I want to have something to say. But what is something-to-say? It’s that thing we only allegedly earn once we have a Phd in astrophysics, have wrestled five tigers with only one arm, have skipped seven grades for being a child prodigy, have survived world wars, or lived shipwrecked on a tiny island in the Pacific before being miraculously rescued only to write a New York Times bestseller and make millions as a motivational speaker. Having-something-to-say means I have been through enough to be an expert by now. 

Now this is all very well if you live an exotic life of adventure or have reached the highest ranks of academia. Unfortunately though I have not, and I still have-something-to-say. So do you and so do we all, because we are all here together, and nobody is ever a sage in everything. Words are a powerful driving force of human history, because when everyone’s ideas can be shared, society flourishes. 

I have something else to say. It has to do with food. The first thing is that food is vastly underappreciated and perverted. The relationship it has with health has grown toxic. The second thing is that cultures are dying all over the world and with them there is a loss of ideas, which threatens an understanding of food and nature. The third thing is that these two problems are linked for one very big reason: they both bridge a gap between the rest of the world and the depths of our soul. When the framework of society becomes centralized, connection is lost. So when we repair connections in one way, we are building up our capacity for it in other parts of life as well. Connection to culture means revitalizing a connection to the planet, which is important for wellbeing. However, the fourth thing I have to say is quite simple: words and food bring joy. No matter who you are or what atrocious things you have done, you deserve joy. 

It is entirely possible to force-feed statistics on the topic, but there is really no need. Joy is understood on a level impossible to put into words, and yet intricately tied to the connection words bring. It is embodied in the rays of morning sunshine glittering on the dewdrops that have collected on your bedroom window, in the way the loves of your life smile and laugh at your stupid jokes. It is mundane pleasantries, like the warmth of a freshly-baked cookie or the smell of freshly-fallen rain. It is the embrace of bed sheets at the end of a turbulent day. Joy is half the love and gratitude that makes life worth living. 

For now though, let’s talk about food. Not the socioeconomic impacts of the modern day food system nor the impacts it has on the environment. Let’s talk about the experience of sitting down to eat for a big family celebration, overwhelmed by the abundance of options, people, and potentially the abundance of drama. Think of eating a meal cooked by people who care about you, being offered twelve different desserts even though you’re about to bust the top button of your jeans. Picture digesting your meal over boisterous laughter and timeless memories, reliving all the ridiculous things your life has shown you that once made you cry but now make you laugh. Let’s talk about food as a vehicle of love. 

Michalou, N. (n.d.). [Online Image] Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/top-view-of-a-family-praying-before-christmas-dinner-5779170/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2022].

I say this because food is not just about the nitty-gritty biochemical composition of every low-fat, high-sugar, no-sugar, good fat, bad fat, organic, grass-fed piece of edible matter in a supermarket. In my opinion, the opinion of someone who has-something-to-say, it is only after accepting this that the mind can settle on a holistic solution to the problems at hand. 

That brings me to the other half of the love and gratitude that makes life worth living, and that is sorrow. Yes, sorrow makes life worth living, and it is in sorrow uniquely that the vibrant colors of life become the most present. It is about giving the heart permission to hurt, to let the pain of living flow freely out of the body as it must. It is also sorrow that will bring us to acknowledge what we have lost. 

Now I have one final thing to say, and I mean really say (for now), and that is directly to you, dear loyal reader, because if my words and ideas mean anything, it is based on what they mean to you. I want to tell you that you are worthy of the love and gratitude of a thousand hugs and a life full of comforting home-cooked meals. You deserve connection and community. You deserve big family meals that end in laughter and tears, maybe both at the same time. And finally, you deserve sorrow and joy. You deserve a beautiful emotional connection to the food you eat everyday and the people you enjoy it with. You deserve the privilege of having-something-to-say. And that privilege has always been yours. 

Beautiful Untranslatable Words 

Thought-to-Action 

• Support local business by attending a local’s farmer’s market.
• Reconnect with what you’re eating by sharing your meals with other people, including those who can’t cook for themselves.
• Contribute to a food-sharing initiative near you.
• Try some culinary traditions recognised by UNESCO.
• Use one untranslatable word today.

Bibliography

The Language Nerds. (2021). 30 Untranslatable Words From Other Languages (Illustrated). | THE LANGUAGE NERDS. [online] Available at: https://thelanguagenerds.com/2021/30-untranslatable-words-from-other-languages-illustrated/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2022].

