Nurturing nutrition, a conversation with Dan Kitteredge

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Blog: https://www.crowdfarming.com/blog/en/

Transcript

Emilia Aguirre 0:04

If you do five Hail Marys, does that mean you're closer to God, or you've just done five Hail Marys? ask the carrot, "What are you... What can I do for you today?" Yeah. "How are you doing? Oh, all you want is a pet? we are degenerating. We're physiologically degenerating because our nutritional status is getting weaker and weaker. And people wanna believe that organic is better. They wanna believe regenerative is better. They wanna believe that the local farmer is producing a higher quality crop. Yeah. Those are not necessarily true. Oh my gosh, my world is crumbling. Dan, thank you so much for being here with us today. My pleasure. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Um, so getting straight into it, my first question is just gonna be, I always thought that an organic certification or a regenerative farming practices would automatically mean that a product is more nutritious. Yes. And I'm realizing that this is not actually true. Yes. So why is that not true, and, and how- Can we actually discover why a product would be more nutritious than another one? Yeah. My parents, um, were founders and, um, led an organic farming organization in the US for 40 years, 35 years. They wrote some of the first organic standards in the US in the 1980s. Mm-hmm. So I come from the background of being an organic farmer, and having my parents be leaders in the organic movement. Um, so with that context- Mm I also was raised with the knowing that organic meant more nutritious. Um, and when I was exposed to this little thing called science And realized that actually there's a massive variation in nutrient levels in organic, all organic is not uniform. The, the, the first thing is that food is not uniform. Mm. People have had a tomato off of the shelf in January. They've had a tomato off the vine in August. They know that experience of variation in flavor, that... Actually, your tongue is a very sophisticated nutrient monitoring system. Okay. So when something tastes better, not sweeter, but flavor, it's more nutritious. And there's a- Oh, okay massive variation in nutrient levels in organic. There's a massive variation of nutrient levels in regenerative, in permaculture, in local, in agroecology, in conventional, et cetera. So- So you can't say that all uni- all organic is uniform. That's the, the first mistake is to think that e- organic is uniform. Okay. That must've been quite a shock, I mean, to realize that actually there was a bit more complicated science behind- Yeah the organic certification. Well, what got me to be asking the questions in the first place was that I was a farmer who couldn't make a living. Okay. And I struggled as a farmer with pest pressure, disease pressure, failure to thrive. And I had a young family, and I was trying to figure out how to pay the bills and- Mm provide for my family. And so the questions I was asking were, how can I cause plants to not be pest and disease susceptible? Mm. And actually it's through the functionality of the soil life. The, the microbiome... Soil health is plant health, is pest and disease resistance, is farm viability, is flavor, is nutrition, is human health. Okay. Soil health, human health, massive, brilliant interrelationship, and a lot of the practices that I was brought up with in organic do not facilitate soil health. Mm. Just because you're not using chemicals does not mean you've optimized soil health. Okay. Just because you're cover cropping and no-tilling does not mean you're optimizing soil health. So there's do less bad- Great. Less toxic chemicals? Great That's a good thing, yeah You know, keeping the soil covered? Awesome. You know, disturbing it less? Great. But if the issue that's impeding soil health is something like air, like the microbes in the soil need air to breathe- Mm if your soil is tight and you're not disturbing it- those microbes are all asphyxiating Mm. So it's, doesn't matter if you got cover crops, doesn't matter if you haven't applied the chemicals, the microbes can't breathe, and they are dead because they can't breathe. And until you as a farmer understand that microbes need air to breathe like chickens do, and you solve that problem for them, you will not have soil health. So, but would solving that problem be plowing or tilling in that case, to sort of mix up the- There's 85 different ways of solving that problem- Okay but you actually have to understand the root problem- Yeah and work systemically to address it. Okay. And if you're, if you're just applying a regimented set of practices, like the organic protocols we were brought up with, or like a lot of what's happening in regenerative is if you do these things, then you get this, you claim regenerative. Okay, well, w- it's a process-based standard. I like to say it's like kind of like a religion. Mm. If you do five Hail Marys, does that mean you're closer to God, or you've just done five Hail Marys? Yeah. You know? You've planted cover crops. That does not necessarily mean you got better soil health. Mm-hmm. Um, or you've arrived at a high level of soil health. So it's each piece of land is unique, and it's alive, and it's sentient, and only when you as a farmer are humbly listening and serving that land right here, right now should you expect its vitality to