is why we do science to to sort of interrogate our dogmas and and and and and see where where where facts reside

34:29

in relation to the the story lines that are that are out there. Um here's regenerative.

This is the ism of the of the decade, right? certainly looking a lot better than grocery store not organic if nutrient levels are the thing that we're defining relative nutritional

34:45

relative value on um biodnamic is here definitely looking better actually there's local which actually I mean if you average it out local probably looks the best but still it's got a complete variation complete suite of variation there um people

35:02

that's greenhouse like tillage I don't have the graph um We're writing the paper now. It's currently in a heat map.

It's going to be a heat map. Anybody know what a heat map is?

Um the thing, the only thing that we found that correlated to this variation was

35:19

levels of life in the soil. The level of function of the microbiome, the quantity, the diversity, the amount of people, microbes down there in the ground was the thing that connected to the nutritional caliber of the food.

35:35

Just because you're organic does not mean you have high levels of soil life. Just because you're local does not mean you have high levels of soil life.

Just because you do no till does not mean you have high levels of soil life. There's a suite of environmental conditions and good farmers are managing for that dynamic.

Yes. >> So then the resulting from this is the

35:54

goal to increase nutritional density is more life in the soil. Is that the advice for farming practices context place specific?

It is context and place spec specific. And the point is that the objective of farming is to optimize levels of life in

36:10

the soil. And you can take and I mean this is the sort of the community I was brought up in which was permaculture has wisdom, biodnamics has wisdom, agroecology has wisdom, biochemistry has wisdom, microbiology has wisdom,

36:26

indigenous perspectives have wisdom. Right?

We have all these different I would call them religions or or dogmas or frames of perspective >> nuances like you know facets we can we can look at the gemstone through but

36:43

it's not about biodnamics or about bio you know biochemistry it's about this thing which is the nutritional caliber of the food >> yes >> does it also matter which crop you have so you now have everything is done in carrots so I can imagine that for carrots you have a specific soy type

36:58

that is optim optimal for carrots maybe. >> No, >> other soils are also optimal for other.

>> This is what we see here. These are the different soil types.

This is parts of the United States. We're not seeing any part of the United States that's is showing this has better

37:14

results or worse results in nutrient levels. This is one of the fallacies.

>> Okay. So, you don't feel that the top three have much more yellow than the bottom four?

I have the idea there's more than four sort of to the left.

37:31

>> I don't see it skewed. I don't see a bunch of greens or a bunch of reds anywhere.

>> It looks like most people doing a mediocre job everywhere. >> I mean, this is this is preliminary data.

>> Um, you know, we're not seeing any obvious pattern. Let's put it that way.

37:46

And we have 20 other crops that anybody who wants to can go interrogate our our data sets and look. We have again 10,000 samples from 5 years from two continents and we have all the metadata collected and it's all there on data explorer so anybody can go look at it.

We've had people look at it. I'm just choosing one

38:02

crop here and I'm s I'm stating if you go look you'll find these patterns but that data is completely open on our site for anybody to look at. >> Um but yes I'm sorry was that that's a sufficient answer to the question.

So um

38:18

okay uh so this is what the conclusion was. So again there were three questions.

How big is variation? Does it exist?

Is it significant? Uh what causes it?

It certainly looks like it's level of life in the soil. We can call it soil health as a standing for soil health.

And three

38:35

can you build a handheld meter that can test it? Um this is the thing we got published in Nature Science Communications which is a considered to be a legitimate scientific journal.

Um and I like the understatement. Sorry.

38:52

>> Thank you. >> It's part of my presentation style.

Yes. >> It's non Dutch.

>> It's non Dutch. The self-deprecatory.

Yes. Um, this is it, right?

I Anybody Anybody remember the Apple 2?

39:09

>> The first personal computer 1983 or whatever it was. Like it could do Frogger.

You remember that? like like it was quite I had one.

My parents were like we had no TV in the house but we had computers. Um we I had an Apple 2 like we played Frogger on the Apple 2 in the

39:24

early '8s and like this is an Apple 2. This is not an iPhone.

This is a rudimentary. It's got screws in here.

It's 3D printed. It's got 10 LEDs is what it operates on.

This is a small

39:41

grassroots nonprofit educational organization with $25,000 that built this thing, engineered it, right? And then with a little bit more money, we ran a bunch of lab work, calibrated it,

39:56

proved in nature science communications that it works to assess a suite of individual nutrients or compounds in certain crops at above a 8 R squar. For people who know science on biological matrices, that's considered to be pretty

40:11

good. For carrots, it measures antioxidants.

It can tell you where the level of antioxidants is in the carrots. can't tell you the overall quality of a carrot.

Critically important. It is not telling you the overall quality of a carrot.

It is showing you that you can measure a nutrient in a carrot with a

40:29

flash of light. Is a functioning proof of concept.

Right? So that's what we accomplished with this meter.

For those who have had the misunderstanding which is that we have built nutrient density testing meters, you are wrong. What we did is we proved that it's possible to have a consumerpriced handheld flash of

40:47

light nutrient meter that could be used at point of purchase. So our three basic questions have all been answered in the affirmative.

Nutrient variation is dramatic. It seems like it's caused by soil health and it seems like consumer priced handheld meters could be developed to measure nutrient levels in

41:04

food. So the thesis then of using that enlightened self-interest of the consumer and the e economic power to shift to completely powerfully disrupt agriculture is a plausible theory of change.

Yes. >> What is your 100% >> the highest one we found

41:20

>> the Yeah. So so let's say that you are going to improve soil health later on then your 100% will shift according to the things that you are going to get in.

>> Absolutely. And so how is that then real time adjusted or how do you >> we we stopped this this was only we did

41:37

this work only to answer our three questions. >> Yeah.

>> Is it possible to build a handheld meter that can test nutrient levels? Yes.

Okay. Great.

This is never going to be the consumer unit. >> We are a grassroots organization.

We are not a meter company. We have no

41:52

intention of selling meters. We manufactured 300 of them and and calibrated them all to each other and sold them all for $377 and built an app that connected to a phone with Bluetooth to show that it was a viable scenario plausibly done and

42:08

then stopped because that's not our objective. Our objective is to figure out what the hell quality is.

This is the whole point. What is nutrient density and is the term nutrient density appropriate?

Cuz if you talk to anybody in the nutrition space,

42:24

they'll say no, it is not. It already means something.

We have to find a new term for this thing. If you guys want to engage, you know, nutritionists in this conversation.

You farmers, you people in the food movement, you may think that this neutronicity means something. It's kind of like the organic thing.

42:40

Remember, organic used to belong to scientists. It meant something, contains carbon.

Organic chemistry was what organic meant. Then a bunch of radical you know activists came along and built their own standards and said organic is a form of agriculture.

And now actually

42:55

most people think that organic means no synthetics doesn't mean doesn't means contain contains carbon. So we have that same creative tension right now in the middle of this conversation with nutritionists and you know those kind of people who are studying this literature because nutrient density to them means

43:11

average nutrients per calorie. All food is considered to be uniform.

The basic premise is all kale is uniform. There is a certain number of nutrients per calorie in corn.

In in kale, there's a certain number of nutrients per

43:26

calorie in rice. All rice is uniform.

There's a certain number of nutrients per calorie in Coca-Cola. All Coca-Cola may be uniform.

Therefore, rice is more nutrient-dense

43:42

than Coca-Cola. And kale is more nutrient-dense than rice.

This is what nutrient density means to people who are trained in nutrition. For those of you who are part of the food movement, you don't know this, understand this.

So

43:58

there's actually a significant creative tension in this deeper conversation, which is what the hell are we going to call this thing if we want to have an open collective space where everybody is welcome at the table? And some people say don't use that word or term.

It's two words.

44:15

Anyway, I'll put that on the table and say this is part of the feedback we're getting, part of what I think needs to be heard, needs to be understood because most of the people in the room are not nutritionists and some not all nutritionists want to speak up and make that point although I think it's an important one. So the real question here

44:30

is what is quality? How do you say 1 to 100 in any food in potatoes, in carrots, in beef, etc.?

Um I'm going to walk through here what we've done with beef over the past four years and then that's the end of the presentation. Then we go to the conversation.

Um so this is our

44:48

model. This is basically if you you know didn't want to read the the handout effectively.

This is what we're saying is how we should do this. What's that?

>> Shortcut. Yes.

This is the the the cliff notes as it were. Um um

45:04

um we we we said, "Okay, so the first three three questions we got answers to. Therefore, it seems like it's worth the hassle of trying to figure out what 1 to 100 is because maybe it's a plausible thing we can do." We chose beef because it's the food stuff that is produced on the with the largest ecological footprint.