Dec 2019, A.L.D. / 18 (2019). How to Resurrect Dying Languages. [online] SAPIENS. Available at: https://www.sapiens.org/language/language-revitalization/.

Yamisha, J. (2019). The Challenges of Preserving and Reviving Endangered Minority Languages. [online] The Glossika Blog. Available at: https://ai.glossika.com/blog/the-challenges-of-preserving-and-reviving-endangered-minority-languages?utm_source=en_in_blog&utm_medium=preserving_endangered_languages_guest_post [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022].

The post The Joy of Words & Food appeared first on Green Also Green.

I vividly remember the first garden that was truly mine. It was a rectangular wooden planter that was situated in the back of my grandmother’s backyard, right in front of this peach-pink wall and to the right of the thick trunk of a palm tree. It contained lavender, blueberry, basil, rosemary, and a few other miscellaneous herbs. The lavender didn’t do too well, while in the passionate Florida heat the basil grew tall and skinny with a woody stem. The rosemary thrived and eventually mint became another one of my go-to crops. There was also lettuce at some point, and my connection to this plant was so deep that once, upon someone suggesting we uproot the whole plant to make a salad, I nearly cried. 

Gaurav, A. (n.d.). [Online Image] Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-green-plants-1537265/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2022].

I would frequently wheel around the wooden box of plants, far from the pool, close to the sunlight, and every day after school I would run out to the backyard with the pride of an eight-year-old who can keep a living thing alive. In part this early connection to a microcosm of agriculture taught me about responsibility, love, and care, about the wordlessness of all three things at their most intimate level. However it is only through words that I am able to share this story with you, and ultimately, remember the story myself. Connection to everything is about storytelling, and storytelling is about language. 

If the world were an economy of ideas, words would be the currency. So to answer the question of whether or not linguistic diversity can help solve broken agriculture, my answer is a firm yes. Of course, it is not a complete panacea to all social issues regardless of time, space, and money. That doesn’t mean it can’t offer a good place to start with improving our relationship to food. With more diverse thought, society benefits from a unique and novel framework by which to address the task of problem-solving. 

Without this, we lose a way of thinking and understanding that threatens the very mindsets we apply to big issues. Take food insecurity as an example and break it down into nutrition, agriculture, transportation, genetics, community, and culture. It’s a thick web of connection, starting from the soil and ending on a plate. Combine this with the demise of linguistic diversity and you get not only the monoculture of crops, but also of ideas. In such a way, combining language and food can support each other.

Kroon, J. (n.d.). [Online Image] Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/eye-level-photo-of-cultivated-land-1000057/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2022].

For a second let’s just stop to consider this. Food and language supporting each other- what does this really mean? On the one hand there is the basic nutritional value of food, and our basic understanding of nutrition. Language intersects with nutrition at this crossroads. This is where biochemical awareness meets the Westernized human mind and is stuffed under the mental file cabinets we have been taught to imagine. Fruit is sugar. Meat is protein. Butter is fat. It couldn’t be any more straightforward. 

Yet these semantic representations hardly scratch the surface of what’s really going on. Nor do they challenge the moral value that has been placed on certain food groups. It’s for this reason that I’ve hopped onboard Dr. Cate Shanahan’s Deep Nutrition train which emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to nutrition. This involves sourcing food carefully so as to maximize its nutritional value and returning to our ancient culinary traditions. 

So what does sourcing food and cooking like a Michelin-star chef have to do with language? On the surface it seems unclear, but anytime we discuss the importance of language, we are really discussing a mode of communication, each word a carefully crafted acoustic parcel for an idea. Just think how your own ideas would change if there were no semantic box in which to fit them. 

In my article When Words Die, I discuss the implications of this hotly debated topic in psychology. It boils down to an intellectual tug-of-war between languages causing ideas versus ideas causing language.  “While language perception is driven by expectations,” David Ludden Ph.D. explains in How Languages Shape Our World. “…language also creates expectations that influence our perception of the world more generally. This is because we don’t just use language to communicate with others, we use it to think to ourselves.” 

If this is so, one of the facets of life that language surely influences is the quotidian encounters we have with food and the way we go on to relate to it. This is why language surrounding food, cooking, and nutrition must be closely guarded. Taking this initial step sets us up for a better relationship to nutrition and agriculture going forward.

But what about Hawaiian? 