increase. Mm-hmm. Okay. If you apply regimented pract- protocols- So, and- that may or may not be appropriate how much of, uh, soil health also just depends on stuff like location and the history of that land? Because, for example, I've heard that, like, some conventional farms who are not doing any of these, like, good practices that we know about have better soil health than certain organic farms. So is that, is there also sort of like a, it's just a question of location, of history, of how much that land has been farmed in the past, and all that type of thing? Certainly each piece of land is unique- Mm and some pieces of land have better inherent capacity or system function. Um, but many farms that are conventional, that are, which is not conventional because it's only a 80-year blip in the history of humans engaging with land- Yeah but, um, many farmers who are not certified organic or regenerative are also engaging good soil health practices. Mm-hmm. Just because they aren't organic or regenerative does not mean they're doing all these bad things- Yeah because the science is out there. We have demonized them a bit as well with these- It's us, them. Yeah. I'm a Christian, you're a Muslim. Yeah. I'm good, you're bad. You know, that kind of, you know, I'm black, you're white- Yeah like, it's that sort of us/them reality as opposed to every piece of land is a piece of land. It has strengths and weaknesses. Every plant has its own needs. The more we can deal with the living system like it's a living system, each child is unique, if, I'm not sure if you have children- Mm but I've got children. Mm. Each child is different. They need different things. Yeah. If you apply a regimented set of practices to all your children- They're gonna get- They're not gonna get their needs met yeah. So don't treat your land that way. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm not sure if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. It makes complete sense. So going also to the sort of root of the problem, what has happened for our food to be so nutritionally depleted today? Because, uh, I've seen loads of numbers and statistics that, that explain that today our food has lost I don't know how much nutritional value compared to pre-, uh, Green Revolution times. Yeah. So can you walk us through kind of how that happened and why? I think, again, the first, um, assumption is that all food now is uniform- Mm and all food in 1980 was uniform, and all food in 1950 was uniform. That's just not true. There was a m- there may be a, a number that a government published in 1950 that said, "This is what's in a carrot," and that government published a number in 1980 and in t- in 2020, and those numbers that they've published have gone down, and the averages have gone down, but there's never an average human. Mm. There's never an average cat. There's never an average potato. At any point in time, in 1950 or 1980 or 2020, there was a full spectrum of variation in the nutrients in potatoes. Um, and so yeah, so that, that, that's the first thing is to, is to understand that variation exists and always has existed, and there is... you'll never find an average potato. Yeah. Um, but what has caused those averages to go down is I think the fact that the market has been paying farmers based on volume and aesthetic. Mm. Right? If you're a farmer and you wanna make a living, you don't get paid on nutritional caliber. Mm. You get paid on pounds or, or kilos or bushels or tons, and aesthetic uniformity. Yeah. And so the market has been incentivizing a set of practices, in most cases antithetical to nutritional caliber. Mm. And so since there are no real averages... or, I mean, you can make averages, but there'll always be a big range of different levels. Yeah. Uh, and what does that range depend on? Is it, like, varieties? Is it w- I mean, it's type of agriculture, but are there other things aside from the soil health that also, uh, influence nutritional value in the product? So that was one of the first questions that we started when I ran an NGO- Mm an educational organization, and, um, we coined this term nutrient density almost 20 years ago- Mm now to, to begin this conversation about that variation in nutrient levels in food. O- one of the first questions we had when we looked into literature is, what is the scale of variation? Mm. How big is this nutrient variation in food? And there wasn't really any good science out there to answer that question. The second question is, if there is significant variation, which we think there is- Mm what causes it? And, um, our initial work from 2018 to 2022- We sampled 10,000 crop samples across two continents, hundreds of farms- Wow 25 different crops. We overlaid the soil metrics and the, um, management practices trying to tease out these questions. What role does genetics have? What role does soil type have? What role does certain fertility programs or management practices or certifications or points of purchase? Mm. None of them seem to correlate None of them? Genetics. Okay You can take a bag of carrot seeds, plant it in 10 different soils, and have massive variations in nutrient levels. You can take one field, manage it differently, and have massively different s- nutrient levels. Okay. You can have 10 farmers in a five-mile radius who manage their soils differently and have massively different nutrient levels. Okay. You could have 10 farmers that use the same certification, right? So s- organic