If we understand that

45:19

agriculture, you know, can have a negative or positive impact on the ecosystem, let's look at the thing that has the biggest impact. Cucumbers are nice.

probably would have been easier to do cucumbers, but there's not a lot of land used in the production of cucumbers. Let's take one take on one of

45:36

these big topics and then go into it. So, it's taken us four years.

It took a long time. It took a lot of money.

It was a real hassle. Nobody done it, but we're basically done.

And so, here's how the it went. Here's our thesis.

The thesis was that if cows eat what cows

45:52

have evolved to eat, they're better for you. They're more well.

the impact on the ecosystem is better than if cows eat what they're being fed in an industrial model. Um we had uh samples from four

46:09

continents. Um not all six but four progress over two.

Um farmers sent in a steak from three different animals. Uh we started off looking at 800 different metabolites in each steak.

We ended up with a little over a hundred um elements, enzymes, vitamins, fatty acids, polyphenols,

46:25

turpenoids, series of different families of nutrients in the beef. Uh we got a a fecal sample from every every um herd and we looked at over 200 different species in two kingdoms.

Um the levels and the the presence and the levels of

46:41

each of these species. Um and we actually could look at some of the um the genetics of what the plants were as well by assessing the stool sample.

Um, we had the farmer send in the forage or um the the fodder, whatever the fodder was that the animals were eating in the

46:56

last 90 days of life. Um, we had them send in the the soil that the crop that that grew in, whether it was corn or or it was a polyculture pasture or a monoculture pasture.

Um, we asked them a bunch of management questions about how the animals were raised. And finally, and not on the slide, we did a series of

47:13

human health trials. So, feeding trials to humans.

Eat this beef, see what happens to you, eat that beef, see what happens to you. and eat this not beef called I think it was Impossible Burger and see what happens to you.

Uh, interestingly in the US if you look on the back of a package of 100% grass-finish beef, cornfed beef, and

47:31

Impossible Burger, if you look at the back, it'll say the exact same level of nutrients. According to the government, grass-finish beef, cornfinish beef, and Impossible Burger are uniform materials.

Um,

47:48

all carrots are considered to be uniform, right? All tomatoes are considered to be uniform.

You know that some tomatoes taste differently than other tomatoes. And according to the government, they're all the same.

Like if you look at the number on the package, it's all the same. You could call that

48:05

lying. I mean, what's a polite word for it?

Like scientific dishonesty. Like incorrect.

>> It's called in your misleading. >> Misleading.

>> You have a nice way of saying that in Dutch. I never say testing because it's not based on people wanting to share but to

48:22

have all these different varieties of tomatoes test is just a lot of money and a lot of fork which I don't have to tell you. So yeah, >> leading sounds something like something do that someone use it on purpose and I don't think that's the case.

>> But if the data is showing a 20x variation,

48:37

>> new data, >> we are a very small organization. Anybody who would use any level of you know I mean scientific rigor could have looked into the literature and found this data existed from hundreds of published studies previously that these

48:53

levels of var like this is not we're not the only people to ever show this variation. It's it the literature shows this stuff.

it just we've gone and looked at it together and we're a activist organization like hey something's important here pay attention as opposed to most scientists who

49:09

publish a paper and then write another paper right I mean I don't mean to be offensive but yeah the literature has shown this for a long time it's not it's not that we haven't known um I apologize if I'm being abrasive but >> Oh okay

49:24

>> we're not >> all right I'll dial it up a little But trying to be polite. I'm in a foreign land.

I don't know if I'm pissing people off or not. >> If you were afraid that you were offensive, then you might have perceived me as offensive, which wasn't

49:40

>> offended. I was afraid you were offended.

>> Well, if you're in someone else's house, you don't want to be rude. So, I'm not this is not my country.

I don't want to be I don't want to be obnoxious. >> The purpose of the legislature is risk management, not on.

49:55

>> Yeah. So, everything in the law has been constructed from risk management.

And the primary >> banking uh sector has started somewhere in 1920. So everything around packaging is about protection and not so much about promotion.

And so uh everything

50:13

that a breeder has to inform the government about is from the ideal situation from market launches and has nothing to do with the quality which is grown by farmers all around the world. >> Yeah, >> just an example.

I would say if you want

50:28

to touch on that and go one step into it with more specificity the what's being protected is industry >> well not even industry also healthcare there is no disease management in the Netherlands interested in preventing

50:44

heart patients coming back to the hospital >> industry because it's not >> I call that industry >> okay you call that industry >> I call that you know >> public healthare >> if it was designed to optimize health. We could call it health care, but if it's designed to manage disease,

51:00

>> it's not even manage disease. >> Well, you want to maintain the level of disease as long as possible to optimize profits.

>> Symptom management, >> symptom management, whatever. I'm sorry.

We don't want to get digressed, but I think yes, >> repairing instead of >> anyway. Yes.

Okay. I I I get I um I I do

51:18

want to try to appear to be calm and centered and empirical in my in my you know framing even though yes um it seems the data does guide us to certain conclusions. And the scientific method is a beautiful thing, right?

The

51:34

scientific method is there to help us like be a lingua franca like to get through all the different, you know, perspectives and say these are the facts on the ground. And so if you follow a lot of these things, you you do begin to see patterns.

Um the point was uh we looked at biochemistry, microbiology,

51:51

you know, the fodder, the soil, the management and human health trials and we took this metadata and we said where's the patterns? Where's the patterns?

Are there certain levels and ratios of nutrients in the meat that correlate with ecosystem

52:08

function that correlate with human health benefit that correlate with animal welfare? And that's what we're proposing is our definition of nutrient density.

And so right now these papers are in their final, you know, being written phase. It looks like there's eight different

52:23

nutrients which are going to be the proposed biomarkers for our 1 to 100 standard in beef. Um there's two elements.

There's two vitamins, there's two fatty acids, and two secondary metabolites. And at levels and ratios, those are our definitions of 10, 30, 50, and 80 out of 100.

Um, so this is a

52:40

basic experimental design method. >> I understand correctly that the the eight nutrients that you're talking about is going to be possibly different for each >> categorically have to be.

>> Yeah. Great.

>> Beef and pork and chicken and lamb are going to be different. >> Yeah.

Let alone cucumbers.

52:55

>> Well, the question is, how many different kinds of beans are there? Are lentils different than dah?

Black beans and white turtle beans and and striped, you know, >> black eyed beans. >> Exactly.

Like where do we no if you I mean if you want to do this honestly

53:11

like where where are the patterns and and we don't know yet because it's original research. No one's no one's done it yet.

That's the thing is we >> start somewhere. >> We have to start somewhere.

So we started somewhere. Um and this is the experimental design.

This is the theory and this is this is the sort of the framing. Um

53:26

location of farms. Look at them all.

Um page >> um there are a few more from Australia. Um they're mostly from North America.

Um I think the UK was the only place in the in Europe we got samples from but you can see a very broad diversity of geographic dynamics. Um and there's a

53:44

full suite of feeding dynamics as well. So um this was our first job at defining nutrient density.

We are very clear about the vision we want to do going forward with all future crops is we want to be getting the same amount from Australia as from South America as from

54:00

North America as from Africa as from Europe as from Asia. We want to be getting an equal distribution of wheat from six continents of potatoes from six continents of apples from six continents different soil types different management practices different genetics.

We want to do this systemically. We want to do categorically organized proactive

54:17

um sample the global supply chain. define this for the planet.

Apples for the planet. This is not for Europe.

This is not for North America. This is for like apples and potatoes.

Um

54:32

um okay, here's omega 63 ratios. This is a bit of an old slide, but still is maybe, you know, interesting to some degree.

People might have heard about omega 36 ratios as a thing. And generally closer to 1:1 is considered to be better.

Farther away is not. Um um

54:49

you know the animals that were eating uh green things until they died to a large degree sampled right in here in this little spot averaged was 1.7 to1. We have a few outliers here.

Um this was the samples that were submitted were submitted as grass-fed beef. Actually,

55:05

this came from a company that um uh this was during CO that was uh bringing in beef from um Australia to the US and the ship got stuck off the coast of um LA because of all the things were happening during CO and all people

55:20

were buying stuff and they ran out. So, they went and bought beef from somewhere else and that company that they bought beef from said that this was grass-fed beef and they were suspicious.

Um although I challenge you to find a cow that never ate grass. So legally, technically, truthfully, they were

55:36

grass-fed. They just weren't 100% grass-fed.

So minor nuance in the technicalities, but um they sent those samples in and they do not look like the rest. These samples do not look like these samples.

And so we can use biochemistry to see between the lines of

55:53

the claims, right? Anybody know what what pasture finished means?

pasture finished. If you have it here in in Europe, >> few months on in the pasture, >> but you can dump all the grain you want on the pasture.

>> Yeah. >> As long as they were walking in the

56:08

pasture. >> As long as they were finished in the pasture, it says nothing about what they were fed.