There are several layers to the communication behind our words. On one level there is the sound, the way our lips carve sentences into the air and control their pitch and frequency. Then there is the information, the “who, what, where, when, why, how” of language. There is the emotional accent to each objective fact, hidden beneath tone and heavily imbued in body language. There is also identity, tethering a relational sense of self to the world in which we exist. 

There is artistry in the uniqueness of every different combination of these qualities, artistry which presupposes a special framework of thinking. Let’s narrow this down to agriculture, a concept which incorporates both the everyday experience of food and the remote task of cultivating it. Now let’s consider how much of these experiences are shaped for us before we even sit down to share a meal. 

One might argue that ideas shape language. The other would reverse this relationship to say that language shapes ideas. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Assuming this to be the case, how would our actual experience of food and its harvest change if mainstream languages like English existed alongside endangered languages like Hawaiian? 

First I’ll answer this question from the vantage of Hawaiian grammar, in which there are no adjectives. Instead, there are verbs called painu `a`ano, or stative verbs, that describe being in the state of something. As a result, there is also no stand alone verb “to be”, as it is baked into basically every painu `a`ano instead. So for example, instead of having an adjective for “beautiful”, there is instead the verb “to be beautiful”. See below for an example and click this link for a more detailed explanation. 

English

Hawaiian

Considering this difference in grammatical structure, how might the concept of action be translated across English and Hawaiian cultures and languages? This is of particular interest to me when considering the impacts of emphasizing actions, which are time-dependent, over adjectives, which are passive and untethered to time. Take for example the notion of being “healthy”. If “healthy” is a verb, you can’t identify as “healthy” without constantly “being healthy”, as this state is defined by the extent to which you act in a “healthy” way. This way of thinking requires you to constantly actualize your qualities. If not, they cease to be part of your identity. The cultural effects of this are vast, especially on a larger scale in which “to be eco-friendly” or “to be sustainable” must be proven as constant demonstrations. 

Secondly, let’s analyze this more holistically by reflecting on a philosophy that straddles both the realm of Hawaiian culture and semantics: o’hana. This integral aspect of Hawaiian culture, which I discussed in my article Aloha in Agriculture, places family and community ties at its center. With this in mind, o’hana champions the act of sharing resources and taking care of the people around you. This mindset is particularly important in Hawaiian culture, as a history of the limited resources inherent to island life have made it clear that cooperation with nature and each other is crucial to survival. 

Yet even for those not living on islands, the importance of o’hana rings true. The only way to grapple with the world’s biggest challenges is to cooperate with nature and each other. In this sense, adopting the spirit of o’hana is vital when addressing the vast issues of global food systems. It is through o’hana that local farming efforts and food initiatives thrive.  

To quote the heartwarming lines of a Hawaiian proverb, e hele me ka pu’olo. With that said, mahalo nui loa and a hui hou, dear reader! May you approach your own life with a little extra o’hana and maybe even take an unexpected life lesson from the intricacies of Hawaiian linguistics. 

Translation and pronunciation:

Thought to Action

• Start learning an endangered language on Duolingo.
• Attend a local farmer’s market.
• Reconnect with what you’re eating by sharing your meals with other people, including those who can’t cook for themselves.
• Contribute to a food-sharing initiative near you.
• Bring some culinary traditions recognised by UNESCO into your home.

Bibliography:

Arnarson, A. (2019). Butter 101: Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits. [online] Healthline. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/butter#vitamins-and-minerals [Accessed 15 Jul. 2022].

Beauchemin, M. (2020). Understanding Ho’oponopono: A Beautiful Hawaiian Prayer for Forgiveness. [online] Grace & Lightness Magazine. Available at: https://graceandlightness.com/hooponopono-hawaiian-prayer-for-forgiveness/.

Dec 2019, A.L.D. / 18 (2019). How to Resurrect Dying Languages. [online] SAPIENS. Available at: https://www.sapiens.org/language/language-revitalization/.

Dictionary.com. (n.d.). ohana. [online] Available at: https://www.dictionary.com/e/translations/ohana/.

Endangered Languages project (n.d.). Endangered Languages Project. [online] www.endangeredlanguages.com. Available at: https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/.

Epic Hawaii Homes. (2018). How to Live Aloha. [online] Available at: https://epichawaiirealestate.com/2018/12/how-to-live-aloha/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2022].

