Food quality, human health, farming systems and how closely these are connected, with Eric Jackson - Bionutrient Food Association

We don’t understand what it is we are eating! Our health is directly connected to the soil health in which our food is grown.

Research is showing that the nutrient composition of foods can vary over 100 times between two identical looking food items. A tomato is not a tomato and an apple is not an apple. The research is showing that the greatest determinant  of nutrient density is cover cropping as part of the system. Livestock productions systems also greatly influence the nutrient composition of meat wth the quality and variability of pasture leading to an increase in nutrient density. 

Eric Jackson is the Board Chair at the Bionutrient Food Association where they are studying nutrient density variability in foods and investigating what are the drivers of this variability.  He is bringing the medical and agricultural communities into the same room to tackle both food sustainability and the huge burden metabolic disease is having on our societies. 

I recently caught up with Eric to discuss the connections between human health, soil health, the health of the environment, and how intimately they are linked. 

Transcript

AS

Good morning. Thank you very much for joining me today.

EJ

Nice to be here ash, always a pleasure to speak with you.

AS 

From the research you are doing at the Bionutrient Food Association, it's becoming increasingly clear that that tomato is not a tomato and an apple is not an apple. There's more variability in the foods we eat even though they might look exactly the same on the shelf. Can you tell me what's actually happening? 

EJ

Dan Kittredge and his team at the Nionutrient Food Association started pondering these questions about 10 or 11 years ago. I guess the question was on the one hand, it should be obvious that crops grown in healthy soil produce healthier crops, but if you look at the literature there hadn't been much work done in that context. The early years of the BFA research was to determine the degree of variability.

Not only basic things like what are listed in the USDA, but other products like phytochemicals and secondary metabolites. Things which are truly drivers of human health, animal health. 

So taking pretty much a shotgun approach they started approaching farmers and farmers started approaching them and I today we have 21 products in the database. 

What was found was astounding, I mean, to your point about things that look the same, and even things that are genetically the same but coming out of different production systems. The variability in these phytonutrients, secondary metabolites, minerals and other compounds were 10x, 20x, 100x, and even more between some systems. So its enormous.

If you if you look at the BioNutrient Food Association website all of the all of the research has been published there. 

There are multiple levels of nutrition conversation, and most of them are centered around what we call the substitution factor. Of course, it's more healthy to eat a bunch of asparagus than it is to dine on French fries continuously.

We understand this substitution of good food versus food that may or may not be as good. That's over studied. We haven't fixed the problem yet. Right? But I think that that's well understood. Sort of the next level of intervention is around getting chemistry out of the food supply, right. So reduction in ag chemical reduction in in pharma in the food system. That's another piece that I think has been well documented, although there's still a lot of controversy.

 The horizons beyond that are going to be driven by true crop quality. That's where the work that the BFA is doing is to really get after this idea that now that we determined that there is a high degree of variability, what are the causes, and it's very complex because it's a natural system, right? It's a natural system with human intervention. You couldn't get much more complex than that. So, so at its core, BFA, we'd like to improve the quality of the food supply. And we believe that this research is critical to start heading in that direction.

AS

Thank you very much. You mentioned that some nutrients, secondary metabolites essential to be 10x 20x or even 100x Different within different different foods. Can you dig into that a bit deeper and what sort of nutrients are these? And which which foods show the greatest variability?

EJ

The variability is across the spectrum. There's really no single compound or single nutrient that is I have that I would select out and say that this you know, that that Selenium or iron or zinc or you know, one of the many, many phytonutrients or secondary metabolites. 

We've seen the variability across the spectrum and in ways that are still unexplained. So we will see an on the one hand a high value on one component and a low value on another, in another situation exactly the reverse. We do seem to recognize that the one of the single largest determinants at this point appears to be cover cropping as part of the system. 

Okay, so and cover cropping, you know, that that in and of itself is a very, very wide category, you know, just as a concept because there are so many different ways in which you can cover crop and so many different, you know, forages that you can, that you can plant there's a lot of different mixtures, right, that can be that can be incorporated in a cover crop and as a general rule, that cover crop concept is certainly a determinant for soil health. 

