133: Your Food Isn't as Nutritious as You Think

133: Your Food Isn't as Nutritious as You Think

Michael Kummer: Welcome to the Primal Shift Podcast. Alright, in today's episode, I wanna talk about how nutritious food really is, and at it's way less nutritious than you think. And it all began with our move to a new property where we started raising. Animals for food, more animals than we did in the past. We have no cattle, we have pigs.

We have still have poultry, including chicken, Turkey, guineas. And soon we're gonna have ducks. We have honeybees and rabbits. And we also started a garden, a fairly large garden for our, you know, means at least with in ground beds, with raised beds, with uh, with grow bags for the sweet potatoes. And I started testing the soil in every.

Area of our property, or in most areas where the, the cows are grazing, where the pigs are, where the garden is, where the orchard is, all of those are sent. I sent samples to the local university extension to let me know how fertile is the soil, how, what's the pH, and all of those things, and. The results came back.

And the good news is we have relatively fertile soil. There's a good amount of magnesium in the soil, for example, and that also reflects in our drinking water. We also had our, our well water tested, and it is very rich in calcium and magnesium, so with hard water, which is a good thing. But here's the thing, our soil is way too acidic, and that's a problem because soil pH.

Is a gatekeeper if it's off. Meaning if the soil is too acidic, then plants can't absorb the minerals even if those minerals are in the ground. And that includes forage for our cattle, which means it directly impacts the beef that we are consuming. And that sent me down a rabbit hole of soil depletion and food nutrient density, and I realized that this isn't just a farming or homesteading problem.

It's a health problem that affects everybody. And so the core idea I wanna convey in this episode is that your food can only be as nutrient dense as the soil it was grown in. Really quick, if you're getting value from this episode, now's a good time to hit like and subscribe on YouTube or leave a rating on whatever podcast app you're using.

It takes 10 seconds and it's a single best way to help the show grow. Alright, back to it. And the problem we face as a society here in the United States and in other countries, is that. The nutrient continent food has been declining for decades. You know, a study from 2004, uh, by Donald Davis at the University of Texas compared USDA food composition data for 43 crops between 1950 and 19 nine, or compared 1950 to, uh, 1999.

And the study showed that protein content in those crops was down 6%, calcium down 16%, iron 15% vitamin C 20%, and Revo Flavian down 38%. And he called it the dilution effect. That means it was caused by. Human decision to breed for bigger, faster growing crops, not more nutrient or more not more nutritious ones.

And another study from 2022 out of the UK backs this up, and it's even worse. Iron in that study was down 50% and copper, 49% over 80 years. And then there is a. Long running wheat experiment, uh, that's been running since 1843 and the archived wheat samples show zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, uh, or showed that those key minerals held steady until the mid 1960s and then declined.

After Green Revolution, high yield varieties were introduced. And the key point here really is those minerals in, in, at least in that study, they were still in the soil, but the new wheat just didn't pull them up, you know, so the variety was unable to use and absorb those nutrients. Uh, and instead, you know, it was bigger starch here, what have you, you know, more compatible with our modern tastes, I guess.

And you might say, well, what do I care? I'm in an animal based diet. Well, it matters because, you know, cattle, chickens, pigs, they eat plants and forage, and if they consume depleted feed, they consume the, the resulting meat, eggs, and milk are also depleted. So the nutrient density of your ribeye. Starts in the soil under the grass, and that's something that's usually not taken into account.

And just to talk a little bit about the soil crisis, because at the end of the day, it all goes back to the fertility of the soil. You know, here in the US our cropland loses 4.63 tons of top soil per acre, per year. That's ridiculous. And a 2021 study showed that one third of the corn belt has lost its entire mineral-rich topsoil layer that's alarming.

The Midwest has lost, uh, 57.6 billion metric tons of topsoil over 160 years, and the problem is it takes about a thousand years to generate one inch of new topsoil. So we are losing it 10 times faster. Then it forms, you know, of course you can course correct with regenerative farming and doing a lot of things that we do here on our property to improve topsoil by rotationally raising, uh, rotating our cattle by letting the chickens run behind the cattle.

By doing a lot of things to improve that and to speed that up. But nonetheless, on a global scale, or at least on a domestic scale, it's not looking good. And the problem is, you know, you might say, well, you know, but aren't farmers using fertilizers? Well, you know, yes. I mean, those, you know, classic nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, or NP PK fertilizers, they only replace three nutrients.

