Improving The Food Supply/Implications Of Ray Peat For Agriculture

Nick

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While Ray Peat's ideas are most easily interpreted through the lens of consumers of the food supply looking to figure out how to improve their individual health, his ideas have sweeping implications for public health, the industrial agriculture system, and the whole economy. Of course, these go far beyond food but a consistent theme in Peat's writings is the low quality of the food supply. Not only is the quality of individual foods compromised but the proportions of what crops are grown and the methods used are horrible from a public health standpoint when one is informed by Peat's perspective.
Some obvious examples are: the heavy focus on growing commodity staples of corn, soy, wheat, etc. produces low quality foods as common staples; the use of intensively fertilized monocultures in nutrient poor soils produces stressed plants that Peat has talked about being more allergenic and less nutritious than with better growing methods; stressed animals fed on stressed plants create meat and dairy that is far less than ideal.
In the modern world I believe there are more than enough resources that if it were made a priority we could change the food system to produce a diet of abundance that would produce drastically improved health for everyone. This is something that many people involved in sustainable agriculture and Permaculture have written about but I think that Ray Peat's ideas add an important variable to this discussion.
For example, permaculturists may like the idea of tree crops such as acorns or chestnuts in a perennial polyculture, but these may not be an ideal "abundance" food from a Peat perspective, having relatively high PUFA or gut irritants. Even when a crop like this is grown as fodder for animals, the question of PUFA content remains important and completely ignored by the sustainable ag perspective.
On the other hand, fans of Ray Peat's ideas might like to replace this with lots of orange trees, but I think that many of Peat's suggestions (like lots of orange juice) only get so specific because he is telling people how to avoid foods that are currently grown or processed in a bad way, like bananas, that could be grown in such a way as to be healthier. That said, some of the best foods in general are tropical fruits that do not grow in much of the world, so the question of the pros and cons of globalized food supply come into play here. Could it be efficient to grow enough tropical fruits in greenhouses to be a staple? Alternatively, people farther north could cook more of their fruits like apples and peaches to make them better food (as many have traditionally done). These are just some of the many issues that come up when one considers how Peat's ideas could be applied on a macro scale to the food systems.
There is, of course, a lot more that could be said on this subject.
Is anyone else involved in or interested in farming to improve the food supply, even if just for yourself? Any thoughts on how Ray Peat's ideas intersect with ideas in Permaculture and sustainable agriculture?
 

jyb

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Nick said:
Is anyone else involved in or interested in farming to improve the food supply, even if just for yourself? Any thoughts on how Ray Peat's ideas intersect with ideas in Permaculture and sustainable agriculture?

Have you watched Cowspiracy? There does not seem to be enough resources for everyone to eat quality animal produce. In particular, looking at how much water raising cattle consume (direct and indirect), land overuse and cow fart contribution to global warming. Actually according to the movie, even bad quality beef or dairy seems wildly unsustainable. Intuitively, I think this makes a lot of sense: one would expect higher quality nutritious food to take up more resources. The energy and nutrients have to come from somewhere. (Note that in the movie some argue animal produce is not necessary for good health, but dietary paradigms is only part of the movie.)
 
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Nick

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I haven't seen the "conspiracy" movie but I have read a lot of arguments on both sides of the cattle debate and my conclusion is actually the opposite... I think of all the foods that Peat suggests, pasture raised dairy and meat are arguably the most sustainable to produce in mass quantity. It's a complex issue but regarding the supposed water use of cattle, remember that water doesn't get "used up"... with good land management it is continually cycling. And the methane emissions are negligible because methane breaks down in the atmosphere much faster than other greenhouse gasses. Herds of ruminant animals have been farting for many thousands of years before the domestication of the cow. (Grain fed cows fart more methane as well) Overall I think that grasses and legumes processed through ruminants is one of the most efficient ways to assimilate atmospheric carbon and nitrogen into nutrients for people and as in addition the gut flora of ruminants hydrogenate PUFAs into SFAs for us
 

jyb

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Nick said:
It's a complex issue but regarding the supposed water use of cattle, remember that water doesn't get "used up"... with good land management it is continually cycling.

Well, the movie covers the case of smaller organic farms too. Water and land are in general mismanaged and it seems we could do better and try to recycle instead of destroying more forests. But the figures given in the movie, as well as the people interviewed, suggest it can't be done for the population size today. The point they make is about what happens if we keep using the same amount of cattle and this continues to grow with the population size. They're not arguing cattle would be bad with the smaller population we had before now.

Here in the green UK, cattle can feed on grass or forage year long so there's less indirect land and water use for corn feed production. But UK is a small part of the world population.