And also what we see as a determinant for the optimization of the nutritional compounds and food. So, that's, that's great, if that turns out to be the single pathway, right, and that turns out to be the predominant pathway through the research. Then we start peeling that onion layer by layer, so we can fine tune for the optimum, if you know within a cover cropping system. We've also seen early but not yet enough evidence in the animal production system side, incorporating animals into the production systems and putting animals back on the land. As part of a cover cropping system with forage and with animals, you know, being managed on a rotational grazing program, our beef project that were that were kicked off late last year, is intended to dig deeper into that component, right. So we'll be taking meat samples as well as forage samples as well as soil samples as well as fecal samples, so that we can understand the impact of the of the production system on the animal microbiome and subsequently on the meat quality. Right. Now, of course, a ruminant is not a human, but these are all it's all part of the same continuum. So you know, the work that we're doing, like I said, I'm not aware of anybody else doing it at scale. We know that there are, you know, there are projects out there occasionally, David Montgomery just published one, I think, in the last 30 days on this topic, on a very limited basis. 

But we need this understanding because ultimately, if we're going to start bending the arc of the food system from solely a quantitative caloric measure, towards a qualitative nutritional measure, we have to have more scientific understanding than we do today. Most of what most of what we have today is anecdotal outside of the work that the BFA is doing so I think that this this research is critical and I'm just honored to be part of it.

AS

Is there any indication or about how the quality of or the nutrient quality or density of meat changes with the production system it's growing under?

EJ

The early indicators and this is primarily work done by Dr. Stephan von Vliet who's currently at Utah State. But work that he started to do when he was there. Show a clear indication that the nutrient compounds found in predominantly I'm talking primarily, let's just stick with beef for a second okay, range widely and specifically based on the combinations of you know what how does the animal feed? Right, and how does the animal live. So, when you have an animal that is ranging, right and in a natural environment as you can provide in an agricultural system, and that is foraging on a managed basis, which means that you don't allow the herd or the mob to deplete a region right there. They're sort of in continuous movement as they would be in nature. That the combination of physical activity of the animal and the and what the animal eats and the socialization of the animal in that environment is it's definitely increasing the phytonutrients in secondary metabolite components, along with sort of the well published idea that, you know, the fatty acid profiles are strikingly different. You know, that's, again, that's not controversial. We all know that grass fed has a much higher, you know, favorable Omega fat ratios than the the corn fed. And in fact, there have been studies done now I'd say that corn fed beef, particularly the way that it's done here in the US, and probably elsewhere, in these concentrated animal feeding operations, right. That style of animal husbandry would actually kill the animal if we allowed it to live long enough? Right, we're forcing in this caloric intake primarily through corn, not not exclusively, but primarily through corn or corn extracts, like distillers dried grains that are fundamentally not part of what the animal would usually eat. The animal metabolizes those products and very inefficiently, and extracts from those products, this extremely high dose of calories with a very poor fatty acid profile that would you know, create a situation similar to our arthrosclerosis  but in an animal had, you know if we didn't if we didn't kill the animal before, before it would die in a natural and unnatural death. So, but again, you know, the research component of this von Vliet has some documentation. And the reason he's interested is because he's, he's a medical doctor in the field of metabolomics. Right. And so, he has seen in patient and clinical studies, he has seen the effect that these different proteins, different quality proteins have on the human response. Right. And so, the question then is obviously okay, how do we try to maximize the amount of the good stuff that's produced and get it into particularly the more vulnerable populations so that we can use this as you know, truly as a food as medicine, both preventative and curative in nature it's, you know, it's wonderful to be part of a project that is actually led by the medical community. At this point, instead of instead of only the agriculture This is always this has been a longtime dream of mine. I want to agriculture and healthcare in the same room together.

AS

Right? It makes perfect sense.

EJ

We need those two communities to be in conversation. They have so much to do with each other and yet that conversation has been scarce. And

AS

one of the big areas that Professor David Sinclair is working on in his longevity clinic at Harvard, is this concept called xenohormeisis, which is that our bodies through the secondary metabolites and phytonutrients, etc, can assist us essentially listen to the environment that we're living in so that evolutionary we could adapt better to upcoming changes, and that would trigger genes that protect you against what protect the body against whatever diseases are coming. So it makes a lot of sense that these small molecules and various different phytonutrients or secondary metabolites do affect us because it's evolved over millions and millions of years that we have been interacting with our environments.