Although you who want to believe something is called confirmation bias. >> When you say pasture finished, you mean you Oh, that means they were out in the pasture eating grass.

No, >> it was out there.

56:23

they were out there but 90% of the fodder they were consuming was grain. So this is so we have all these dynamics going on in industry where you can be technically legally true and effectively causing some meaningful like

56:41

dishonesty. I call it dishonesty.

I mean whatever you want to call it. Okay.

So variation is dramatic right here in the cows at eight homeg grain like major variation from 3.5 to 14.4 for but we can see the average is significantly higher. There is some meaningful variation there is just one compound set

56:57

in what the animals were eating. Um if you use that as a baseline which is what we can say before we have our papers published um we do see a beautiful connection between diversity and quality.

If omega-36 ratio is your

57:15

is your like preliminary definition for nutrient density for quality diversity seems to be the a very highly predictive factor. So um you know monoculture ryrass maybe it's better than corn ryrass and and and clover maybe it's better than ryrass but a

57:32

properly biodiverse ecosystem seems to correlate with an overall better quality steak. Um so that is the conclusion of my presentation.

>> Also look at chemicals that people use or pesticides or

57:50

>> we have not looked at toxins per se. We have looked at anti-nutrients so like stress hormones and things like that.

We've looked at um elements like cadmium and lead and and aluminum which are sort of anti- nutritious. >> Um we haven't looked at at at sort of

58:06

like synthetic chemistry. Um, it's all really a question of budget.

>> Yeah. >> All this is a question of budget.

>> Um, and we had to choose, pick and choose and be discerning. And I'm really proud of what we've been able to do with the limited resources we've had as a small organization.

Um, what we're

58:24

basically saying here now is who thinks this is a good idea that should be done for other food and can we come together around this project? And so what you've got in front of you here is this what we're calling a draft treaty on the definition of nutrient density.

And

58:40

we're open to the changing of the term nutrient density. But the idea is it's a treaty.

So we have to figure out what other word we're going to use. Um um we are welcoming critique, commentary, suggestions, um engagement.

Um

58:56

um I would I'm not sure if you want to spend five minutes reading it now after my presentation. We could have a little bit of quiet.

you could glance through it and then we could have conversation. The whole point of this presentation, we're calling it a listening session.

So, you be listening to me. That's not the point.

The point is I listen to you. >> Um, so if I can get that to begin

59:14

happening, this is a good idea. Don't do this.

Do you know these people? This is how you should do it.

Think about this compound set. This is be a proper way to do human health trials.

Meet these people. Here's some funders potentially.

That's what we're looking for. The whole point of this presentation is is to try

59:29

to elicit your collective wisdom into improving this process, >> comments, critiques. Um, we did this once in Melbourne, outside of Melbourne.

It was 15 people there. It was like probably at least a third of them were researchers of one sort, aronomists or

59:45

nutritionists, and we had an amazing conversation with a bunch of good push back and like suggestions. And then we did it again in um a place called Byron Bay, which is much more sort of like a hippie sort of foodie place.

There was like 30 people there and it was a bunch of Q&A. It was like great.

They got to

00:03

answer a bunch more questions. They had more nuance, but we didn't really get anywhere near as much value out of that.

So I don't want to say that don't ask questions but I want to say if you can you know make suggestions or offer offer like engagement on the process if it's

00:18

not clear certainly ask questions but but what we're looking for is that kind of >> I have a I have a question >> it's okay it's okay yes >> density is connected to soil soil life and you do a respiration test it's kind

00:33

of a simple test >> is a respiration test then strong enough to persuade people to join this? >> Very good question.

>> Yeah, >> the respiration we did was part of our preliminary work. >> Yeah.

>> When we did the microbiome assays for the beef, >> we looked at 200 different species.

00:50

>> Okay. >> Each one individually assessed in presence and quantity across multiple kingdoms.

>> Yeah. >> So our thought is that microbiome is critically important and that we absolutely should be prioritizing that as an >> assessment.

I can imagine that people say, "Well, that's not >> that was phase one. Okay,

01:05

>> that was phase one >> to see whether this project is worth doing in the first place. >> So those first slides I showed you about the individual nutrient variation, >> that was all phase one which was just proof of concept.

>> It's the beef stuff that I spent less

01:20

time on which is the model for this project. But good point.

Yes, that respiration is not sufficient. >> How did you analyze soil life?

Is it is it a PFA test or >> In this case, we didn't because it was beef. We assessed their manure.

Oh, okay. >> Because we're looking at the microbiome

01:37

of the thing, which is the poop, not the soil. >> Is that also how we measure the human health effects?

>> Um, we no the human health was measured um with inflammation response. >> So, we we took a baseline then we fed them the grass-fed beef and won three and five hours measured their blood and

01:54

urine for inflammation markers and saw that what happened with the grass-fed beef, the cornfed beef and the Impossible Burger. And guess what happened?

possible burger did not perform well. >> Yeah, you mentioned uh the terminology of the nutrient density itself and for

02:10

me I'm my background is in event management >> and there it's all about communication and yes in the end about target groups. Yes.

>> So the terminology that you want to use should be applicable or understandable by the target group that you would like to address

02:25

>> and >> which is buyers of food. >> Yeah.

Is that then the consumer that you have the end consumer in mind? Yeah.

>> Yes. Yes.

And sometimes it's not even the terminology, but it could also be a subline identifying the terminology as well. >> And any and all suggestions on this regard are extremely welcome.

02:41

>> Yeah. >> Anybody who's got a proposal for what we call this thing >> like we are taking suggestions.

>> I think it'll be a challenge. >> Go home and think about it.

Wake up and >> to identify it. >> Find an acronym >> that you know that's it's like radar or whatever you know like that's stands for

02:57

something. >> We're completely open to it.

The terminology should be short but then to have a great understanding a subline or some some definition could help to quantify it further. >> And we are not marketing geniuses.

So >> people such as yourself very welcome.

03:12

Yes. >> Yeah.

My sheet is full. So my question is I'm never going to share everything here because we're filling the blower.

So do you have another way of maybe sharing some thoughts and ideas and you should these people or

03:27

>> what? So, if you go to the website, which should be on the back page, which is bionutrientinstitute.org/treaty, there's a bunch of ways to engage and there's a form right there which says submit your comments and what's about to be up there either tomorrow or the next

03:43

day is going to be a living Google doc where you can submit your comments on the side of the document in real time. And we'll keep we'll keep all that all those all those records for people to review.

you know, we'll go through the process and like sort of okay, these are

03:58

obvious like change that or change that, but if there's open questions, they'll be sitting there for everyone to engage. So, yes, we expect the primary engagement is going to be I mean, we're recording this and and literally like this draft you've got is different than the one we had in Melbourne, different

04:14

one we had in um because of the engagements that came like, oh, good point. Oh, that was we should have Yes, change that, change that.

So, obvious stuff, we'll just change it right away. Um, but please if you could go online and if you don't want to do that, just give us your page and we'll write it

04:30

down. >> Yes.

Thank you. >> I also have some >> if you have some specific things.

>> Yeah. Something that came to mind when you talk about the results of the beef comparisons.

Yeah. Something that we see in plant research is when we look at inflammation levels, they sometimes go

04:46

up with uh when people eat plants and the idea behind that is that there's a process of hormesis where there's compounds in the plants that are initially pro-inflammatory but the fact that they are pro pro-inflammatory in the short term eventually triggers like

05:01

an overreaction which ends up being protective and that's called hormesis. >> Yeah.

And therefore, don't if you start doing these human trials with plants, don't be shocked if you also find negative results um for something that you would suppose be good. So, it's just

05:18

something I want to mention to be aware of in your human trials. >> So, I've got a I was just speaking at this thing called the Goodwood Summit in the UK a couple days ago, and one of the people on stage with me was like a whatever big blah blah blah microbiome blah blah researcher and he was like, "I've got some suggestions for how you

05:33

should do human health trials." I said, "Awesome. >> We've got a 2-hour call scheduled.

Like, I I I know like farming to some decent degree. I don't know human health trials.

>> Like, I've got a few people who I know have got leads who have got suggestions, but I'll take your suggestion. Don't do

05:50

that." Or I'd really love a suggestion. Do do this or who we should talk to.

>> Like, because we're operating with a million I didn't say this, a million and a quarter, 1.25 US per crop is our budget. If it ends up being more than

06:05

that, we'll know based on what the, you know, sample costs per etc etc ends up being. So if it ends up being 1.5, 1.75 or whatever, um, in general, one of the biggest issues that I'm concerned about is being able

06:21

to do human health trials or some sufficient version of a human health trial that is at all within reason as far as cost to help give us this basic level of definition. I think it's a critical.

So we really need guidance on

06:38

how we should do these human health trials and if it's different for beans and for rice and for cucumbers if you know anybody or anybody knows anybody that's critically important information. Um I will say also the vision is that this is a um a stake in the ground when we get done.