Garcia, M. (2022). What Does Aloha Mean? Facts About The Hawaiian Word. [online] Being Human. Available at: https://beinghuman.org/what-does-aloha-mean/ [Accessed 19 Jun. 2022].

hawaiianplanner.com. (n.d.). The Real Meaning of Ohana in Hawaiian Families. [online] Available at: https://hawaiianplanner.com/discover/information/details/the-real-meaning-of-ohana-in-hawaiian-families.

hawaiihistory.org. (2022). About the Hawaiian Language on this site. – Hawaii History – About HawaiiHistory.org. [online] Available at: http://hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=496.

https://plus.google.com/+UNESCO (2017). February 2009. [online] UNESCO. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/courier/endangered-languages-endangered-thought.

Jenkins, J. (2020). 60+ Quotes About Hawaii & Proverbs From The Rainbow State. [online] Wanderers of the World. Available at: https://wandereroftheworld.co.uk/quotes-about-hawaii-and-proverbs/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2022].

Krukov, Y. (n.d.). [Online Image] Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/large-green-leaves-of-a-taro-plant-5479879/ [Accessed 28 Jun. 2022].

Live Aloha. (n.d.). What is Aloha? [online] Available at: http://www.livealoha.com/aloha-living/ [Accessed 19 Jun. 2022].

Ludden, D. (2015). How Language Shapes Our World. [online] Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201509/how-language-shapes-our-world.

Maui Accommodations Guide. (2019). Ohana Means Family | All About Maui Blog. [online] Available at: https://www.mauiaccommodations.com/blog/ohana-means-family/.

Redish, L. (2021). Endangered Languages: Revival and Revitalization. [online] www.native-languages.org. Available at: http://www.native-languages.org/revive.htm.

Shofner, K. (n.d.). Some Little Known Facts About the Hawaiian Language. [online] www.unitedlanguagegroup.com. Available at: https://www.unitedlanguagegroup.com/blog/translation/little-known-facts-about-the-hawaiian-language.

Src=”https://Secure.gravatar.com/Avatar/?s=96, img C., d=mm, Feb. 08, r=g”>Katie M. and 2017 (2021). 6 Creative Ways to Save Endangered Languages Before They Disappear. [online] Reader’s Digest. Available at: https://www.rd.com/list/save-endangered-languages/.

The Glossika Blog. (2018). At What Rate are Languages Dying? [online] Available at: https://ai.glossika.com/blog/glossika-language-vitality-report-2018?utm_source=en_in_blog&utm_medium=preserving_endangered_languages_guest_post [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022].

The Life and Death of Languages: Diversity, Identity and Globalization. (2014). The Hawaiian Language and a Brief History. [online] Available at: https://hkulanguage.wordpress.com/history/ [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022].

Uia.org. (2016a). Endangered cultures | World Problems & Global Issues | The Encyclopedia of World Problems. [online] Available at: http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/135023.

Uia.org. (2016b). Endangered unwritten languages | World Problems & Global Issues | The Encyclopedia of World Problems. [online] Available at: http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/149536.

Valley Isle Excursions. (2016). Hawaiian Quotes, Proverbs & Sayings From The Wise | Famous Quotes. [online] Available at: https://www.tourmaui.com/hawaiian-quotes-proverbs/#tips [Accessed 20 Jun. 2022].

Van de Walle, G. (2018). Polyunsaturated Fat: Definition, Foods, Benefits and Risks. [online] Healthline. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/polyunsaturated-fat#sources.

www.goodreads.com. (n.d.). Aloha Quotes (15 quotes). [online] Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/aloha [Accessed 19 Jun. 2022].

www.youtube.com. (2013). Clip from Lilo and Stitch, Ohana means family… [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/U37cChUfHk0 [Accessed 28 Jun. 2022].

Yamisha, J. (2019). The Challenges of Preserving and Reviving Endangered Minority Languages. [online] The Glossika Blog. Available at: https://ai.glossika.com/blog/the-challenges-of-preserving-and-reviving-endangered-minority-languages?utm_source=en_in_blog&utm_medium=preserving_endangered_languages_guest_post [Accessed 1 Jun. 2022].

The post What if we spoke Hawaiian? appeared first on Green Also Green.

The mouth is an underappreciated organ. It is the place where our voices leave our bodies, where food enters in. It allows us to give; it allows us to take. Think of all the interactions that happen there on a daily basis and how they influence your life. To narrow it down to the food we eat and the things we say, we’re already led to consider communication, ideas, diet, nutrition, taste, expression, comfort. It seems like a soap opera’s worth of drama. 