EJ

Yeah, and I mean, once you start understanding the chemical physical components, then you can start researching and I know there's been other research coming from the other direction, but there's the human microbiome, right? So the fourth level of intervention, you know, if you were able to fully establish the first level of intervention and people are eat generally eating more healthy, and the second level of intervention where you've taken as much chemistry out of the out of the food production as possible, and you fully understand, you know, at least at some level, what the what the nutrient variation is and the causes of that, then you're in a position where you can really start addressing the Human Microbiome response to foods right, and I think what is what killed people at a young age in, in prior generations wasn't necessarily the food, right? It was the lack of response. communicable diseases so these non communicable disease issues have taken the forefront since we've solved for a lot of the communicable diseases COVID notwithstanding. It's the non communicable side that is killing far more people today than any other any other risk factor for the human population. And that goes that ties directly back to lifestyle and a big component of that lifestyle is the food and drink that we intake. So yeah, I'm, there are a lot of people working on different pieces of this I kind of feel like this, this research of nutrient density variation. And the causes for it sits in the center and deserves as much as much support as we can muster. You know, as we continue this journey,

AS

oh, completely. It's a vital link and I think the probably should be added that the metabolic diseases or the non communicable diseases that you mentioned about, or mentioned, actually, quite significantly can increase your susceptibility to communicable disease as we saw with the COVID pandemic and who was more susceptible and who wasn't?

EJ

Yes, correct. You know, the processing component also sits in the mix here. You know, ultra processed foods, which is the nomenclature today for ultra processed foods. You know, I think that that that is, that is a vital significance, but I would also kick that all the way back to the substitution factor, you know, sort of a level one intervention is simply can take Ultra processed foods out of out of the food system or discontinue, just continue eating them to the extent that you have, that you have options and that that causes conflict with for example, as we all know, you know, around the faux meat products that are being offered up you know, the cellular group is trying to claim the high ground and that because they say after all, you know, we're just we're we're, we're reproducing the animal without the animal. But some of these, you know, vegetable protein, and they're calling them plant base, which I think is a bit of an abomination. Because, yes, they do have plants, you know, plants were used to create compounds and then mix together giant chemistry experiment. But there's so processed that it's it, you know, the early studies and again, von Vliet has done some of this research shows quite a difference between when you get beyond just basic protein, right? The idea that this that there's not as much protein in name your brand, plant based burger as there is a meat tells nothing tells you absolutely nothing, the availability of that protein for digestion, the type of protein right the amino acid structure of those proteins, the digestibility and the utilization. They're completely different, different products, but it all comes back to an understanding of, you know, what are the nutritional components and how does the body assimilate those

AS

I imagine that a lot of those phytonutrients or secondary metabolites, the ones that come from grazing. A diverse pasture will also not be there in the plant based or artificial meats

EJ

completely absent completely absent, because animals and ruminants in particular, right because of their of their unique digestive pathway, take plant materials and convert them for their own benefit. Right this is this, this is for their own health. This is nature at work. They convert those into substances that cannot even be found in plants. Right. So and yet they are critical to human health. So you know, the idea that the omnivore diet, generally speaking isn't the best diet, a lot of other components to be considered, right. But if you want the full range of nutritional access, you need a full range of foodstuffs and trying to consolidate this down into you know, something that may taste similar and may be convenient to put on the grill and make a good sandwich. Right. You're missing you're missing the point, completely missing the point when it comes to nutritional benefits. So because of that uniqueness of animals and again, ruminants in particular to be able to convert these plant compounds into into these nutritional components. So you will not find any of those unless they're artificially introduced and many of them can't be artificially produced. Right? So you're not going to find those in these in these plant only diets in any way, shape or form.

AS

And once again, the whole ruminant side of things, essentially is down to the rumen and microbiome, which is where all those plant materials are broken, which in itself is a monumentally complex and fascinating entity.

EJ

Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think you know, one of the reasons that we are focused on beef is because from a dollar perspective, more money is spent on beef than any other product. So we if we want to make lands you know, landscape scale adjustments to the food system, you might as well start at the top of the stack. And because beef in particularly in North America, but it's also true and in other parts of the world, because beef has such a an outsized economic component of the food system, why wouldn't you start there, but the same thing holds true for the balance of the animal protein sector, and certainly for the for the plant based crop sector as well. You know, we I think the chicken and pork will be fast followers in this space, just due to their size. You know, the, some of the smaller animal protein consumption, you know, at least in this country, lamb and things like that. can follow along with the work that we're doing in beef is specifically because it's the, it's the largest animal protein is the largest food sector in terms of dollars spent. And that's that is means that if we can make some unique discoveries in that space, you know, we can start making landscape scale changes.