versus not organic does not correlate. Mm. Local to not local doesn't correlate. Soil type is not a causal factor. I mean- Okay genetics is not a causal factor. The thing that we found that connected to nutrient variation was levels of life in the soil. Okay. Soil health, the micro- the function of the microbiome, which is the bottom of the food chain, you know, we need our microbes to exist, to flourish. Like, the level of function of our microbiome connects directly to our health. Mm-hmm. It's exactly the same for plants. Okay. The more well the land is functioning- Yeah the healthier the plant is, the more nutritious the food that comes off of it is. And so in a lot of like, uh, in the regenerative space, a lot of people are doing soil sampling and, and soil analysis to understand- Yeah the microbiome and to understand the level of health that their soil has. Is... Would that be then, uh, an efficient way to measure the nutritional density of the product that's grown in that soil? By measuring- In- the soil? Yeah. Or is that not enough? Not enough. Okay. Um, so yeah, you can take a soil test in, in April or in October, and that will at one moment tell you, you know, which nutrients are there and which microbes are there, et cetera. But the plant grew from April to September, or, you know, whatever it is, June to October. Um, and the time when the plant was alive, from when it got planted to when the crop was harvested, it was experiencing life. Yeah. And so if you think about, I don't know, raising a child, if the first three years of that child's life it eats macaroni and cheese- Mm that's a formative time in the child's life. Its, its bones aren't gonna be as dense as they could be. Its immune system isn't gonna be functioning well. For the rest of that child's life, it's not gonna be as healthy as it could be because what it experienced early on is gonna have a ripple impact. So- Okay so the functionality of the life in the soil through the entire life of the plant is what seems to correlate to the... And if, for cows and chickens too, right? Okay. The whole lifetime of that animal impacts what's in the part that, that you eat. So there are a bunch of different things that you can measure, which are helpful to giving context to the farmer to begin to change their practices, to become more s- more present with the moment- Mm-hmm and managing in real time. But yeah, it's a bit nuanced. I mean, indigenous cultures said- You know, will ask the plant Yeah Because they, you know, had the capacity to communicate directly with nature Mm-hmm So we're, we've been trained that we have to use empirical external instruments to get facts and figures. I would argue the indigenous cultures actually had something figured out, which was that we are able to communicate directly with nature, um, not in words per se, but in other levels. Mm. Um, so it seems to be that, that real time constant lived symbiosis with the ecosystem and support caretaking, stewardship of the ecosystem- Mm that has the, the best effect So is it kind of like, this may sound like a silly question, but so for example, I have a lot, a lot of house plants- Mm-hmm in my apartment, in my urban apartment in Madrid. Yeah And I find that I have that kind of relationship with them- Yeah where I'm able to tell now also with a bit more practice when they need more water, less water. It can be just sort of like how- Yes uh, the leaves will change- The body language the body language of the plant. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. So is, is it sort of that, but at a much bigger scale- Precisely that you're talking about? Okay. That's so interesting. Yeah And deeper. And people, some people are clear audient. They'll- Yeah they'll hear things, or it's clairvoyant, they'll s- they'll see something or they'll wake up in a dream. Mm. We have multiple levels of perception that we're wired with- Yeah. Mm which we don't feel comfortable talking about sometimes in the Western cultural framework. Yeah But- And do you think we have, is there sort of like, uh, indigenous knowledge that we can go back to, to re- to refind these ways of understanding the land and understanding what we can do as farmers? And have you experienced- I would say we've got an amazing opportunity to integrate the Western rational, empirical frameworks with all kinds of IoT sensors and metadata and AI and pattern forming with the deep profoundness that we each are To perceive and communicate directly Mm-hmm Um, and, you know, the scientific method. The scientific method is, like, uh, you know, experiment. Try this, see what happens, collect data, share. Yeah. You know, and I mean, we can now, with the internet, um, we can have every farm, we can be collecting all numbers of pieces of data. We can share it openly. If every farmer was sharing what's going on- Yeah on their farm, what they were doing, what they were experiencing, overlaid with, with, with weather maps and IoT sensors, we could rapidly, collectively dial in what each farm needs, when and how, using sensors, using, you know, empirical measurements, as well as practicing asking. Hmm. When you come out in the morning, say to your plants, "How's it going?" I find it to be- "What's up?" Yeah, it's like something... It's a bit like the us and them that you were talking about earlier. We have this mentality that it's all that first approach or the second very scientific and empirical approach. But in