This is a a first baseline

06:56

definition that we publish it, that we inspire instrumentation companies to calibrate instruments to this and to sell them and that that inspires governments and serious proper research funds to deepen this definition process.

07:14

We do not think this is the final beall and endall. We think this is the beginning or we hope this is the beginning of a process of of global consensus around this.

Um but giving people the power to choose. Yeah.

Go. Yes.

>> Hi Mark. Uh maybe I missed it but I

07:33

I totally miss the Apple 2 innovation process uh in here. I do you want to get to a product in the ends?

>> We do not >> which I can measure. Uh >> we want to publish a definition.

07:50

>> Yeah. >> That anybody who makes meters and wants to sell them can calibrate their meter to.

It looks like the endgame vision is going to be one of the cameras in your phone. From

08:06

everything we understand, it looks like if Apple wanted to, they could put inside their phone a mini spectrometer and then you'd have to buy the new Apple 20 and you could do it as an app on your phone and so could Samsung and so could Google. It looks like from the consumer

08:23

from a tech from the technological understanding we have, there will not need to be a separate standalone meter for the general consumer. The capacity for these things to do it is is there.

So at but we do not we are an an NGO

08:39

whose mission is to define this not to sell products. >> Yes.

We want to inspire people. >> Is that your mission or is it your mission to get to a system where people eat healthy foods?

>> Our mission is to cause food to be

08:54

better for everyone on the planet >> and planet >> year after year after year getting better and better and better. And we think that we can hack economic incentive to accomplish that.

And we think if we are on both sides of the equation defining the definition and selling it, you shouldn't trust us.

09:13

>> Yeah. Because if you have like a higher nutritional value in in the products, you also need less quantity and then less production and that's better for the environment.

>> It sure looks like there's this thing called overfed and undernourished. Empty calories.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

I mean Yeah. 100%.

goes

09:30

further than just >> y what I said before if I look at the analyzis the things you want to analyze >> something like um glyphosate residue just to check also how much the impact

09:46

is of the negative >> next to all the positives >> y >> if you can see if if there's a difference in in in growing also >> I I would suggest to >> you you propose a tox toxicology scheme.

10:02

>> Yes. >> Yeah.

At least for a subset. >> Yes.

>> So, interestingly, that that whole suite of nutrients, >> we think we've got a quote for not much more than $200 >> to do that complete scan. >> Yeah.

>> And toxicology assessments in general are dramatically more expensive.

10:19

>> Um, so >> perhaps a subset, but we'll capture that. Thank you.

Yeah. All this has to you know we take the take the suggestions and then we do the budgets >> and then we say okay who's raising how much money?

Yeah, because there's so much to do about this this this part and

10:35

if you don't put it in here then still is there a question >> how does that work with the nutrient density I think it would be for me >> perfect thank you great yes >> so I have a bit of a different background in in data and storytelling and I was triggered by your question as

10:51

well about if we look at the parallel with the grade grading system >> yeah do we know whether that's true or not is it really bad or and I was thinking if you look at the compound that you've analyzed right now um if you would compose a hypothetical uh diet for

11:10

a week you would say it's 200 grams of this every day for breakfast or 100 next day you eat this. If you then look at the median of all the the the figures that you've pulled up, then you can say something about how high would

11:26

levels of particular nutrients be and would that lead to deficits and if you have a deficit of those nutrients, can we link that to particular uh diseases? >> Yeah.

So that might be a different way of looking at it than just saying

11:44

>> I think there's a I mean I I hear what you're saying and we can take that suggestion. Um the the framing we've always had has been um we're not going to judge what you should or shouldn't eat.

Some people eat meat, some people don't. Some people eat dairy, some people don't.

Some people eat grain, some people don't. Our question is if

12:00

you were to say what's the best wheat berry and the worst wheat berry, what would those how would you characterize those? And um obviously everyone's bodies are unique and they got their own epigenetic dynamics and so you can't really propose a uniform diet for anyone.

Um

12:16

>> no but it would just be hypothetical people what you generally would buy in in a supermarket is mediocre or or less or or even worse. >> Yeah.

I don't think we're framing it on the average proposed theoretical diet. We're saying let's take a spectrum of

12:32

carrots and say can we make any any >> formal decisions about this is better this is worse and to what level of gradation can be >> go into the discussion about what is the the preferred diet >> yes which is a complete

12:47

>> you cannot go there >> lots of people lots of people are there >> there's lots of people in that conversation and there's no one in this conversation >> in this study I don't think you can go there no I understand what you're saying about an average diet and say, "Well, this is how we make it better, >> but this is about

13:03

>> the quality of food stuffs." >> Yes. >> What is that?

>> And and obviously, you're trying to do your best to get most quality in one product when we're what we're eating is not one product. >> Mhm.

>> But that's just the way it is. I mean

13:19

you cannot >> but >> you can question whether that's necessary whether you have to have the best composition >> because it's going back to the cause which is soil quality actually and the potential of using microbiology to

13:35

improve everything. So it's not even about the quality of the food stocks.

It's actually about the origin of the quality >> and it's all connected the driver in the end. It's one health >> ecosystem function is human health >> is you know reversing the the SD you know curing all the SDGs

13:53

>> like all these things the the the thesis is that this is all one >> and and that this is a lens and a way to use the scientific method >> and the problem with nutrient there are several but uh just to be blunt >> is that you think that the more

14:08

nutrients are in there the better but that's actually not the case. >> So it's like quality density instead of nutrient density because you are communicating something like there should be more nutrients.

But as we know in several other studies that you can improve the

14:24

calcium of one uh product to make animal welfare better but then you get into into other problems because other nutrients will be less and then there is a disbalance. So there action should be something like a nutrient balance

14:39

quality >> in this whole communication because you're >> if not you're just saying more is better which is not the case. >> That is not what we're saying right.

We're saying >> that's what >> that's what the term is >> says

14:55

should be more dense. So imagine this, you know, sort of hot and discolored 27 year olds was like, there's got to be a this what there's got to be a word for this.

And I went and talked to like five people and that was a thing that bubbled up. So that was a word I started using.

15:10

And then three years later after saying it to a lot of people, somebody who's a nutritionist said, "Hey, by the way, did you know that word already mean something?" I was like, "No." >> I was like, "Oh shit." >> I stopped using it for about four years. Too late.

Cat was out of the bag. Yes, >> everybody was using the term nutrient

15:26

density. And so in this whole world, if you don't if you aren't in the agricultural like food movement space, you might not know that there's a whole bunch of people using this term nutrient density right now.

>> And it and it's it's kind of a roshock test like it means something different to everybody kind of like regenerative

15:41

or whatever. And so >> it is a word that is being used a term.

I completely agree with you. And it's not about more.

It is about balance. Yeah.

>> And that is everything that we seem to understand is it's about levels and ratios and balance. And perhaps it's more of certain things like the

15:56

secondary metabolites, but that only happens when certain other things are in balance. We don't know.

I could I I think I can say we don't know. And that's what is exciting about this is it does seem like it's original research.

Like we don't think we have this overlay of microbiome against human health

16:13

results, against biochemistry, against aronomy, against soil metrics. Like I don't think anybody ever has done this holistic way of looking at it and just collect the data and see what patterns are shown.

Like that to me is exciting. That's real science.

Like we're not going to put our finger on the

16:29

scale. We're going to do a good job of trying to define which metrics we're assessing and then be honest about what we find and let people, you know, have at it.

Like I see this pattern. I see that pattern.

Is there consensus or is there not? We might not find anything.

Right? That's the exciting thing.

We might not find anything. We think we're

16:46

probably going to, but who knows anyway. Yes.

>> Are you including hybridization of crops? >> Yes, absolutely.

Full genetic spectrum. >> Exactly.

>> Yep. >> And it's also registered so you know where where the the density comes from.

17:02

>> We want to ensure that we assess a suite of different genetics, a suite of different soil types, a suite of different management practices, different microbiomes, different climate zones, different continents. We want to make sure as broad a diversity of environmental conditions as possible are

17:17

captured. So we're really trying to identify the scale of variation.

Yes. >> Yeah.

And just on those variables, I think something that we are having to put an extra test on our nutrient testing this year is that time from from harvest to the point of purchase. Yeah.

17:34

>> So that issue being that you could have a supermarket, someone could go in with a meter, you've got a conventional field next door, carrots come straight in the next day and a regenerative field it's been flown halfway around the states or whatever, you know, >> months later it's left.

17:50

>> And so whether the farmer might have put the work in differently on his soil microbiome, the point of purchase, the conventional might actually come up better. What's what's most relevant to the consumer?

>> Well, there you go. What's most relevant

18:05

to the consumer? But then that's the difficulty linking it back to regenerative.