AS

Moving, but that's a great a great way to move on to my next question, which is, there's the humans health side of the equation, but there's also the environmental health side of the equation. How do you see the different production systems we're talking about that are looking to be more healthy or less healthy relating to how environmentally friendly or sustainable they are?

EJ

When Dan Kittredge and I talk about this, you know, part of our part of our dream function is to see markets evolve around the qualitative aspect of foods and based on early research, and we believe this will continue to be proven, that ultimately if you can have people buying food because of the quality, they're gonna pull through the environmental benefits as a result of that. We don't yet see much evidence of the consumer responding to environmental marketing. Now the one exception for that would be organic. But if you ask 10 folks who eat organic why they eat organic, you're gonna get a quite a wide variation of answers. Some people because they understand that is taking chemistry out of the food system, some because they believe it's been raised in small artisanal operations right and they get they get they get local and organic, sort of conflated with each other. Some believe that it's that they are in ingesting a more nutritious product, right? And some believe that it's out, you know, sort of back to the local artisanal, that has basically given a one finger salute to the system, right and they want to break out of the system, sort of, so to speak. So that's the one place where at least there's an environmental component that has been uptaken in the in the in the consumer behavior, but generally speaking, your ability to sell the environmental attribute of foods is very limited. We believe that nutrition has a different story to be told altogether. And so if the research does continue to show that a healthier, growing system produces a healthier food, and we can sell the healthier food based on the health merits of that food, we know we're getting the environmental benefits as a result of that. And we are establishing very critically we're establishing markets, right where people actually pay for a differentiated product. And we believe that that's much more scalable than trying to solve the environmental attribute to the consumer. The investor side is a whole different story, right, the investor side is trying to solve for, you know, the carbon question, the climate question, the water question. You know, ESG is sort of the sort of the you know, top level blanket for all this. So the investor community shows up around things that are environmentally related. We believe that in the future, that the question of nutrition and quality will be alongside that discussion, right, we have to describe we had to start showing that pathway, however, to unlock investor dollars. You know, to address this as well, I think the healthcare the healthcare community Unfortunately, most doctors were never trained in nutrition, right. And so we've got a there's a bridge to be built there as well. But I think if anything that that COVID was helpful with, to your point earlier is describing folks who are new, you know, metabolomically challenged, right, and their ability to respond to unforeseen things like a like a novel virus. There's a there's a tremendous amount of discussion today as always more talk than action. But at least we're having the conversations around how do we you know, bulletproof, if you will, society from not just this incident, but obviously, we know that there are more to come, right. And metabolomics is a is a key to that is is a key to that environment. So, I think that that, again, the research needs to connect the environmental component, which is why we do we gather farm practice information, we gather soil samples, and take measurements of the reaction in the soil, and we take food samples, right. And it's done under a very defined protocol. So that we have consistency in the results. And if, again, if the research continues to show what we've been what we've seen at this point, we believe we can sell nutrition and get the environmental stuff along with it and not try to bang our head against the rock and try to sell the environmental component.

AS

That makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm I'm sold on the concept or you've convinced me that there's benefit to knowing where your food come from, how it is grown and then and then buying the ones that are more food or nutrient dense. What would I do about that? How would I actually action that if I want to go down to the grocery store or within my local community to find the foods that are more nutrient dense or grown, as he said with cover crops, so they're more likely to have those those compounds in them?