I'm sure you'll agree that after a certain population threshold, it's too much for recycling and good land use. After a certain number (7 billions? 700 billion? 7 trillion?), there's not enough time and land for recoiling and resources dry up and we have no choice but to turn to non-nutritious foods like plants. Are you arguing the current population size is not at that threshold yet?
 
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Nick

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I don't find it hard to believe that we may be well past the threshold where we could feed everyone on the abundant amounts of nutritious food that Peat reccomends, but I do think the outlook is better than most pessimistic estimates. Usually these assume feedlots or confinement grain feeding, but in fact much of the world's area has a climate that can feed cattle, sheep or goats on 100% forage year round if management were improved, and water recycling on pasture is effortless unlike in a feedlot. But if it isn't possible for much of the world to have access to milk/meat I think the outlook for the water-intensive and disease-vulnerable Orange tree feeding much of the world is worse.
If we really have way too many people, the best bet for good nutrition worldwide from a Peat perspective would probably be the potato. However, even if we can't produce 2 liters a day of grassfed milk for everyone in the world, that doesn't mean ruminants can't play a role in the food system. Compared to a field of potato, pasture land functions as a natural ecosystem supporting wildlife and ecosystem services like water purification and carbon sequestration.
 

messtafarian

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It's imbalanced. We need animal protein but RP advocates a higher carb diet with *adequate* protein which doesn't need to be measured out in sirloin steaks. Gelatin is a protein, for example, milk is a whole protein -- even potatoes have protein. 80 grams of protein a day works out to a glass of milk and ONE protein meal per day. I think the argument that there is not enough quality protein to go around assumes people should be eating six pot roasts or something a day.
 

jyb

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messtafarian said:
post 101513 It's imbalanced. We need animal protein but RP advocates a higher carb diet with *adequate* protein which doesn't need to be measured out in sirloin steaks. Gelatin is a protein, for example, milk is a whole protein -- even potatoes have protein. 80 grams of protein a day works out to a glass of milk and ONE protein meal per day. I think the argument that there is not enough quality protein to go around assumes people should be eating six pot roasts or something a day.

No, the assumption they make to conclude un-sustainability is based on current average US daily consumption per day. The argument they make applies to dairy farms too. I may not eat much steak, but I do eat various beef cuts like liver and way more dairy than the average American. So I would guess the argument applies to the needs of a typical diet found on this forum -- a diet that is in large part from quality animal produce. If each day I drank a few glasses of milk instead of litters, and ate more potatoes instead, their argument would still hold - it's off by more than a factor of 2 or 10.
 
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XPlus

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You bring a very interesting topic to the discussion table, Nick. One that I particularly of good interest to me.

The issue of sustainability and global warming could be quite philosophical as it could be scientific.
At this point in time we're very good at speculating about the future but not to prepare for it.
It's like the disconnect between fact and fiction.

We had quite a room for fiction and margin of error to interpret the impact of things like population overgrowth and climate change over and over in the past.
The reality is earth has been through many phases of climate change through out history.
The reality is that 7 billion don't break the earth's back.
The reality is we're not managing resources efficiently.
So it's really more arbitrary than concrete to blame things on climate change and overpopulation.
Things like war, crime, shrinking privacy and civil rights, systematic collapses and corporate dominance are far more touching nowadays than a hot day in the summer or uneducated, underfed African kid.

I once watched Bjørn Lomborg documentary - with a grain of salt. Also, I think I read somewhere that Peat thinks of "Global Warming" as a the globe moving to a higher level of metabolism.

I tend to believe less in systems that break from within - if you know what I mean.
All those sustainability studies are probably done on a cost-profit, estimated-resources-level, monetary system-basis. In reality these don't exist.
Real costs should be based on energy and as long as we mange to get enough, we'll be fine.
We're not done exploring natural resources yet.
Sustainable energy is much more feasible than ever now and can power and water every home.
We just have to find the way to be efficient; minimise junk and prioritize simplicity and recycling.

As for food, our current system is unsustainable because we create it to be as such.
The earth could definitely sustain us healthily but that doesn't mean we can sustain the current system because it's terrible in the first place.
What's the real cost of a 150ml of anti dandruff shampoo or dipping sauce that ends up wiping half an acre of life to produce and then take our money to make some jackass rich and powerful so they can enslave more people, destroy more acres, then tax us and cut their costs with our tax money, when all we needed is some quality food for us and our children.
What's the real value lost when no one buys this crap and it goes to the rubbish. What's the cost when we get cancer from our favorite shampoo and dipping sauce messing up our health and then buy expensive, intensive health treatments from the same ***hole who got us ****88 us in the first place.