fact, probably the most efficient one is- Weave finding a... Yeah, weaving them both together, and pulling the best of, of both. But I find that most people sort of choose one or the other, and then, 'cause it becomes a bit a, of an identity as well. Like, "No, I'm a scientific farmer," or, "I'm more of a spiritual farmer," and I, I don't know many who- The scientific, the scientific method applies on whatever level you're engaging. Yeah. The scientific method is not like it has to be in the peer review. It's a, it's a process- Yeah of asking questions and collecting responses and, and honing your understanding. Mm. Um- It would be so convenient to harvest a carrot and be able to say to the carrot, "What is your exact nutritional density?" Or to, when you- I don't think it does w- every day when you walk outside, to be able to ask the carrot, "What are you... What can I do for you today?" Yeah. "How are you doing? Oh, all you want is a pet? How about a, how about I s- I love you?" Mm. Or, "Thank you for offering your being to feed me or to feed one of my customers or to feed my child." Mm. That affirmation actually is massive- Mm I argue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I read a lot of, uh, Robin Wall Kimmerer's books- Yes and I love this idea that she has- Yeah of reciprocity and how you can kind of, through those kind of affirmations and just being in general grateful to the land and to the plants for this product, and then sharing it with others as well, and it just sort of creates this system that seems to work a lot more- Well, life- a lot better operates on multiple octaves, the physical plane being one of them. Right. Um, well, they say you can't fool children and dogs. Mm. Somebody walks into the room with a bad attitude- They can tell or the dog will know. Yeah. The child will start crying. The vibe is a real thing- Mm and when you have a vibe of gratitude, your plants literally- Feel that their vibration and your vibration overlap and engage, and they are fed They are nurtured by that vibration of affirmation, of love, of appreciation. Mm-hmm. There's nutrients come in many different forms. Mm. Um, and when we just consider a plant to be a thing that we're treating like an industrial product- Yeah without the heart- Mm. Absolutely then we get where we're at. Yeah. For consumers as well, so people who are buying these products, if they wanna make the best choices, in terms of nutrition- Yeah are there things that they can do? So you, you mentioned earlier that the tongue is actually a very good sensor to tell the nutritional value of products- Yes which I find amazing because we're prob- we're working on all of these super technical scientific things that will help us, but in the end it's probably the most efficient thing would be just to practice a lot with your taste and on your taste buds- Absolutely and tell. Um, and so, so if I feel like a tomato is particularly flavorful, then most likely it is more nutritious to me. I argue, I mean, whether you think that God made us or we evolved- Mm um, I'll, I'll, I'll use the evolution sort of storyline. It, for starters, looks like about 30% of our DNA is associated with the function of our nose and our tongue. Oh, interesting. Somebody who helped design us- thought that it re- really, it matters for us to be able to smell and taste well. Okay. And if you look into the science, those compounds we call flavor and aroma, polyphenols and terpenoids and whatever they're called- Mm um, only get built in the plant in high levels when everything else is present. Okay. So when the full m- you know, biochemical complexity, all the vitamins, all the enzymes, all the everything else is present, only then can the plant build these things we call flavor. Okay. So being able to taste and smell well is basically evolution's way of telling you, "If you eat this you'll be more well- Mm and your children will be healthier." If you're building your children out of your body, say you're, you're pregnant or you're nursing or whatever- Yeah like, that which you build your body out of is what builds their body. And so for them to be f- able to flourish, they should have an optimal nutritional status. Mm. So if you eat things that have low flavor, they don't have the full complexity of nutrients that your body needs to function. If your body's what your children's body's being built out of, and when we, you follow that track, that's where we are right now, three, four generations post-industrial, you know, post the Green Revolution, we've been building our bodies out of insufficient substance, and then we have children and their bodies are built even less well, and even less well, and we have these epidemic levels of chronic disease- Right because we are degenerating. We're physiologically degenerating because our nutritional status is getting weaker and weaker. Mm-hmm. It takes time for life to wear out. Um, but you can build it back up again. If you start eating well, guess what? It reverses. Your body can... You get a new body every six months, right? Mm. So one way of measuring, the, the truest, best way is, is to actually hone your sense of- Mm of taste and smell, and u- use that discernment. Um, there are also external instruments, scientific instruments that you can use to, to get readings- Mm and that's part of our work of, as an organization, is to build these sensors. I've got a couple here. Yeah. Um, this, this one is the sort of the handheld