However the actual link between language and nutrition hasn’t really been analyzed on a deep level, and is often overlooked for other ties. For now, let’s explain why this connection is important by linking it to part of the system that brings us food in the first place: agriculture. 

First and foremost, how are nutrition and agriculture actually connected? Surely, wherever and however you grow a tomato, it is still, at the end of the day, a tomato. While this is somewhat true, from a biochemical perspective, there are huge variations in the nutritional value of a crop based on the soil it was grown from, the pesticides & herbicides used, and the stage in its growth at which it was harvested. However all of this is happening at an invisible level, so in the eyes of a consumer, these crucial changes are easy to overlook. 

Unfortunately, nutrition is one of those complicated political things that has one foot in the fads of diet culture, another in the world of biased research, another in medical journals, and yet another in tradition. So you will find that nutrition is not a normal two-footed beast. Instead, it’s a mammoth-octopus of an issue, with plenty of subjectivity to boot. 

For this reason, I won’t go into the pros and cons of any particular diet. Instead, I will analyze the agricultural system’s impact on the general nutrition of all food that it produces and its effect on the health of our bodies now and of future generations. Then I will discuss how modern day agricultural systems have affected these processes.

To begin with, let’s talk about nutrition and agriculture. How does one influence the other and why does it matter? First stop: dirt. Zoom in and you will see a metropolis of microorganisms that work for the ecosystem by breaking down organic matter, filtering water, regulating the soil fertility, providing nutrients for plant growth and even controlling pests and pathogens. This goes back to the need for biodiversity, highlighting the incredibly complex world that nourishes our crops over their lifetimes. As an example, let’s say you were to take two soil samples, one from the chronically overworked soil found when farming the same crop with no break in between, the other from a smaller farm with a variety of crops that change based on season. On the surface, both seem pretty similar, but really the micro-metropolis of each is drastically different. In the soil from the monoculture, you will find a ghost town with little life, meaning the soil is less fertile and capable of carrying out all those processes I mentioned earlier. On the other hand, the second sample will be like a flourishing city filled with activity. 

Most modern highly-centralized agriculture today disregards this important part of a plant’s growth by prioritizing the need for control over pests and providing certain nutrients in excess. Not only does this pollute waterways, cause eutrophication, contaminate groundwater, and decrease the amount of nutrients per pound of crops, but it damages the rich diversity of our soil. 

Yet the barrage on soil doesn’t end there. It is compounded by the use of monocultures in most farm settings. This means that only one crop is grown year round without giving the soil any time to rest. Imagine the burnout you might feel after having no vacation from work or school for an entire year. This is similar to what’s happening to all the bacteria, fungi, protozoa & nematodes in the soil. The solution? Crop rotations or permaculture, which are both ways of giving the soil a greater variety of crops and a little more rest as a result. This adds more nutrients to the soil and restores the soil’s fertility, allowing every pound of crop harvested to be more nutrient-dense… and more nutrient-dense food gives more nutrition. 

You can think of it similar to a human diet requiring a diverse range of foods. Like this, the soil requires a diverse range of organic matter and living plants to cultivate a variety of microorganisms. Imagine if you only ate one food for the rest of your life. You would experience nutrient deficiencies, fatigue, and a mountain of other health issues. The soil is much the same and requires rest and diversity to stay fertile. Crop rotation helps achieve this, as it periodically changes the crops that are harvested from the soil..

Now onto why this matters at all. At first it might be obvious. “I need to eat more nutrient-dense oranges so I don’t suffer from night blindness and dry skin.”; “I need more iron so I don’t get anemia.”; “I need vitamin C so I don’t get scurvy.” While you would be spot on, there is a much scarier idea to consider here: What if our food changed the expression of our genes? What if it even affects how they are passed on to our children? 

If this is enough to send chills down your spine, then I suggest you take a look at Dr. Cate and Luke Shanahan’s book Deep Nutrition, which discusses the influence of food on epigenetics. 

To summarize, let’s start by stating what epigenetics actually is. According to an article by Hyeran Jang and Carlo Serra, Nutrition, Epigenetics, and Diseases, it is “the field dedicated to the heritable features that complements the genetic information stored in the DNA sequence”. In essence, this has to do with DNA modifications and the interactions of microRNAs with the genome. One way to think about this is by imagining a movie. Let’s call it The Single-Celled Soap Opera. The cells in your body would be the actors and the DNA in each cell’s nucleus would be the script. Now that we have actors and script, we need someone to direct the film. In this case, the director would be your epigenome. 