>> Well, regenerative is like Catholic. >> Like there's brilliant, amazing, pure, beautiful Catholics and complete hypocrites.

>> This is true. This is true.

18:22

>> So that's the thing is it's a it's an insufficient definition. >> It is.

It is. But from the ethos that they are regenerating.

Catholics have an ethos apparently that they follow the principles of Christ. But how many were involved in the in the in the crusades,

18:38

>> but is the storage identical always? Like are there rules for storage things?

I think all of these different things from harvesting until it actually ends up with with the consumer on the plate and I think for me the difficulty with making the link to health is that there are so many steps also afterwards. So

18:54

how are you cooking? How are you?

>> That's why because it's going to measure the quality as it is >> at the place in the chain. So you don't need to um communicate all the first steps and the genetics and so because you just

19:10

have as is >> but it's not if you are going to measure health in in uh in clinical studies then you are not only there so then you have so much other things that are in place. So I I really have difficulties in understanding why what is the purpose of you want to show this in health for

19:27

human studies because I think it's two totally different things because if we don't have a set of biomarkers that correlate with health benefit versus health less health benefit the foundational purpose of the definition is missed. What we want to do

19:43

is we want to help people who buy food discern the thing that will cause their families to be most well >> of the choices. >> What you are saying is you need to know more about the product once you have determined the health effect.

That's the only thing you are saying. So that's the

19:58

only thing that is lacking because it's not about the origin. It's it's including where did it come from in the end.

>> But that's supply chain transparency. That's a whole different question.

Yeah. >> No, but >> there's a lot of good science.

>> It's a fact, but it's it's it's an old

20:16

it's an all new project. >> Well, no, but I mean this is >> getting there are so many companies working on supply chain chain.

>> The universities have studied this and done really good research. >> I mean, this is something that the scientists have really figured out is how to do as good a job as possible as

20:33

soon as it's harvested to keep it as good as possible to the shelf. That is pretty well dialed in.

The problem is what's being harvested is being harvested at the 18th percentile. >> So you can only maintain from there.

20:48

>> We're not harvesting at the 80th percentile. >> If there was a significant difference between how long it took takes to get from harvest to shelf, then local would be way, you know, off the scale and it's not showing any variation.

It's comparable to virtually ever slightly.

21:04

>> It was actually local was better than anything else. I would say that might have to do with ripeness.

Like if you pick a tomato ripe, >> it's got to be or a peach. Anybody ever picked a peach unripe and then let it sit for a week and a half versus picking a peach ripe?

It's definitely better when you pick it ripe.

21:21

Tomatoes are better when you pick them ripe. So we should think that if you actually have local farmers doing a good job and they're being picked that crops are being picked ripe that that would out compete something coming from far away because the logistics of shipping or such then it's not advantageous to pick certain things certain things right.

Did

21:38

you give it to me? >> I was just I was thinking listening to your feedback then um I think the feedback is just if there are already known health markers why do you need to do the clinical yourself as well because

21:53

if you're tying it into known markers then this is basically adding a layer onto the research that >> is extremely complex is costly is going to get you into territories of how do you you know >> are there known health markers or somebody can somebody tell me all the health markets for beans and cucumbers

22:09

and rice. If you can, you're going to save us a lot of money and I really, really want to meet you and talk to you.

I'll come fly over to your house cuz you'll save me millions of dollars. I'm completely serious.

>> This is what we don't we don't know this. >> As our small organization, we've been

22:25

doing a lot and there's some things we just don't know. So for those who do, please write in big letters, >> all capitals, give me your phone number afterwards.

Like I really want to know if any way this can be simplified and

22:41

but it has to have integrity. >> Yeah, >> it has to be like beyond reproach.

Yes. Thank you.

I would strongly suggest then as an intermediate point because I think we all agree on the why that is necessary and how it relates to the rest of the topic is to take a short pause

22:57

and really go into the literature for which nutrients we have this information for which we don't because I think investing the money for the nutrients and the crops that we don't have this information yet highly relevant but for a part we do I I'm pretty sure we do for

23:13

a part and that could save you a lot of money. So that would be I think the advice to to >> look at that in detail first.

>> So I'm not sure if you looked at the timeline. >> Um >> it's not in that much detail.

>> It's it starts with experimental design.

23:28

>> Yes. Well that is an important point then.

Yeah. >> The whole thing is we don't actually start doing anything until we've done experimental design.

Until we've actually engaged thoughtful people to develop the process which is going to take time. It's going to take money.

23:45

And it has to be serious. And so we're trying to get as much as we can done preliminarily.

And any insights or suggestions like go look over here, talk to this group. Here's a book you should know.

Um this is a group of researchers that'll happily volunteer. Like oh my god,

24:01

I would say I kiss you, but I might the wrong way. Like give you a big hug if you can help me find those things out.

>> I know research that has been done. >> Brilliant.

>> So there's some, you know, >> awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, anything you know or anything

24:16

anybody does know is better than nothing. >> Are you linking?

Can you can you access the data? I know there's the periodic food table initiative >> and they a me to share what they have or not.

I don't know. >> They have done almost nothing and blown $80 million doing it.

24:33

>> Yeah. um >> periodic table of food initiative, the American Heart Association and and um Rockefeller and Voggan and no, they're completely bankrupt.

They've spent all their money and they're running around looking for more money >> and no one's wanting to give it to them

24:49

because they just blew through 80 million and have done nothing >> because they were they the experimental design was It was predicated on a series of assumptions which were incorrect. >> Actually, I shouldn't.

I'm on the record. >> So, you're going to be sharing the other way then?

Uh, I met them in DC at at at the

25:06

Rockefeller Institute foundation at the FAR thing and they were like, "Hey, >> could you give us some of that beef data cuz maybe we could use it to raise some more money?" Literally, >> I'm happy to work with them. I I talked to them before they started.

I'm like,

25:22

"Guys, you're doing something stupid. Can we work together?" But they were like, "You're just a little nonprofit.

We're going to go work with Vogening. we're going to go work with, you know, um, Davis and we're going to work with all the proper credential people.

I'm like, what's your rationale? What's your actual question you're trying to answer?

25:39

It was it wasn't properly thought through. There wasn't actually a a clear strategic vision, I don't think.

Um, anyway, yeah, should be careful what I say in the record. >> This is being recorded.

It's going to be

25:55

Sorry. um as just input for the treaty because I think what's really interesting here is that we're looking for a way to correlate soil health, planetary health with human health for the mission of improving quality food supply chain.

It's important to have a indicator for this. I would suggest

26:11

adding a chapter perhaps to the treaty for once that indicator is there how is it getting rolled out to really make sure the effectiveness of farming is improving and that of behaviors are changing. So how is this going to influence and educate the next generation of aronomists of chefs of

26:29

doctors? >> What's the theory of change the strategic implementation >> once the measure is there?

How are we going to train educate mobilize and so I would advise to with the chapter and get those representatives that can speak for these universities for the chefs schools

26:46

etc to take this along in their uh future program. I think it makes a ton of sense to say, so what?

How do we think this is going to go exactly? >> What's our vision?

Like, which I got a lot of answers for, but they're not written down there.

27:01

>> Yeah, >> thank you very much. Great suggestion.

>> I also understand the argument of that proving that eating more nutritionally dense carrots, sorry to use the terms, um, will improve your health because proving that it will improve your health is so difficult because all the factors. >> Yeah.

But if we just all rally behind

27:19

the fact that the healthier soils are better for everyone, then I think it still makes you a lot of sense to work on this indicator. >> The way I say it is if you're going to eat a tomato, eat a tomato that's better for you.

If you're going to eat a carrot, eat a carrot that's better for you. If you're going to eat rice, eat

27:34

rice that's better for you. If you're going to eat potatoes, eat potatoes that are better for you.

>> You still have to decide whether to drink alcohol or smoke or exercise >> or whatever. But like if you have a selection of choices, for me I think the visceral driver is going to be parents thinking about their children.

I think that's really the power in this is

27:50

people's kids are not well and they're not okay with it. And so if we can help them make some kind of a decision which is actually based on something they can trust.

That's going to be the I think that's really the power behind the scene here is the is the incentive of the parent. But um

28:06

>> yes, >> could I possibly speak to that point? >> Which one?

Martin's point on um how to reward the practices the shifted practices of land management um in terms of nutrient density on um it is basically around we we see nutrient

28:22

density or I see nutrient density as a metric that can um reward the um the changes in land management practices that are better suited for the environment. it actually helps tick boxes for environmental and people um

28:38

you know people's health um to the point that recently RFK announced with the um the Brook Rollins who's the um for the agricult um about how up until now we've been

28:54

they've been subsidizing um foods that aren't necessarily foods that um make us sick and then end up paying the price after the fact and instead instead they're focusing on regenerative agriculture to um improving the health of the soil to improve the

29:10

health of the people and it to me that sounds like a shift to more towards more of the well-being economy framework which then it takes into account the environmental and social factors which also feeds into corporate reporting. So talking to your point around adding a

29:25

chapter about how we can quantify or measure the shift or you know incentivize if anyone has any expertise in that in that um realm please feel free to speak up and and bring that forward in comments. We'd love to hear that um because that's particularly

29:42

particularly pertinent. >> Yeah.