I've come to realize that many of the problems we have are actually ones that we create, either in reality or on our head. They're one way to escape real issues.
I don't agree with everything that Lomborg guy said in his film but one good idea was that we should just set our priorities right - just like you said.

I'm not going to speculate much about the future but I'm confident that the current system isn't sustainable for those who've been benefiting at the expense of others. They're freaking out and the news is full of their frustrations. :D
 

XPlus

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One more idea just passed through my mind.
The US supply chain is one of the least sustainable around.
Basing these studies on the American diet isn't a good indicator of future sustainability as people will always figure out a way to get their needs.

A better idea would probably be like measuring the current levels of energy contained within the earth as well as the average daily energy received (externally) from solar and lunar sources and estimate our capability of harvesting this energy to maintain a certain model of global food supply chain using current technology.

That's a real measure of sustainability. One that will also draw a pattern consistent with the planet's life cycle (assuming that theory is correct and we make it to all the way to the end :cool: )

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth
 
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Nick

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Sustainable energy is much more feasible than ever now and can power and water every home.
We just have to find the way to be efficient; minimise junk and prioritize simplicity and recycling.

As for food, our current system is unsustainable because we create it to be as such.
This is why I believe we could provide good nutritious food to the world by Peat's standard--if it were a priority. We unquestionably have too many people for the American way of life to be maintained everywhere but if nutritious food were prioritized over such waste as inefficient car transportation and consumerism the situation might not look so bleak. With appropriate construction technology, efficient infrastructure, and a focus on local autonomous economies I think many parts of the world (even the so-called third world) could redirect a lot of energy toward nutritious food and still have more leisure time and less waste to accompany their increased well being. For me the question is just the kind of systems that would be used. For example, permaculture style perennial polycultures of different fruits and tree crops mixed with animals could be designed in such a way as to give us high-quality "Peaty" foods low in PUFA and allergens/gut irritants. But the last part is not something usually on the radar of the permaculture crowd.
 

tara

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I am not a farmer - though I have grown a bit of food in my garden over the years. This topic interests me. I think it is a really important aspect of what Peat talks about regarding degradation of environment and food supply (though I don't know if he is up with the science of global climate change).

Nick said:
post 101509 and water recycling on pasture is effortless unlike in a feedlot.

Water supply and water pollution are major issues for pastured cattle in some places too. I'm sure there are ways to make it more water/nutrient/pollution efficient, but there are costs to setting these up too, and unless the political environment changes, many farmers will probably continue to are reluctant to pick up those costs.

Nick said:
post 101482 And the methane emissions are negligible because methane breaks down in the atmosphere much faster than other greenhouse gasses. Herds of ruminant animals have been farting for many thousands of years before the domestication of the cow. (Grain fed cows fart more methane as well) Overall I think that grasses and legumes processed through ruminants is one of the most efficient ways to assimilate atmospheric carbon and nitrogen into nutrients for people and as in addition the gut flora of ruminants hydrogenate PUFAs into SFAs for us

The scientists say methane emissions are more than a trivial contributor to GCC. IIRC, methane is many times more potent as a GHG than CO2 is. Diet influences methane flatulence, as you say, but even pastured cattle produce quite a bit. There are scientists trying to find ways to reduce these emissions. The large numbers of cattle compared with previous times of wild herds make a big difference.

Nick said:
post 101448 On the other hand, fans of Ray Peat's ideas might like to replace this with lots of orange trees, but I think that many of Peat's suggestions (like lots of orange juice) only get so specific because he is telling people how to avoid foods that are currently grown or processed in a bad way, like bananas, that could be grown in such a way as to be healthier. That said, some of the best foods in general are tropical fruits that do not grow in much of the world, so the question of the pros and cons of globalized food supply come into play here. Could it be efficient to grow enough tropical fruits in greenhouses to be a staple? Alternatively, people farther north could cook more of their fruits like apples and peaches to make them better food (as many have traditionally done). These are just some of the many issues that come up when one considers how Peat's ideas could be applied on a macro scale to the food systems.

Where I am, chestnuts and oaks and walnuts grow well, but not oranges. I doubt this can be solved with greenhouses on a large scale - even tomatoes grown in greenhouses out of season are pretty insipid.
I have apples and pears and some stonefruit and berries, and have a climate for potatoes and some other roots and tubers and chooks. Both cooked and raw fruit go down well in my household.