EJ

Yeah, I mean that that is the current state of affairs. And this is where the local component comes in, because you're more apt to be able to understand your local producer. Right? And this is hard because there's a lot of people don't have the time. There's a lot of people who don't live in an area where there's any local food production, right. So this, this is definitely a continuum of what's available. What am I able to do as an individual or as a family, both from a time constraint and today from an economic constraint standpoint? So that story is different for everybody, as you know, Ash, you know, it's my ability to do something and your ability to do something might be quite spectacularly different, partially based on where we are located and partially based on our economic resources, and partially based on time constraints. But what we do know is that transport is not favorable to nutrient density either, right? And so the farther that a product is shipped, and the longer time between the field and the fork, the product doesn't get better. Right? And depending on what we're talking about, it may significantly deteriorate. So local, you may have to change your markets, if you have optionality right to change your markets, if you're in a fortunate position to be able to have a local Co Op like we do, where I've actually met a good portion of the growers that supply that Co Op and I'm very familiar. That's a very elite opportunity. I understand that. But it is in that direction that we need to hit and which is why it's critical to reestablish local food production which is possible everywhere. It's possible absolutely everywhere, right. There's certainly climates like California that are more favorable, but we can grow a tremendous number of local products up here in a relatively short growing season in Minnesota. So it is knowing where your food comes from. However, and unfortunately, you know, I was I'm critical of the of the retail sector on the one hand on the other hand, I understand that they do have to make a living, but the retail sectors offerings to us as consumers are are quite constrained. I mean you have when you go to a whole foods, you see a much wider array, and I'm not shilling for Whole Foods in any way, shape or form. They do have their have their issues, but you see a much wider array of many times that includes locally produced. You know, I think Costco does a relatively good job for a big box store, of making a presentation. What we don't understand, quite frankly, is what's behind the Kirkland brand. Right? Oftentimes, that might be maybe not as as completely full as advertised. But it's you may have to shop in several different places to try to obtain the more nutrient dense products. Now when you want to get down to the actual details of nutrient density. You know, one of the things we are doing at the bio nutrient Food Association is developing mobile technology so that people can be their own determinant of quality I’m imagining food fights in the produce aisle, if this if this technology gets more widely distributed, so we have a spectrometer, it's currently in version two, right? That that you can use the spectrometer to make a determination on site and or at home. There's there's a couple of different protocols for using this this device. It's still very kludgy. You can't expect everybody to stick one of these in their pocket or in their purse. So obviously, we will migrate to more sophisticated platforms. I'm sure that it will include things like mobile telephones, right. Smartphones and using the capabilities that are within the smartphone and the point is not to dial in to the exact percentage of something. The point is to provide a really easy guidance, you know, green, yellow red, which might indicate that you know, the green is in the top quartile of the possibilities for that box of blueberries, right, or the yellow might indicate it's in the next quartile and the red might indicate it's in the bottom half. Something Something simple so that it's not a science experiment. And you're not asking people to, you know, to understand intimately all the components that go into those calculations. But the data of the database behind this is getting stronger every day. And the technology is getting stronger every day. And so, we will start iterating this, the development of these, this type of capability, preferably in you know, a more familiar form, right.

AS

Where would you get one of those measuring devices? If you a

EJ

today you would place your order to the bio nutrient Food Association website. Right. And cautionary we are backlogged in terms of orders. supply chain issues have not been our friend either during during this period of time. But it is a start, and this along with other technologies that are being developed in a more stationary basis in the supply chain. So imagine a large packing house and things going down. And I don't mean animal packing house, although it could be applied there but a vegetable packing house or fruit packing house, where things are going down the conveyor belt so to speak, right? And the ability to determine on the fly. You know, the the the aspects that you're looking for in those products and the ability then to be able to divert, you know, the red, yellow green into a red, yellow green stack, right. And develop markets around that. So you

AS

I imagine that you could even go back and sin pricing signals back to growers and farmers that you all get some sort of a premium for a more nutrient dense food and a lower price for the lower ones. 

EJ

Yeah, I mean that that is possible today. We have farmers that have these devices and we have customers that have these devices and they are very well aware of each other write again in the localized food system. That that's much easier, but we have to try to guard against is that that premium should one be established and it gets captured and stuck in the middle right because there may be there may be some additional costs to the differentiation. There may be but typically these values are not captured back at the farm. They're captured someplace else. And so you know, that's another key component of I would say the new food movement is to make sure that the rewards are at least shared by hopefully in the majority shared by the folks who are doing taking the care. necessary, right.

AS

Thank you very much for that in terms of the I guess they the easiest things to the consumer could do to improve the nutrient density of their food. You mentioned that. Food ages I guess when you when you pick a crop off the vine or off the plant, it's still alive, and the longer it is stored. The more it chews up through its energy and nutrient reserves. So I guess there's two parts to this question one. Have you seen any difference in a very freshly picked or harvested piece of food compared to one that's been stored in cold? Storage for a period of time? And on that is eating seasonally something that you see as a way to improve the nutrient density of your food?