>> Cool. >> Yes.

I'm I'm still wondering a bit about uh soil health. We're talking a lot about it.

Yeah. What is the current idea or the current experimental design about

30:00

measuring soil health? Is it is it translated to soil life, amount of soil life and then how are you going to measure?

>> This is another this is exactly an open question. Which metrics are we measuring and how much are we spending on it?

>> Are you know there's 85 different ways of measuring soil minerals? There's you

30:17

know which definition of of organic matter or carbon or stable carbon or instable carbon you know which which kingdoms are we looking at these are completely open topics for people's suggestion I recommend this lab at and

30:32

this assessment for this reason at this cost we this is it like you got an idea write it down submit it >> people can you know yay or nay it >> um um I will say One issue is with doing

30:48

um samples from six continents because we really do want to have complete diversity from the planet. Getting samples of soil and manure and stuff from around the planet to one country to one lab is a pain in the butt.

So that's

31:04

a significant logistical hurdle. And when you do different labs in different countries, they have different even though they say they're doing the same thing, >> you get different results.

So, so this is another one of the things we're considering and looking at and trying to contemplate what are the logistics and how do we get things into a negative 80

31:19

and ship them internationally with all the permits and make sure they don't get stuck in in customs. So, they all rot because that's happened with the beef project.

>> It was a real logistical hurdle. But yeah, these are >> soil health as a as a concept is it is even as big as as nutrient density.

31:36

>> What is what is soil health is the first question. Yeah, there's so much many projects going on at the same time at the moment.

>> Yeah. >> And they're all going in different directions.

>> Completely open question. >> Granted, yes.

>> For me, the first assessment is the

31:51

biodiversity. >> If you just look at the grass and it's only grass and clover, then you know that this farmer is still old school, >> right?

>> And how are you growing carrots? >> And but he's really very serious farming.

if you're growing carrots.

32:06

>> But he's just not aware that he should because a lot of farmers are are very anxious to change because they will be how you say it. They will be separate from the group.

>> So what we're proposing >> people will not talk to you during parties and things like that. That's

32:22

really what's happening. >> Peer pressure you.

>> Yeah. >> Yes.

I think the proposal is that we get a diversity of samples from across an entirely varied set of environmental conditions and we see if the carrot patch that has five other families of plants growing in it, which some people might call weeds,

32:38

>> exactly, >> is actually producing the carrots with the highest level of nutrients. If we can show that not weeding your carrots causes them to be more nutritious and you'll get a premium for them >> and you won't and people won't buy your

32:53

carrots if you weed them too much >> then can can't manage it on this moment. >> What's that?

>> Albertine can't manage it. >> We talk about >> not yet.

>> What do you So we we rise up paprikas etc with higher nutritions and then we

33:11

have a full load of nutrition paprika and they can sell >> because you don't have a metric for assessing >> right >> metric >> my point is the whole the whole idea is if there's an instrument in your hand called a phone which you open up the app >> we have this instrument and there's an

33:27

institute there's no mech they measure everything they make >> in the consumer's hands >> it cost you €400 per per You better take a bricks me. >> It's not a flash of light.

It's not a flash of light. >> You're talking about at the retail there's no way you can have a separate

33:43

segment to >> valorize what you have done to improve the nutrient. >> I'm saying that's what we don't have.

>> Let's first get from the 21 crops or 25. >> Yeah.

>> Which crops are you going to choose? >> That's on the list.

>> We've got a we've got a proposed list

33:59

based on staples. >> Yeah.

because we think staples are important. But if somebody else says, "Hey, I got I got the blueberry farmers, so they're willing to give us a million and a half dollars." Guess what we're going to do?

>> That's the point I wanted to. >> If somebody can bring money to the table, there's for a specific purpose,

34:16

as long as it's done in this ethos with this experimental design, first come, first served. Like there's no reason why we have to do sweet potatoes first as before rice or whatever.

Um the whole point is we're a small organization. We're trying to open this

34:33

conversation up and say who wants to take collective ownership in this. Is it possible that there could be a coalition coalition of people who say this is important.

I want to be part of it and and this is you know so yes >> this is I appreciate everyone's

34:48

engagement. This is great >> in and of itself.

Yes. on the topic that we were discussing.

I was thinking, okay, I'm going to try and formulate this right. Um, right now I completely agree it's difficult to valorize to to get the amount of money

35:04

that something is really worth based on nutrients. And if we were going to something built into your phone, there is a risk of uh not only retailers but also producers feeling punished because someone can go into the store and they have their product and then it's like oh

35:20

this is a bad product. And are you considering discussing with either >> in Dutch it's called failing the the options where they have let's say the criteria of the four three two one um

35:36

how a food is graded and also maybe the retailers Albert high in Dutch is a really really big score where maybe >> I don't know the the measuring system you have could be built into the scanning system whereby a product is worth more once it is, you know, you

35:52

scan it for the weight and then it's also worth a bit more of the values. Is that a that's of course a very far-fetched future futuristic idea, but maybe in terms of partnerships, this is the route to kind of >> there was a So, yeah, I think I got what you're saying.

Um um

36:09

>> I just get a really uh disturbing vision of people running to the supermarket in the morning and trying to find that carrot that has multiple traits and kill other people before they get the >> So a couple things. A couple things.

For starters, >> I know what you mean where it can go.

36:26

You know, some people get really crazy about >> Let me say let me let me say a few things. For starters, I got into all this thing as a farmer because I had enough free time to go blow my mouth off after I was making my

36:43

living because my cost of production went down >> and my quality was high. There is absolutely no reason that high quality food has to cost more.

In fact, the general dynamic is when it's the

36:59

microbes doing the job of growing the food, your cost of production is lower. Effectively, what's going to happen is we're going to out compete the application of fertilizer, insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides.

It's actually economically advantageous

37:15

for the farmer to support the microbiome to do the work of production because their cost of production is lower, their packout rates are higher, the shelf life is better, etc. So for anybody who's concerned about price points and everything else I see here is ambient level of nutrient levels for food for

37:31

everybody in the planet being higher because farmers begin to be incentivized to work with nature and not to purchase things from chemistry companies. when it comes to the the you know the um the packers the buyers the wholesalers the

37:46

retailers there are companies that have come funded there's one that came out of MIT bunch of money their business model was to sell a meter that could measure nutrient levels to cor to retailers Walmart foods things like that they went

38:02

bankrupt because once they had built the meter and had made it and calibrated it and shared it with with Whole Foods and and Walmart whole foods at Walmart said there's no possible chance we want anybody to know >> what the nature of our supply chain is >> um because of what I showed you before

38:20

because the ambient level of nutrients is so low >> so >> and that's why this this measure in the hands of the consumer >> I think if we can have it in the consumer who actually has the incentive for the best quality that's going to do the pull through what happens in California if there's you know it's

38:35

strawberry season and this packing house can bring in 10, you know, has there's there's farmers that can bring in 10 truckloads of strawberries today and there's a demand for seven loads of strawberries from the buyers. Three loads of strawberries don't get taken

38:52

into the packing house. This is what happens right now.

A lot of strawberries are not picked. They're they're just chucked.

They're they're the farmers don't sell them. They they they lose it.

They they write it off. My thought is the market is a real thing.

39:08

It happens, decisions are made. If we can incentivize the market to focus on nutritional caliber caliber as the primary reason by which purchasing decisions are made all the way through the entire supply chain, what that's going to do is incentivize farmers to begin competing with each other to

39:24

optimize soil health, nutrient levels, etc., etc., etc. Um, so yeah, I don't know.

We we we we we you never know when you start doing something what all the unforeseen impre repercussions are going to be and something that's completely well-meaning can have horrible atrocious

39:41

outcomes. So I'm completely, you know, aware of that.

I could be causing some major problems with well-made. >> Can it can it get worse?

>> Well meaning inspiration. What's that?

>> Can it get worse than it is now? >> I'm sure genocide is only happening in Gaza and

39:57

you know it could happen lots of places. I think if if they are going to be able to show that this is a higher density prop then also the supermarket's going to say okay for now I'm I'm going to rise the raise the price of this one because I see it has more value to my customer so I'm going to increase the price so it's not even the that the

40:14

farmer has to put a higher price on it. So I think also >> or the farmers can be local and they can sell directly to the to the consumers and everything does not have to go through three layers of of middle bureaucracy corporate profit taking.

>> We could go to short supply chains.