I like the goal of prioritising good food for the whole world ahead of overconsumption of unnecessary and resource/environmentally expensive stuff by some of us. I don't know how many people we can sustain well if resources are wisely used. At this point, I suspect that we may not be able to feed everyone the best foods, but it would be a step in the right direction to feed everyone adequate food to sustain life. I think there will likely be a place for some grains for a long time, even if/as we add other more nutritious foods for everyone.

Hypothetically and technically, if our species got itself together to organise to meet human needs, my current hunch is that the best land-use efficiency will involve some much more labour intensive gardening/farming than the current high fossil fuel and fertiliser/low labour/extensive monoculture industrial systems covering large areas now.
Also, given that we likely face significant climate disruption in coming decades, we will have less productive land available to grow food on. We also have increasing areas of land contaminated with poisons that we don't want in our food.

We'll need many species and varieties and a wide gene pool to enable crops to thrive under changing environmental conditions. And that setting up systems that involve much greater integration of a variety of species - animal and plant - will be necessary. We'll need plants that can cope with different temperatures, drought and flood, changing insect populations, etc.

I've come across some good work being done in various places saving seeds and heirloom animal stocks, and experimenting with setting up more sustainable systems. Permaculture systems are one really good way to approach it, and there are others, too.

In my temperate climate, I can envisage smaller scale farms incorporating small herds of cattle, mobs of sheep, chooks, rotating with green crops, root and tuber crops, fruit vegetable crops, with fruit trees in strategic places. Using animal manures to fertilise soil for crops has a long and successful history.

I think there are geographical areas where grazing cattle and sheep are a reasonable/sustainable use of land (at appropriate stocking levels), and other places where they may not be appropriate.

More thoughts to come. Thanks for starting this thread. :)
 
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Daimyo

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In the year 1913 in area that is now called Poland there lived roughly 30 million people, in 1939, in the area of modern Poland there used to live about 36mln people. During both of those times that region was a food exporting area. Our usage of oil and chemicals was pretty much close to zero, in 1939 there was maybe up to few hundred tractors in Poland (optimistic evaluation). The food production was so high thanks to crop rotation and animals. It was the manure AND the quantity of animals that allows such a high food production. We also had about 5 million horses (for plowing and manure production), more pigs and more cattle. Most of those horses were workhorses, that at the end of they life were very though, and pretty much inedible (lot of connective tissue). It would be easy to increase food production in Poland for example, but the food would have to be more expensive, so more people could work in agriculture. In modern times farming usually doesn't pay well, so it's difficult to get people working in it. People don't want to do hard work outside to get just little money.

Even in Poland that's supposed to be poor, with high unemployment you can't find people to work in agriculture. In USA you got Mexicans working in organic agriculture, most of them illegal aliens working bellow minimum wage.

I believe majority of people want cheep food, so they are getting what they want... They can't afford good food? So how can they afford new iPhones?

Read this article to see how does the reality of modern small farming look like:
http://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/what_no ... _a_living/

I will say that (as a hobby ag adviser) "big farming" is getting smarter and it's doing OKish. Don't expect any sort of revolution any time soon. Even if oil is running out, there is plenty of natural gas/shales/fracking. There won't be a big problem to switch diesel run tractor/agriculture to gas.

I am myself a good example. I used to work in organic/high quality agriculture, or I tried to make a living doing that. Now, I changed professions, I'm selling medicines and I'm doing much better... Maybe it's just coincidence, but maybe not.
 

barefooter

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Nick said:
post 101448 While Ray Peat's ideas are most easily interpreted through the lens of consumers of the food supply looking to figure out how to improve their individual health, his ideas have sweeping implications for public health, the industrial agriculture system, and the whole economy. Of course, these go far beyond food but a consistent theme in Peat's writings is the low quality of the food supply. Not only is the quality of individual foods compromised but the proportions of what crops are grown and the methods used are horrible from a public health standpoint when one is informed by Peat's perspective.
Some obvious examples are: the heavy focus on growing commodity staples of corn, soy, wheat, etc. produces low quality foods as common staples; the use of intensively fertilized monocultures in nutrient poor soils produces stressed plants that Peat has talked about being more allergenic and less nutritious than with better growing methods; stressed animals fed on stressed plants create meat and dairy that is far less than ideal.

The thing that really irritates me, is that it's so hard to convince people that nutrition is a public health issue, rather than the moral/personal choice issue that everyone seems to think it is. The argument I try to make with people is that the health of the average person is a function of the food supply (of course pollution, stress, lifestyle, etc. are all variables in this too, but I'm focusing on just diet). If the majority of food is ***t, then the majority of people will be unhealthy, there is simply no getting around this fact. Every farmer knows that animals on poor pasture won't do well, yet we put our society on a poor food supply, and then we blame individuals for making bad choices. No amount of self control from individuals will fix this issue, because it is a public health issue.