EJ

Eating seasonally as along with eating locally? Right. I think one of the other interesting pieces that also needs research is the correlation between flavor and nutrient density. Right. And so you know, if you if you talk to any farm, if you go to if you go to a vegetable farm and you eat something that is just cut out of the ground right? This is particularly true in the context of leafy greens. It tastes entirely different than what you can purchase at the supermarket. Okay, so flavor is one of the best indicators. Now the problem is that means you've already purchased it and taking it home and even at bat you may indicate at least a brand that you can rely upon, right. Because flavor is a is a strong marker flip the flavor compounds are correlated very strongly with phytonutrients for example, and secondary metabolites. So that is one of those things that it's hard to describe to people other than, you know, because you can't say just just eat what tastes good because you're what we might wind up with a lot of Doritos, right? So it's but in the fresh food sector in the meat sector, as well. Let flavour be let flavor be your guide. And again, to the extent that you have the luxury of being able to be aware of the origin of these products and use that also as a guide, but there's simply no other way around today at scale. Some of these supply chain issues because we do not eat seasonally to your point. Right I enjoy I enjoy salmon all year long. Right? Which means it is going to be frozen unless I want to eat farm raised right, which I don't care for although in a pinch I would rather eat a farm raised salmon than some other things. But you know if you you just use that salmon as an example. You know if you if you want that access to that there's some compromises to be made. So you know, again, we don't want to let perfection be the enemy of good here and this is a continuous improvement concept. It's not a black or white, it's mostly gray. And individuals can certainly take small steps initially by observing the substitution factor first and foremost, right. Trying to trying to take processed foods out of your diet, trying to move away from products that are grown with chemicals or grown with pharma. Right. So that might lead you to the organic case in the in the animal protein sector. It might lead us to the organic case and the produce sector. That that is very problematic. Those those chemicals are such few turns to human health. You know, and particularly the insidious glyphosate which we all piss out every day, right, whether we know it or not. And even though it's in a very, perhaps a very low level in your system, that continuous bombardment of low level, presence and the havoc it reads wreaks on your Shikimate pathway in the digestive system is brutal. Right. So removing part partially as removing partially as replacing, and then to the extent again, that you're able to because of where you live and your situation, that you're able to make a selection and that you become a student of the food system. That's something I can't encourage you enough, but recognizing that there are so many people that have a really hard time making ends meet. But I think part of the responsibility here is for the provisioners ie the retail sector to start taking notice of particularly those vulnerable communities. I mean, we use the term food desert frequently, you know, to describe the place where maybe the only place you can get anything that's edible as a 711. You know the 711 actually could become quite a hub for healthy food, if they can figure out the economic structure to make that work and the food you know, the government support through through the myriad food programs. You know, the US government spends 60 plus billion dollars a year on various food programs before snap right up front before before snap because the conventional food system is so subsidized by the governmental programs. If some of that money would be subsidizing healthier food programs, we could start making important steps in the right direction. Even before all the science is perfected.

AS

You'll be very much led on to where I was thinking what I was thinking of asking you next, which is how you're interacting with government. There's numerous things you mentioned. One in terms of the subsidies, but then also, I know in California, there's there's quite strict environmental regulations about having having animals grazing in farmland. And what you mentioned about that whole regenerative agriculture side of things unless that legislation changes, you can't actually start to have those benefits. So where are you sitting in terms of the interacting with governments on this?

EJ

Yeah, so in the context of BFA. I personally have not had any of these interactions. I know that Dan, Dan and the team have had numerous discussions within USDA which as you might imagine, are not necessarily terribly fruitful yet. But there are you know, there are other programs that I'm involved in. There's a group called home plate foods that I've been working with for some time. They sit in a very obscure part of the of the food system where they create formularies which are thinking about a formulary as a menu with recipes and ingredients specifications. And they are providing those formularies to programs that deliver community based nutrition programs. Think Meals on Wheels as a good proxy for that for that whole sector. Okay. Historically, that sector, believe it or not, has not spent much time talking about quality beyond the substitution factor. Yeah. So understanding you know, following very closely, the USDA, you know, food nutrition pyramid, and the very little information that provides that's all about substitution. And that's really the only informing set of metrics that has that as influenced those programs and those programs hit some of the most vulnerable people. In the country in the US, right. Getting higher quality foods into that system is a huge starting point. And we're well we're well on the path to being able to do that. And we're going to start with pasture raised beef as the first set of products going there. There's there's a myriad of benefits, but just sticking to the question that you asked. That is a that is a case where a government paid programs enabled by private entities that see the need and that can start creating those solutions around them. And bolster now by the political discussion, like the food for food as medicine coalition, led by McCarthy out of Massachusetts, right. That is that seems to not have the political problems that so many other things do. Right now. When the rubber starts hitting the road, and somebody's ox gets gored. We'll see what the response is at that point. But as of today, it seems like there's clear bipartisan support for the food and medicine coalition. And that means that where the government spends money, at least at the federal level, this conversation about food quality will is going to become more and more topical and beyond just the substitution factor. So we're very optimistic that that's one pathway where you know, we again, you have to get over the political hurdle. Because you can't have these programs start stop, start stop, depending upon you know, who's in what seat in Washington, so if you can get the agencies and the legislatures working together with a clear understanding that there's a massive, massive cost benefit to be had here across society. I don't know if you saw the Rockefeller report that came out not too long ago, where they estimated that despite in the US we spent about $1 trillion on food. And we externalize another two plus trillion dollars of what happens because of the way we grow food that doesn't get ascribed to the cost of food. It shows up in your health care bill, your insurance bill, right days missed off work bill, it's a long long list of expenses that we don't usually associate with food. If we can start using the true cost accounting principle to understand that this would be a slam dunk.