40:32

I mean there's all kinds of opportunities and repercussions here >> but the big parties already use rigs and they also in the Netherlands they really really know what what is quality only they don't want the consumers to know >> and they know how low their quality is.

40:47

They know how low their quality is already. >> Yeah.

Yeah. They know what the quality >> but we had a couple of this short chain companies already in Holland like here you know local to local >> and um for example one month ago the Heribore is going bankruptcy.

So it is there's no not a good

41:04

>> noall organization. >> So it is not not easy to break it up.

>> I will say as a small local farmer >> I know but >> I can't make a living. I can't make a living >> when I have pests and insects eating my

41:19

plants because I'm a bad farmer. >> I I did the farm by immed by the family Shabbat.

Yeah. Tomatoes.

>> Yeah. We erased the production twice with the half of the cost and he's bioorganic.

So we have a bunch of

41:35

customers they wants to buy directly and you know that. >> Hello that is Michigan that are not 100 customers 10,000 customers.

So we make a lot of money. >> Mhm.

>> That's not yet not yet.

41:50

>> I don't know yet. You guys you guys are backwards behind the times I guess.

>> Here you were thinking you're progressive. Yeah.

I don't know. >> I don't know.

>> You can ask also to Well, Mark, >> isn't it about changing the the discussion because there are okay in the

42:06

Netherlands um there are a lot of people with enough money. There are obviously a lot of people with with not enough money, but in general there are a big chunk of people with enough money.

So, let's spend that money on our own health and eating healthy food. So we have to

42:21

just somebody has to change the discussion >> and that that's how through this movement we want to change the discussion. >> What are we prioritizing that it's logical if you have five minutes to think about it that soil

42:37

health is linked to the plant that's growing in it and the plant that's grow that's been grown is linked to your own health. But it's about making those those connections and if people are told the story allowed to hear the story >> then you can give them the opportunity to to

42:52

>> choose or not choose >> choose >> perhaps product perhaps >> I was at the discussion last week and some people are just not interested even IDO it's about health >> so we're amongst the believers here so this will help become transparent so it

43:08

will make it more easy but sometimes I think there's wishful thinking that we change the world just because we can prove it's like this. Exactly.

>> Yeah. Because they want to have beefy and they want to have nice sneakers and they're not interested in what carrot they're eating.

>> What I say you will not even eat the carrot.

43:23

>> But there are a lot of people they are convinced >> it's not helping you but then >> but I think it is not enough. I've been in in very in boardrooms with some you know big multinational global corporate food companies like big ones

43:40

and they are like we've done our market research maybe it's just in the US where people are a lot sicker than they are in the Netherlands >> no >> we're already also twothirds are obese I mean it's everywhere disaster >> I'm sorry you guys look not like

43:56

Americans >> amongst the believers here. >> I was just in slip all I've been in this country.

I'm sorry. This is this is not the US.

The level of of health dysfunction in this country is not like

44:12

the US. >> True, but they're getting there, >> right?

And so I can report to you from the future. I can report to you from the future what the big corporates market research is telling them.

And that is that the consumers want flavor, nutrition, and price.

44:29

>> Flavor, >> flavor, nutrition, and price in almost equal quantities. 25% 26% 25% out of 100 out of all the things that consumers want.

If you watch mothers in the grocery store reading, I mean, there is

44:45

a visceral, this is what MA is, right? You guys have heard about MA?

Make America Healthy Again. Yeah, >> this is the apparently the strongest political force in the US right now.

>> People are like they've written off politics. Like they're all completely

45:02

rigged, >> right? It's whatever bought, sold, and paid for.

All we care about is the fact that our children are sick >> and that's not okay. Mhm.

>> And the and the and the corporates that are selling food have done their market research and they understand that they're going to get market increases in market share

45:18

if they have a thing that the people think is more nutritious. So there's a really interesting crosscutting dynamic here and I'm I can say I'm in conversations with some really really really big corporates who are like we want to transform our entire supply

45:34

chain to be more nutritious not just because of our ESG claims and credits because but because our market is saying this is what we want. Our customers are saying we don't want our kids to be sick and we don't trust any of the rest of these labels and stuff you've got going on.

So that I mean it's maybe yeah

45:52

whatever it's not that it's not that bad here >> it has only advantages we are talking about nutrientdense quality of food. >> Yes.

>> But when you improve that then you get more worms in the soil that's buffering water capacity. >> You are taking CO2 from the atmosphere.

46:09

Christina Jones tells us the carbon root. >> Yes.

>> When somebody can tell me disadvantages I like to hear it. We have all the advantages.

So what's holding us back to do it? Do it.

>> Can I continue? >> A consensus and the research and the and

46:24

the and the market driver. >> For me, it's like build a consensus.

>> Yeah. >> Do the raise the money.

Don't forget the raise the money part. >> Build the build the strategy consensus.

Raise the money. Do the research and then bring the metric to the market to

46:41

facilitate those who do care in making decisions. And that 2% or 5% we think will will be is what the corporates are looking for.

You had your hand up forever. >> Yeah.

Um I'm wondering if it might be useful to do some kind of future pathway, future scenario analysis and

46:58

you can make that as complex as you want with the different regions, different continents, different like levels of application because there's so much going on here. And I get that your research is more about okay, what do we call this?

How do we do this? and then

47:14

give away the idea. But I feel like there's a lot of interest here about okay, how can we apply this?

Who are the stakeholders and where can the change be coming from? Um, so if you make scenarios like doom scenario, everybody will run to a supermarket and compete

47:29

for the best nutritional value. It's kind of a doom scenario.

You can also make a very like idealistic scenario and see where you want to work towards and what are the steps that need to be taken to reach that and where does that change need to come from like consumer behavior

47:45

change or more at the farmer's side that they already start >> uh improving their soil health uh in the meantime um >> I think that sounds like what Martin was saying >> like write out tell us a story

48:00

>> of where you think this goes here this This is all very logical and rational. Tell me a story.

>> Explain to me how you see this. >> Yeah.

As well more in this treaty. >> That's exactly what he said.

So we got two votes from younger people. >> The voice from the youth is

48:16

>> tell us a story that we can believe in because otherwise we're screwed. >> We're screwed.

Guys, can somebody help us out over here? We want to believe in something.

>> The what is the importance the relevance of this and how can we take this and actually >> beautiful >> make some kind of promise. let people

48:31

sign to that as well like okay after >> I love what you're saying yes >> then we need to move forward on this and we do think that this is important and we see that contact is right >> as part of a deeper I love what you're saying >> thank you very much >> bring the heart >> to the science

48:48

>> there's the cold data and the what do they call the warm data >> warm data >> yeah that's a fancy term now apparently warm data >> like >> in the science world >> thank you very much yeah >> I think that's I think that's a Adam fight for defining because that's an

49:03

issue and then there's campaigning people to engage with it to care about it and I think that side you know what we see often people don't change because of facts and figures but because of emotions because of wanting to belong to a groupment >> and just for context if you don't know

49:19

this but or maybe you connected us that's why Josh is here now together we're starting a community kitchen at the science park where we could through trials like this light tasting on flavor correlating this with results of

49:34

nutrition density so making it something experiential as well and >> I think that that's very interesting that's that's one element I would say how is it on the culture part of things >> and then we have to market I think that's been discussed very much and then lastly the the policy if we can

49:50

understand that healthier soil save money for a government healthier soils will >> lessen cost for the water boards will lessen cost for so many for health etc. And then maybe this is a very interesting indicator to reward farmers for improved soil health.

Yeah.

50:06

>> So you see this after you know we had a bit of issues with carbon credits. Now the EU is trying nature credits and I'm curious could in the policy advice be nutrient credits a way to reward the farmers.

>> Yeah. >> Where we pay for effect.

>> Um yeah and yeah

50:22

>> so not only on >> I love what you're saying >> for me government I'm very cynical about but maybe I'm just older than you. Um >> I mean I'm I'm in the game for about 10 years now.

>> I'm very cynical about government but I think yes >> I'm cynical.

50:37

>> Yeah. Thanks.

So um the level at the farmer's field >> this is a farmer. Yes.

>> Um so >> who's doing wonderful work. How are we going in the measurement to take the the practices that are also applicable at the farmer's field or how do we distract

50:54

or summarize the practices that we can translate to large scale farmers fields >> and that's where we are working with our foundation. >> Yeah.

>> To help those farmers really to the detail of how big is my knives on my rotivator have to be.

51:10

>> Yeah. to make a great cutting for you know decomposition and how are we going to extract that from the questionnaires that come with the samples how are we going to identify the right things to ask to translate to the right methods on the farmer's field this is part of what

51:25

I see is the future vision >> is that we're collecting all this metadata about what it was that you did that caused this crop to be what it is and then we look for the patterns to see who caused their crops to be most well

51:40

and then we go deeply and learn from them and share that to all growers on all countries and all continents of all scales to to empower all producers in optimizing their crop quality. Right.

