A Regenerative Future Can Reverse Decade's of Poor Health Trends.

Optimal health begins with optimal nutrition. With all the supplements, powders, pills and shakes on the market today it is difficult to know where “optimal” nutrition begins. All these products are claiming to be the best supplement ever…”get ripped”, “deliver more protein”, “lose weight”, “huge gains” etc are all nonsense. Take a look at the ingredients list and ask yourself, does a manufactured whey protein, with sucralose, sunflower lecithin, xanthum gum, added sugars and other ingredients make sense to put in my body? Real nutrition begins with real food. Our bodies were not meant to digest multiple combinations of any ingredients much less chemically manufactured ones. Take a walk outside in nature and see what is available to eat and understand the true value of real food. What you might find are trees with nuts, some seasonal berries or fruits and animal proteins, these are the foods humans sustained themselves on for millenia until we begin to shift diets dramatically with the advent of conventional agriculture.

“Take a walk outside in nature and see what is available to eat and understand the true value of real food. What you might find are trees with nuts, some seasonal berries or fruits and animal proteins, these are the foods humans sustained themselves on for millenia.” 

There are two prominent inflection points that lead to the decline in human health. One occurred in the middle of the 20^th century when agriculture technology was in full force and massive plant breeding programs with high yielding new varieties of seeds were developed to help feed a rapidly expanding population. The other is when the USDA implemented their nutritional guidelines and food pyramid in the 1980’s and 90's, which is low in fat and high in carbs. These are horrible trends and our “health care system” has become a “disease care system” which only benefits large corporate drug companies without ever addressing the underlying problems.

“The  USDA implemented their nutritional guidelines and food pyramid in the 1980’s and 90’s, which is low in fat and high in carbs turning our “health care system” into a “disease care system”.”

 

 

If we want to fix our “health care system” we need to start at the soil level. The midcentury revolution in agriculture in which millions of acres of mono-culture crops could now be mass produced, led to another epidemic. These crops required massive amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides which further tied the farmers to the large chemical companies and seed companies beginning a vicious cycle. The ~400 million acres of croplands today have created massive soil loss, less nutrient dense soils and an unsustainable agriculture system affecting our health and ecology of the planet in which they rely more and more on fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. It is not enough to be sustainable we must shift the majority of our farms to be regenerative. If more companies like REP Provisions start focusing on regenerative agriculture and begin at the soil level we can repair our broken ecosystems, improve our health and provide a society and a planet worthy of inheriting for all our children.

The trends may be bad but the story is not over. Collectively, we can reverse these statistics through education and measured outcomes. Stay tuned to this blog as we continue to discuss and present solutions that bring hope to this generation and beyond.