As we all know, a director can make or break a movie. The same is the case for epigenetics. So when we tamper with it by exposing ourselves to the wrong environmental stimuli, such as food which lacks nutrition, our epigenome acts as a less skilled director for all those cells and DNA, leading to undesired consequences such as disease, cancer, etc. Epigenetic changes occur all throughout our life, so it is important to be wary of how we influence these chemical signals. In Shanahan’s Deep Nutrition, she challenges her readers to shift their perspective of food as a source of calories to think of it as information that provides our bodies with the right building-blocks for development. When it comes to nutrition, the focus should be eating food that sends the signal to keep us young, healthy and intelligent by supporting tissues in places like our muscles, bones, and joints while not creating inflammation. The obvious way to implement this is by reducing our consumption of overly processed foods, but what if even ‘healthy’ foods have become less nutrient-dense?

According to this article from Scientific American, a Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27%; iron levels 37%; vitamin A levels 21%, and vitamin C levels 30%. A similar study of nutrient data in Britain from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19%; iron 22%; and potassium 14%. In addition to this, another study estimated that to get the same amount of Vitamin A as “our grandparents” would have gotten from one orange, we would have to eat eight!

After pondering all this, perhaps you’re feeling quite powerless. Where do we go to find nutrient-dense food that will produce the desired results epigenetically? Whose dietary advice do we follow? Who is making sure that everyone receives the right amount of safe, high-quality food that meets their nutritional requirements?

To be candid, there is no easy answer. The systems impacting food security globally are still facing high levels of malnutrition, undernutrition, and increasing levels of disease. However what is in place is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights that provides global leaders with the right priorities. Article 25 is of particular interest to me in regard to food security:

• Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control…”

In addition, we have the the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, many of which relate to the issue of food security (e.g. No poverty, zero hunger, good health & wellbeing, clean water & sanitation, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities & communities, climate action, etc.).

With all this in mind, we can conclude that improving agricultural practices in order to improve nutrition should be a priority. We all eat food and it impacts everyone’s epigenetics, whether you are an impoverished farmer earning below minimum wage, or a Hollywood actress with a personal dietician. 

Now that we know why it’s so important to build a system that supports everyone, let’s move on to how we can accomplish this in my next article. 

Thought to Action:

• Share this article with at least 3 people
• Contact your local MP/Congressperson
• Suggested reading: Deep Nutrition by Dr. Cate Shanahan
• Try out the Too Good to Go app, which aims to decrease food waste by allowing you to rescue surplus food from local businesses
• Ask local restaurants if they could donate their extra food to a foodbank 

Bibliography:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (n.d.). Nutrition. [online] Available at: https://www.fao.org/nutrition/en/.

Haddad, L. and Oshaug, A. (2002). Nutrition and Agriculture A R N E O S H A U G A N D L AW R E N C E H A D D A D NUTRITION A FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT A FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT. [online] Available at: https://www.unscn.org/files/Publications/Briefs_on_Nutrition/Brief6_EN.pdf.

Jang, H. and Serra, C. (2014). Nutrition, Epigenetics, and Diseases. Clinical Nutrition Research, 3(1), p.1. doi:10.7762/cnr.2014.3.1.1.

Li, X. and Qi, L. (2022). Epigenetics in Precision Nutrition. Journal of Personalized Medicine, [online] 12(4), p.533. doi:10.3390/jpm12040533.

Niculescu, M.D. (2012). Nutritional epigenetics. ILAR journal, [online] 53(3-4), pp.270–278. doi:10.1093/ilar.53.3-4.270.

Scientific American. (2011). Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? [online] Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/.

Shanahan, C. and Shanahan, L. (2018). Deep nutrition : why your genes need traditional food. New York: Flatiron Books.

Sharma, I.K., Di Prima, S., Essink, D. and Broerse, J.E.W. (2020). Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: A Systematic Review of Impact Pathways to Nutrition Outcomes. Advances in Nutrition. doi:10.1093/advances/nmaa103.

Shekar, M. (2015). Nutrition and Agriculture: Bridging the Gap. [online] blogs.worldbank.org. Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/health/nutrition-and-agriculture-bridging-gap.

United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [online] United Nations. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.

United Nations (2015). The 17 sustainable development goals. [online] United Nations. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals.

What is Epigenetics? (2018). A Super Brief and Basic Explanation of Epigenetics for Total Beginners. [online] Available at: https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/what-is-epigenetics/.

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