I don't think we really all need to be eating boatloads of tropical fruit to be healthy. Peat speaks of them as being optimal, but the general public are so far off of an optimal diet, that there could be huge improvements even on a starchy temperate climate diet. Many cultures have lived (and still do) healthy long lives in temperate regions on local foods. I think a diet based on potatoes, rice, maybe some other properly processed grains (ie: soaked oats, masa harina, sourdough bread, etc.), milk, meat, low fat seafood, seasonal fruit, some imported fruit, and a few veggies is very good. It seems to be sometimes forgotten how much praise Peat gives for potatoes. Yes, starch has its downsides, but it can provide pretty good nutrition with little negative if digested well and quickly. There is no such thing as a perfect food, all eating is a trade off between good and bad, and carries with it some level of stress. As Hans Selye said, the only way to end stress is to die.
 
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tara

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barefooter said:
post 114338 The thing that really irritates me, is that it's so hard to convince people that nutrition is a public health issue, rather than the moral/personal choice issue that everyone seems to think it is. The argument I try to make with people is that the health of the average person is a function of the food supply (of course pollution, stress, lifestyle, etc. are all variables in this too, but I'm focusing on just diet). If the majority of food is s***, then the majority of people will be unhealthy, there is simply no getting around this fact. Every farmer knows that animals on poor pasture won't do well, yet we put our society on a poor food supply, and then we blame individuals for making bad choices. No amount of self control from individuals will fix this issue, because it is a public health issue.
I agree.
But I sure wouldn't want our current public health authorities to have too much say about the diet we are put on.
There may be some reasonable food around for people who are informed and resourced to choose, but a lot of people are trying to make tight money and time budgets work with nothing but the mainstream media to guide them, and will inevitable get what is easy and cheap and abundant. When I was growing up, milk was cheaper than soda-sugar water, and delivered to the gate. Now it is much more expensive, no longer delivered, and I'm not so sure about the quality changes. No wonder kids now drink less milk. I don't want to demonise sodas, but I consider milk to be more of a food.

barefooter said:
post 114338 I don't think we really all need to be eating boatloads of tropical fruit to be healthy. Peat speaks of them as being optimal, but the general public are so far off of an optimal diet, that there could be huge improvements even on a starchy temperate climate diet. Many cultures have lived (and still do) healthy long lives in temperate regions on local foods. I think a diet based on potatoes, rice, maybe some other properly processed grains (ie: soaked oats, masa harina, sourdough bread, etc.), milk, meat, low fat seafood, seasonal fruit, some imported fruit, and a few veggies is very good. It seems to be sometimes forgotten how much praise Peat gives for potatoes. Yes, starch has its downsides, but it can provide pretty good nutrition with little negative if digested well and quickly. There is no such thing as a perfect food, all eating is a trade off between good and bad, and carries with it some level of stress. As Hans Selye said, the only way to end stress is to die.
:1
 
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Peat Moss

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Is anyone else involved in or interested in farming to improve the food supply, even if just for yourself? Any thoughts on how Ray Peat's ideas intersect with ideas in Permaculture and sustainable agriculture?

Yes. So much so that that I wish this forum had an agriculture/gardening section.

Permaculture/agro-forestry systems can definitely be used to feed the entire nation in my opinion. Nut trees can easily be replaced with fruit trees in such systems. California is already essentially the bread basket, no reason it can't become the fruit basket. Cali oranges grow well. Water usage is the main problem, but if all resources were honestly directed to feeding and healing people, seawater desalinization could easily solve that problem. Although, even that may not be necessary. Proper water harvesting, and planting on continuous contour trenches to keylines to develop wellsprings could put an end to all this water scarcity (misuse of water really).

For cold climates, prunus species like cherries and plums could easily provide for the northern folk. I think cherry and plum juice would play a bigger role in those areas for winter time health.

In all areas, nitrogen fixing trees interplanted in the permaculture orchard would provide the fertility, mulch, and fodder for pet milking cows. I think the public needs to develop a relationship with dairy animals as cute pets that provide milk. I kind of like the Indian/Aryan devotional relationship with their cattle. We would do well to take some ideas from that. It would make it more likely that the public insists that cattle are integrated within the fabric of a permaculture food forest system, and not as a factory farmed item.

Freshwater mollusks raised in farm ponds could provide the shellfish part of the equation although I don't know what Peat has to say about freshwater shellfish vs. saltwater. Does anyone know?

It's all very possible. We can do it. It's just a matter of people asking for it, and more importantly going out and making it happen.

Hope others have more to say about this subject
 

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