spectrometer, um, that we built in 2017. We calibrated with the 10,000 samples. Okay. It's got 10 little LEDs here. It's very rudimentary. It's a 3D-printed case. It's got screws on it. You know, like, it's like a built in a garage kind of sensor. But um, we were able to get a paper published in a journal called Nature, uh, Scientific Communications, that said this thing, when it flashes light at a carrot, can read the level of antioxidants in the carrot. Okay. And through Bluetooth it can spit out the reading. Where's the little phone? In your smartphone In your smartphone. That's incredible You can flash the light at a zucchini, get a level reading on the polyphenols, add wheat berries and get the level of protein. So it's possible to flash a light at food, and through a science called spectroscopy- Yeah get a real-time reading on your phone that says, "Beep boop- This is what you've got 20," whatever it is. So that's where we're going is it looks like when we get done with our research, it'll be the camera in your phone. That's completely groundbreaking. So you pull your phone out of your pocket- Yeah you flash a light at these carrots, "Beep boop, 20 out of 100." You're reading the carrot, not the QR code- Yeah not the label. You're actually- Actual through a science called spectroscopy, with the flash of light, you're able to read the nutrients in the food. And if you've got three brands of carrots on the shelf or, or eight apples to choose from, or three choices of steak, or whatever it is, you can read the nutritional caliber and have that be a data point when you choose what to purchase. Hm. So our thought is people care about their health, their children's health, their husband's health, their wife's health, and they spend money on food. And so if you could choose the thing that's more nutritious, and then you can post that reading on Facebook or Instagram- Everybody in town's gonna know at this store, this brand's better, that brand's worse pretty soon. Or if, you know, Crowdfarming's stuff is, like, 85% of the time better than anything else around- Yeah that's where you can go to purchase. So our thought is use the market, use the incentive of people wanting the best for their families to drive the practices that will sequester carbon, that'll heal the ecosystem, that will heal ourselves. Yeah. Um. It's incredible because it's putting all of the power into the consume- I mean, the consumer is the one- It's, the money is the vote- Yeah and we are the ones that actually use the money. Yeah. So if we come together, we the people come together for the betterment of ourselves and our children and also the climate- Mm the, the, the companies will follow. Yeah, absolutely. But we have to come together, and science is a really valuable tool, right? If... 'Cause that's where you can be non-dogmatic- Yeah non-religious, like, e- empiricism, and, and that's... I mean, I feel like that's a really good opportunity. It's... It feels huge, I mean, being able as a consumer to read the three different apples that I've got on the shelf and choose the most nutritious one, I mean, that is, like, giving, uh, a, an amount of knowledge and amount of power to the consumer that we're so unused to having as well because today we don't have any information on how it has been grown. We got labels, certifications, and marketing. Yeah. And people wanna believe that organic is better. They wanna believe regenerative is better. They wanna believe that the local farmer is producing a higher quality crop. Yeah. Those are not necessarily true. No. On, on... I know we don't like averages very much, but on average, is it a little bit true or not at all? Ugh, that's so disappointing. Oh my gosh, my world is crumbling. No, of course, I understand that, like, it... there are so many variations, but I thought that maybe statistically in the big averages, organic and regenerative would still be a little bit better than... But no. I can see that you, you don't like saying this either. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm... We're, we're not, we're not only on video. We're, we're- Yeah. Um, we have collected, like I said, thousands and thousands of samples, and a lot of them were from small, local, organic, regenerative farms who were pretty damn sure that they were better, and they were really happy to send us in their samples. Yeah. And the graphs are just embarrassing. Oh, my goodness. I mean, the reality is almost all food is way worse than it could be. Yeah. The bar is embarrassingly low for everything. Okay. The opportunities to improve are everywhere. It's not hard to do way better. Okay. So it's just a question of, like, who wants to take the first step- Mm and how can we work together and how can we compete to be producing better food? And let's start with humility. Don't start with being cocky and arrogant like- Mm "I'm organic, I'm better." Yeah. "I'm regenerative, I'm better." Take my soil sample. You'll see what, what will come from it type of thing. Let's build a big open data f- base. Yeah. Let's actually have a scientific method by which we develop a 1 to 100 standard. Let's have a framework where we all agree this is a scientific process- Yeah and we're, and we're getting our dogmas out of the way, and we're just measuring. And then, okay, this year I'm at 20 out of 100. Well, next year if I'm at 25, and the next year I'm at 30, next year I'm at 40... Off I go. Bam. All we- Yeah and, and then, and