>> Part of the collective that you like way

51:56

back when >> this is exactly this has been our intention for years. This is exactly the whole idea.

This is part of what I you know want to write up that Martin's like what's the vision? The vision is we collect all this metadata.

We identify what works and that gets shared and so farmers know what not to buy and what to

52:11

do which products if they're going to buy a product works which technique or practice is appropriate here and not appropriate there. I think in that process it should not be from the side like seeing what's happening defining and and presenting like okay that's what the farmer did result in that I think

52:29

>> that needs to be together with the aronomist to combine that and make that translatable to new farmers who want to do that >> because otherwise that translation for farmers who want to implement okay so my neighbor is doing great okay I can watch from the side of the road what he's

52:44

doing but they will never understand to the detail and and we need that that detail to be translated to new aronomists also to tell it to farms to help us >> and the people that who deserve to have their practices recorded and shared will

53:01

be identified through this process >> and then all the culture sharing can happen and we can identify who we want to go and learn from right that's the whole idea is farmers don't know I mean like somebody's coming along selling you a product like I don't know that person's nice, they got a great podcast,

53:17

you know, like they seem charismatic. I mean, the choices the farmers make based on what the purchase is not necessarily logical and but we don't have we don't have any context.

So, this is the idea is we're is we're providing that context. Exactly.

>> Farmers don't talk among each other. It's I'm always very surprised.

They see

53:32

that doing better and >> some do that are culture shifting but a lot of a lot of them don't >> hopefully. Yeah.

>> Yes. Yeah, maybe one remark because in six weeks time um there's been a campaign in the development for the past

53:48

three years with uh 42 NOS's in total like all the conservation uh NOS's animal well-being NOS's but also the green farmer NOS's >> who are going to like swarm together right now to do a mutual campaign

54:05

>> uh which will be launched half of November on this topic literally on this topic >> beautiful >> how uh what's the correlation between healthy nature >> healthy food and healthy human beings >> beautiful >> that's one so that's on on that culture

54:22

side I think that's really really important and I keep missing an instrument at the end of this whole process which you can give me as consumer or Aaron as a farmer >> yes >> uh to start applying

54:37

>> let's just I And that's that's where in the end the the money will come from, the investments will come from and the >> and that I have no doubt that there's going to be lots of people who want to make lots of money selling instruments

54:53

to lots of different people in the supply chain. >> There's zero question in my mind that billions will come in wanting to sell instruments.

The only question in my mind is what is the data

55:10

>> that those instruments are calibrated to. >> Yeah.

>> And that's the issue. This is the hurdle.

If we can do this science properly and we can publish it openly and it doesn't belong to anyone. It belongs to everyone.

Then we give it to the market and we say

55:27

anybody who wants to make a ton of money go compete with each other. >> There's all the instruments already there.

The instruments are already there. You you can buy them off the shelf.

They simply have to calibrate >> you because in the end the people that will develop it from your

55:42

>> from your integrity will break that integrity I think. So there >> let them compete there.

>> Let them compete. >> Competition isn't hasn't proven to be the best.

>> If you got a better suggestion, I'm happy to hear it. >> Okay.

Yeah. I'd love to I'd love to

55:58

discuss that. I'm also sensitive to time.

I feel like people may be getting like they've had enough and I'm not sure how much like actual visceral practical suggestions we're having and how much we're sort of general conversation. So just maybe a like do people feel like they want to

56:15

keep engaging in this process for another half an hour or like kind of done? >> I some people some people are done.

Some people I'm feeling like a critical mass may be done and I don't want to just keep this going and not have you feel like you're rude to get up. So can can

56:31

we if there's maybe any last couple points that are pertinent to suggestions let's hear those otherwise from my perspective relationships with each other are critically valuable and so any kind of networking that can happen across and we haven't done introductions

56:46

I'm sorry but um feel free to chat and hang out um if you want to go also feel free to go but I feel like this has been really productive and thank you very much yes you haven't said anything please >> I just had one point about kind of connected to what you were talking ments about the soil health discussion. Uh a

57:02

specific test, the Haney test. >> Yeah.

>> Is that something you have? >> That's on the list of what potential or one of the many things you'd be looking at.

>> Um and like kind of connected to that. So um I actually helped so I my connection to you was through a USC

57:17

fellowship research project on nutrient density. >> Uh and we had some funding and we helped uh >> you guys are the ones that found the the relationship to soil to Yes.

funded for you know sustainable settings ranchale y Brooklyn bomb so there I think we're part of the yeah

57:33

>> that's in Colorado >> sorry >> that's in Colorado >> Colorado >> not USC >> no yeah my my research was at USC but um yeah >> his farm uh sustainable settings is biodnamic and like they I think are one of the stories >> that >> he's a great storyteller about himself

57:49

I'm not quite sure how good his nutrients are >> really I was curious what the >> that's one of those things that people so cocky about how good they are >> don't share the results when they get them. >> He was >> of their crops.

>> I spent I spent a night at his ranch and he he

58:05

>> is really powerful about how amazing he is. >> Yeah.

>> I know that guy. >> I don't know.

I didn't see his results. I I don't It's not I'm not allowed.

What we do is your data is your data. No one ever gets to know what your results are.

58:21

M >> anybody who submits data >> your integrity your your identifying metrics are yours and yours alone >> if you are part of the project and you don't tell anybody what your results are if you tell people you're part of the project and you don't tell people what

58:38

your results are you can take from that double negative or >> you can come to conclusions let's just put it that way anyway so >> I just wanted to know whether you are aware of the A they K&L growth fund in the Netherlands. So it's a regenerative

58:53

farming. So they are going to uh move a thousand farms I think from uh current practice to regenerative practices >> and they are going to collect a lot of data there.

So maybe that would be an interesting >> partner to see whether they could participate in this.

59:10

Mark is in contact with them. >> Which Markick Frederick Mark knows and are you involved already with Dave Swat from D fararm?

Did you see? >> I've heard of the G farm.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

>> Mark. >> Yeah.

Yeah. I talked to him as well.

59:26

>> I'm there by the experiment board. >> Okay.

>> Then you know that for water for light. >> Brilliant.

>> Okay. I'm going to let people one last comment.

Wolf. >> Uh nutrient density.

If you would take that the fourth word. So flavor, taste,

59:44

cost, nutrient density. Then all of a sudden you have the whole spectrum covered.

the the citizens will understand for the post. That's something I'll look up.

>> Okay. >> Thank you all very much.

00:00

>> What do you need from us? >> What do I need from you?

>> Um, if you would like to put your name on this project, well, did you all does does anybody have your email? >> Do you have everyone?

You have everyone's email. Well, >> everyone who's here,

00:17

>> for starters, if >> someone >> if you if you if you are here and you have not given Katrina your email Oh, I do have a final thing. Um, >> yes, I was.

>> Please. Thank you.

All right. Yes.

Sorry, I do have a Yes. Um, that would be much appreciated.

If you want to be affiliated, if you want to be engaged,

00:33

the easiest thing to do would be to give her your email. Obviously, the ways to engage formally publicly is on the website, but not everybody's going to go do that, so we might make it easier for you.

Um, all right. So, um, we do have a little thing we're doing right now at the sort of proactively in regards to

00:48

this whole thing, which is using the refratoter internally at the BFA, not internally, we're building an app, um, effectively like our BRICS app. And so, we're we're branding a a refratoter and a garlic press.

We're calling it a Brixit kit. Um,

01:05

bricksit kit. So, the app is almost done.

It's like operational. It's just got got some like, you know, bugs.

Um, and so we've got these kits and and like the refratoter and the bricks readings is like is a thing we have now is a

01:20

meter you can go out. And so the idea is bring home your shopping, invite your friends over who we are maybe shopped, >> get a bottle of wine, take out the carrot, the cucumber, the lettuce, whatever it is you've got, take a chunk, squish it, get the reading, upload the

01:37

date of purchase, the point of purchase, the brand, and the reading into the app. So right now we the people can begin to engage this process of citizen science, empirical verification, public transparent like assessment of that of

01:54

your natur of your supply chain. So this has not been released yet.

I have a um this is a pre-release pre-release um kit here and I'm giving it to Katrina who's our local coordinator organizer.

02:09

So thank you Katrina. Thank you for giving up all your work.

We wouldn't be here. Yes, >> we will have bridge kit parties in >> That's the idea is in the next, you know, month or so when we once we release them, we can start start there.

02:25

Start there. Thank you all very much.

>> Pokémon Go for fresh produce. >> Yeah.

>> All right. No reason to leave, but if you if you want to, feel free.

>> Thank you all very much.

02:55

registered in Europe. Yeah.

03:35

He's not I got you.