AS

It would free up all those resources for use elsewhere.

EJ

Yeah, exactly. So but you know, it took us about 70 years to get here. And I'm using that timeframe because as old as this whole current agricultural system really started post World War Two. It's not going to happen overnight, that at least you know, we have we were having the conversation as you know, very robustly and more resources are necessary in the research realm, which isn't the sexiest you know, it isn't the sexiest investment. But we need we need more philanthropic dollars to be put into this realm and quite frankly, new products will get spun out of this for capital investments. So it's not like it's a dead end its like it's a dead end track, right? We we do all of our work at the boundary and Food Association in an open environment. We we encourage profit makers to take a look at our work and dream what they can do with that in the commercial sense, right? We're not trying to we're not trying to create IP that we that we tuck away and that we profit from we're trying to do this in the commons for the common good. But there is a much more much more money needed for research. So we're we're being written into several of the grants that are scrambling for this billion dollars, you know, climate smart food. We have, you know, good support from a number of core funders. We encourage the general public, as well as the farming community to take a few dollars a month and become a member of the bio nutrient Food Association, that grass those grassroots dollars go a long way to supporting our programs. And then we're looking for scientific partners. We're always looking for folks like Dr. von vliet, who see things at their end of the spectrum, and are curious about where that came from. In his case, it's around animal protein. He sees the response in the human population. How do we understand where that food comes from? Right, and how it's raised. That kind of directed research can be can be fascinating and can be very effective in terms of giving us a platform to stand on when it comes to policy discussions with policymakers.

AS

That's there's there's a lot there. I guess one of the one of the things that comes to mind urine, in the fact that you've got bipartisan bipartisan support is a great position to be in and given the current climate you’re in quite a unique crowd in that space. And so what's if someone wants to be involved at any level, either as a as a individual or people have philanthropic dollars that they wish to invest, what would be how would they get in touch with you? What's the process there?

EJ

Well, again, you can go to the nutrient Food Association or the bio nutrient Institute website. You can contact myself or Dan Kittredge who’s the executive director and the founder of the organization. Signing up but again as a grassroots supporter, even if it's just $5 a month, you'd be amazed at how far that goes on several 1000 people doing that, right. Certainly keep it top of mind if you ever interact with policymakers, don't forget to mention quality versus quantity when it comes to the food system. You know, in terms of institutional investors or sponsors, so what do we know we know that money actually isn't the problem, that there's plenty of capital out there. Right. So the question is, for those who are interested in research into the quality of the food system, and its causes were your best bet were were the ones that have been doing this work the longest. And with with the most scientific rigor. There are other projects out there that are perhaps have a bigger brand recognition, but they don't necessarily have the scientific rigor to go along with it. So there's there's always a little competition I guess, for dollars. But, I mean, those would be the the general pathways I would see. You know, we'd love to set up long term programs you can direct your your dollars to specific research. If you have a specific area that you're interested in. You know, longitudinal is better than just a one year cycle. So this beef project, for example, will go on for at least three years. But his beef project alone, we could put to work $3 million a year. For three years in the beef project, right? That's a lot of money. Yeah, that's a lot of money. And those are real costs because the vast majority of those costs are spent in the laboratory and logistics of getting the samples put together educating the growers. Right, and letting them understand a) what difference they can make and b) how to do something today that that could be meaningful in the future. So that's, there's a lot of education that goes on. There's a lot of communication that goes on. We still spend 80 plus percent of our, of what we raise on the the true research, which means laboratory costs. 