then the competition occurs, and everybody's im- improving. Mm. And then all humans are more well. Yeah. And then the soil is more well, and then the climate is balanced, right? I mean, we can actually massively impact climate for the better in short order if we do farming well. Yeah, absolutely. And the best way to drive it, I say, is to let people who care about their children choose the best food off the shelf and leave the junk- Yeah or the less good. Yeah. And I just... I'll say this is another thing. This is called a refractometer. Okay. This has been around for 195 years. Wow. There's no battery. Um, um, you basically take a garlic press, and this is not a, this is not a flash of light thing. Um, you take whatever it is, the tomato. Mm. You take a piece of the tomato, you stick it in the garlic press, you squish it, you get a drop of juice out. It goes onto the refractometer. You look through, and you get a number. And you get a number. This is something- May I see this? It's- Okay. It's- Oh, is this a- It's called a refractometer a refractometer. Oh, I see. There's a scale. There's a scale. When you look into it, there's a scale of the percentage of Brix, right? Precisely. Is that correct? Yeah. And when there's some liquid on the s- on the screen, there'll be a line there. That will go- It will be, that's 5 or 12 or 14 or whatever. And this is what, uh, farmers or agronomists use to measure the level of Brix in a, in a product? Right. And so we've got a chart, this has been around for a while, which has a poor, average, good, excellent- Okay for 50 different crops. Okay. So we as an NGO, as an educational organization, are launching an app this month where anybody who wants to can take a refractometer and a garlic press. When you bring home your shopping- Yeah Take a reading, and then you upload onto the app, date of purchase, point of purchase, brand, and reading. Brilliant. So we the people, citizen science, bottom-up, before all the science is done, before it's in your phone, right now, we can begin to engage that process of assessing the supply chain- Mm and seeing where better and worse are. But can you also explain what exactly Brix is- Is for maybe an average consumer who doesn't necessarily- Yes, yes, yes know what Brix levels are? Um- What does that symbolize, this measurement, yeah? So Brix measures, technically it measures total dissolved solids. So effectively, the more watery or empty a food is, um, the less dissolved solids are in the juice of it- Okay and the less light bends when it passes through it. So this measures, Brix measures refraction. It measures the amount that light bends when it passes through a fluid. Okay. So if you, if you're in the bath and you stick your hand in the bathtub, half in the water, half not, it looks like your arm is bent. Yeah. You know your arm isn't bent. You know it's just the light passing through the water that's bending the light that makes it look like it's bent. Mm-hmm. Interesting. So the more stuff dissolved in the water, the more the light bends. Okay. So the more watery a tomato is- The less- the less the light bends. The more full of stuff the tomato is, the more the light bends. Apples, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, milk. Okay. So that's what this measures. It's very simple. It's not nutrient density- Yeah but it's the best stand-in we have now. It correlates with flavor. Yes. It correlates with shelf life. It correlates with pest and disease resistance. It correlates with vigor. Okay. So as far as a stand-in, it's the best thing we've got. It's not perfect. Mm-hmm. Um, it's inexpensive, it's simple, and so- Yeah um. 'Cause I've seen a lot- Yeah, it's an iterative process yeah, a l- a, a few, uh, agronomists who are using that, and I, from what I had thought I understood, it was used to understand whether a fruit is, uh, like, ready to be harvested yet or not. Mm-hmm. So you have to have a minimal level of Brix percentage to be able to harvest your product and, and, and then sell it on, right? Yeah. So I think, like- Traditionally, that's been used in grapes especially. Winemakers are some of the people who've absolutely... Brix was, Brix was an Austrian chemist who won the prize put out by the German vintners in the 1830s. Okay. The German vintners said, "We have this problem. Sometimes we pick our grapes and make wine, and it turns into vinegar." And sometimes we pick our grapes and we make wine, it turns into great wine. Mm. And we'd love to know- Why it's happening which grapes are gonna make great wine and which grapes are gonna make vinegar. And they all put their money together and said, "Whoever can figure this out, we'll give you a prize." That's a lovely thing. And Brix was the scientist who figured it out, and they named the chart after him, like Celsius got a chart named after him, and Fahrenheit, and Richter, and Ohms, and Volt, and- Hmm Watt, were all scientists that got a chart named after them. So Brix got this chart named after him. Um- Okay so it started out in, in the wine-making industry. Um, and yeah, uh, you know, if you're making wine, you don't wanna pick the grapes until they're at a certain Brix reading. No. Um, in general, if you're picking a tomato and it's not ripe, the plant has not put into it all the nutrients that could be into it. So in many cases, you eat a tomato that was picked raw and then shipped and gassed. Mm. Guess what? A green tomato turned pink will never have the nutrients in it that a tomato that turned ripe will have in it. On the plant. Right. Okay. So it's, it's simplistic, but it's the best we have now. Yeah. Okay. It's not perfect. I find the first thing that you explained, the, spectrometer, I think, is, quite a bit more powerful in terms of,, understanding the, the product itself. And that's the one that takes science to figure out. Yeah. And the, and the real issue is to, to calibrate a refractometer, you have to actually have defined nutrient density first. Oh, yeah. Okay. Until you've got a definition, you can't build a meter to measure it. And that's we- where our nonprofit, I mean, and the broader work around nutrient density is, it's not stuck, but where we're at right now- Mm is we have to raise the money to do the research to define the 1 to 100 standard before you can build an instrument to measure. Okay. Until you've done the research that connects everything from soil health to human health and you've got a proper linear, you know, causal relationship connection in the published literature, until you've done the science properly- And defined it Mm. You can't build a meter to measure it. Okay. And how long does that take to get all the science done? Um- 'Cause it feels like we've understood the concepts, so- Less than a year if you've got the money. Okay. So- Is it very expensive? Less than a million per crop. Per crop, okay. So wheat, s- call it 800,000. You know, potatoes, blueberries, apples, each crop is unique and needs its own standard built. Okay. And that's the scientific process. Mm. And- And so we're an NGO, and that's what we're doing. Yeah. Gr- amazing. And who is interested in, uh, financing these types of things? 'Cause I w- I would think- So who has the most money in the agro food industry? Probably those who are less open to spending it on these kind of measurements. The reason this research has not been done is there's been no one with a deep pocket who has found it to be in their economic advantage. Yeah. What a surprise. So the, the, the player that has the best interest is we, the people. The consumers, yeah. So if it's 800,000 per crop- And you've got 100,000 people, that would be eight euros, $8 per person. Yeah. Could you put in $8 this month for blueberries, and $8 next month for apples, and $8, or euros- Yeah, yeah I'm talking to the European audience Yeah eight euros per, per month, y- next month for, for potatoes? Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. And what we've really noticed is that, 'cause we've been trying to tackle lots of different problems in the agri-food system from different angles, and what most drives them and what they care most about is what you were saying, the, their health and the health of their children. The health of their children. And knowing- If you're a parent, the health of your children, like- Is your number one priority sorry, it just takes precedence over pretty much everything else. Yeah, absolutely. And so, and that comes from understanding that the product that you're buying, even whether you kind of know the farmer or not, I'm being a bit harsh because, like, obviously it's best to know who's growing your food, but what will drive you is a guarantee that that product is healthier- Is- for you and your family yes. As someone who grew up on an organic farm, who proudly sold potatoes, and blueberries, and apples at the farmers market on the town common every Saturday morning- Mm with my nose elevated because- Yeah we were better. Mm-hmm. Like- What do your parents have to say about all of this work that you've been doing? I mean, it's been almost 20 years I've been doing the work, so what do they say- 20 years 18 years ago- Yeah and what do they say now? I think they're maybe secretly a little bit proud. Okay. Um- Secretly, though. Well- Yeah I mean, I think they should be proud of what they did. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they helped make organic a thing. Back in the '80s, it wasn't a thing. Yeah. And so they were... I'm, I'm standing on their shoulders. I'm, I'm only able to do this work because I have the background that I have, with the context and the perspective that I have. Mm, no, absolutely. So I think we're all in this process together. And coming from the base as well that obviously no chemicals is a huge step forward from with chemicals. So- So cide, pesticide, herbicide, fungicide means kill. Yeah. So if you understand that the microbiome is the bottom of the food chain, and the functionality of the microbiome is, is... connects directly to overall system function- Hmm anything you do that kills the microbes is counterproductive. Mm-hmm. So on principle, the application of toxic chemicals is counterproductive to the overall system function. Yeah. For better or for worse, things like tillage or, you know, insufficient hydration also will cause genocide in the ecosystem. Mm-hmm. And many organic farmers don't maintain sufficient aeration, don't maintain sufficient hydration, engage in practices which are also destructive. And so, you know, and rather than judge others, "You use a pesticide, you're a bad person," I say, you know, "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." Yeah. Until you have an optimally functioning biological system, don't bother yourself judging others. Hmm. You know, be humble and say, "How can I do more well?" Yeah. And- Um, it's so much easier to just judge others, but it's... I don't think