We work primarily in the US through three laboratories. One which we just built last year in Boston, one which is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and another one is in conjunction with Chico State that in California. We also are partnered with valor x, which is part of the global encore network in France. We we have strong interests around the world to participate in these programs. The farther away it gets the more expensive it gets, right. So either we need lab partners, if lab partners want to join our effort, we'd be happy to talk to them regardless of where they are. We can always use more more laboratories. I can't imagine any, you know, any sector of society that doesn't want to participate. We have an avenue for right. We have a way for them to plug in. But I think it first starts with a conversation because obviously the alignment is critical.

AS

Excellent. Um, just something that came to mind. Have you noticed any climatically soil types, different different vary differ significantly from from region to region? So, if you grow a crop in Australia, say where there's very old soils and a very different type of climate compared to growing it in North America or in Europe is there any real patterns that have emerged in that space?

EJ

Now, the whole climate piece is a very interesting, a very interesting study unto itself. I don't know that we have taken that on to any great depth yet. I mean, the condition of the soil has a has a bearing right and so however that soil became conditioned to were to what it is today is going to have a bearing on the crop quality. So you know, the loamy soils obviously produce better than the sandier soils. As a general rule, and I'm sure that there are exceptions with that, so I don't want to I don't want to make that categorical statement. But the length of the growing season doesn't seem to have a bearing other than obviously what you can grow in various growing seasons. It does seem to come down to cultivation, cover crop, chemical exposure. You know, and whether or not there's, there's an animal integration piece. I mean, I would think that, you know, in Australia, for example, I would think that Queensland would test out very well. You know, in terms of in terms of, if you took soil samples of a Queenslander are quite different than you know, Central New South Wales, right. Yeah. So you know, Australia is not a barren, not a barren community by any stretch of the imagination. The grasslands are going to look better than they than the other areas, but they also have their they also have their climatic constraints because of the temperatures up there. So and the water availability so you know, the the it is a very complex component, but again, we're not shooting for perfection here. We're not trying to dial into the single. These three things done here are precisely what we need because that's not extendable. Right. So we are interested in all climatic conditions, we're interested in most crops you know, we have to be careful not to get too spread out. We want crops that are that are commercially important initially. You know, a study of elderberries might be interesting, right? But there aren't enough elderberries you know, to make a difference and we ultimately we want to make a difference. So, think about the climatic question is one we do we do. We do capture weather information, right? We haven't we haven't fully assimilated that into the outcomes yet. But obviously that's the on a local basis, the weather conditions from season to season and play a tremendous role in terms of in terms of the crop production, but the climatic piece is it's beyond the pale yet of what we're able to, to accomplish.

AS

Thank you very much. What's what's next for the bio nutrient Food Association?.

EJ

I think the way that this beef  project has been put together is very instructive for us because like I referenced at the beginning, we took a shotgun approach to try to just understand very variation. So we weren't that discriminating in terms of the crops that we tackled, we had to have a certain number, you know, n, in the formula to make it statistically relevant, and but if we were able to put together 250 samples of crop x, we would go ahead and take that on. And the goodness of that scope is across the 21 crops, we saw variability everywhere, right? So not that we put that to bed but at least it's been established the variability is not controversial. Now having having directed research from somebody particularly coming out of the human health network, that says we understand that this, this product, naturally should be high in selenium and zinc. Right. Let's take a deeper dive to understand what the variation is of selenium and zinc in this crop. Because we understand from a human perspective, it's important having those types of research partners who are doing the work in the human health sector, and we can do the work in the agriculture sector. That is I think, our pathway going forward. So we're back to how can people help people in the nutrition sector in the healthcare sector in the diet in the dietitians sector, who have interesting research going on in their own right about the effects of these compounds? on humans? That would be a perfect partner, that we could construct research around their thesis, taking it back to the agriculture sector, and then we can go out and get funding for that. Right. If they bring funding, that's fantastic. We don't necessarily expect them to bring in funding but we would love to have 10. Folks like Dr. Von Vliet saying, we should study this because this is relevant. This is very important to human health. And that way our our core research on the agricultural side has this direct extension into the human health side. Which is ultimately what this is all about.

AS

Excellent. Well, it's a it's a very, very exciting space. I'm very keen to stay abreast of everything you guys are doing and I think it's wonderful. And thank you so so very much for for chatting with me today.

EJ

Thanks so much. It's been an honor. I appreciate you taking the time. We'll talk soon 

AS

my pleasure.