it's helpful. No, definitely not helpful. Absolutely. Yeah. And do you find that the, like... Who, who is most interested in your work within the whole space? Is it mainly farmers, or is it mainly consumers, or? It's remarkably broad-based. Okay. Interesting. From... Obviously, I mean, we've been doing it for a long time. It started off as it was the small, organic... You know, regenerative wasn't even a word back then, you know, biodynamic, permaculture, agro-ecological farmers. Um, obviously consumers, people who are feeding their families. Yeah. Nutritionists, chefs. Um, um, but yeah, now I'm in boardrooms and corporate headquarters of the biggest food companies on the planet. Hmm. Um, big philanthropy, government agencies. Um, what's exciting is that it's cross-cutting. Hmm. Like I like to say, who's against food being more nutritious? Well, those who are selling products that make it less nutritious, surely. And who have done their market research, who understand that their consumers want nutrition as one of the key deliverables. Hmm. And so if... When they've come to the conclusion, which a lot of them have, that this whole movement is coming, what they don't want to do happen is they don't want to be embarrassed when people can measure. And so it's first-mover advantage. Whichever big food corporate decides to move to improve their supply chain- Yeah when we're able to measure- They're gonna get more market share. Mm. So if they're willing to be humble and honest and say, you know, "The quality of our burger or the quality of our, you know, breakfast cereal or whatever is not what it could be- But they understand they'll have better supply chain resilience, they'll have better ESG, you know, specs. They'll have better ecosystem impact. They'll have better flavor. They'll have a much better marketing strategy- Hmm if they improve the nutritional quality of their supply chain. Then they begin to pivot. They begin to move those big corporate's structures towards these solution sets. So- Okay um, yeah, if they wanna be recalcitrant- To be- they'll lose market share. Yeah. But those who wanna move and wanna evolve, they'll be more profitable. Mm-hmm. Okay. Amazing. And so do you have a timeline in mind of when we could have this app on our phone to measure this? 'Cause I can't wait. Well, like I said, it's about the money to do the research. Yeah. Um, and we can do the research per crop in a six months- Hmm um, if we got the cash. Okay. So... And we can do 20 crops at a time. So, um, I would say by 2030 it's entirely plausible. Wow. Okay. Um, entirely plausible- Hmm um, for maybe dozens of crops. Yeah. But if we struggle to raise the money to do the research, it- It won't take long could never happen. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I just think the momentum is building such that I'm... It's... I... It, it's imminent. Um- You feel hopeful about this? Extremely. Yeah. Okay. But it's through partnerships with groups like yours- Yeah that the answers will come. It's only... The, the thing is, like, I mean, I'm not sure, w- in the US we have this whole conversation about colonization and, you know, indigenous perspectives- Yeah and all that kind of stuff. Like, you know, I like the framing. I think the colonized perspective, like, is the sort of the, the, the empire or the dominant, you know, what's... the over under sort of binary black and white- Yeah framing, and the indigenous perspective is more the symbiosis and the multi-diverse perspective conse- context. If it's I win by you losing, um, that's the old model. If it's I win by us working together, that's the new model. Hmm. Um, I call that the principle of nature. Nature works through symbiosis. And so if we can build alliances between companies and universities and governments and civil society to work on this together, I think that's where success is gonna come from. And so that's the work of our organization, is try to build that web and support that process. Um- Absolutely. So yeah, it feels like it's coming. Mm-hmm. Um- And it feels like so many of us are working in that same direction anyway, so- Yeah it just makes so much more sense- Why don't we- to work together actually formally work together? Yeah. Absolutely. And different people have different skills. That's the... The, the beautiful thing about diversity is you've got resources I don't have. I've got skills she doesn't have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if we all come to the table and say, "Here's the cards I'm holding- That's so true and I'm not... I don't win by beating you, I win by us coming together and all succeeding together"- Yeah. Definitely um- I think this is a- Yeah. The world could be a better place in short order. Yeah. A very beautiful, um- thing to, to end on, I think- Right because I love this, this idea. And it's something that I've been frustrated about, like, in different ways in this work. If we're gonna be, like, winning by h- holding this to our secret power- Corner profit, that's the colonized paradigm. Yeah. Sorry, out of style. Not cool. Yeah, I agree. I mean, maybe good for your investor. Yeah, but that's really not the idea. But not good for the, not good for the benefit of all. I agree. Amazing. Well, Dan, thank you so much. Yeah. For explaining all this and taking the time. My pleasure. It's been a lovely conversation. Absolutely. And a wonderful ambiance. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.