You know, and do nothing for magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, or any other trace minerals and decades of extraction with no replenishment means a net negative mineral balance, and that shows up in the food that we then consume, both on an animal based as well as on a plant-based level. And the other problem with those ammonium based nitrogen fertilizers is that they actively acidify the soil.

So here on our property we have, you know, a soil pH of on the low fives, 5.2 to 6.2. Ideally we wanna be relatively close to a balanced, um, pH of 6.5 to seven to help. The plants. Most plants, it is blueberries are different. They like it acidic, but for most plants and forage crops, a more neutral, neutral pH is better so they can absorb more of those nutrients.

Now, how does it all die tie back to to our eating? Well, you know, if you look at nutritional labels. You have to realize that they're based on averages. You know, every label, every diet app pulls from the USDA Food Data central database, you know, and those are composited averages from a relatively small number of samples.

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But they don't account for soil quality, for farming practices, for region or time since harvest.

And the real world variability is huge. And just to give you a couple of examples, mother Earth News, uh, published a study that showed that pastured eggs had two times the omega threes and three times the vitamin E and way more vitamin A than the USDA values for. Conventional X and a 2022 study showed that regenerative wheat I'm talking about, you know, the stuff that we don't typically don't eat a lot on an animal-based diet had 56% more zinc and 29% more magnesium.

Than the reverence value. And meanwhile, you know, food from depleted soils that fall well below the published averages. And, but you not, you don't necessarily know that. So if you're like, well, you know, I get all of my nutrients, I have a, you know, I eat an animal based diet with a variety of foods and eggs and this and that, you might still have gaps and don't even know, even if you look at all of the, if you look at nutritional data and try to figure out based on what you eat, what are your gaps?

You might not be able to see what your gaps are because the food database does not take, take any of that into account as far as, you know, soil quality and all, and all of those factors. And so that's an important aspect that you don't really know what gaps you have. That's unfortunate, you know, not even if you were to track everything, but there is a high probability that you are missing something, you know, and here are some of the at least minerals.

There are the vitamins, obviously the co-factors. There are, you know, other trace elements that are important. But just from a pure mineral perspective here, if you, that you're likely missing. And number one I would argue is magnesium. You know, nearly half of Americans consume less than the estimated average requirement.

You know, in the meta-analysis of 56,000 participants showed. Subclinical magnesium deficiency, and that was linked then to a, a 36% higher risk of coronary, um, heart disease death, and doubled cardiovascular mortality. The testing problem is that only 1% of body magnesium is in the blood. So even if say, well, I got my magnesium levels, uh, tested during, you know, during my last blood panel.

You're not gonna see if you're, if you're deficient, because the kidneys strip it from bones to keep serum levels normal. The same goes with calcium, you know, so you can be generally depleted and get a clean lab result, and that's a, a problem. Zinc is another example. You know, studies show that about 15% of US adults of inadequate intake, and if you get sick a lot.

That's a clear indication that you're likely zinc deficient, which is incredibly important for immune function. It's important for testosterone and cognitive performance. You know, and especially if you train hard, you lose zinc through sweat, and you will likely have to replenish that because you're not getting it from the food you eat.

And the best animal sources of zinc are beef, oysters, and eggs. You know, plant-based sink absorption is, is ridiculously low. Um, that goes for most minerals really. Plants are just not great sources of micronutrients for humans because of the, uh, enzyme inhibitors and, and mine and, and antinutrients that prevent the absorption, but.

Eating enough beef, oysters and eggs is a good thing that's will likely get you closer to optimal levels. Selenium is another important one. You know, it's almost entirely dependent on soil selenium content. So if the soil your food was grown in or raised on does not have enough selenium, the food does not have enough selenium.

That's that's a fact. And there is huge regional variability. Just to give you one example, because a lot of people associate Brazil nuts, uh, of as good sources of selenium. You know, if you look at one example of Brazil nuts, they might have 340 micrograms per nut. In another region, the same product, but another region.

Only 10 micrograms, same species, but a 34% difference, you know? And selenium is so incredibly important for thyroid conversion. You know, T four to T three, it's an antioxidant defense. It's, and the best sources always are animal-based product, especially kidney and oysters. You know, you, you see oysters, especially from a mineral perspective, oysters are really.

The best source of those minerals, you know, vitamins. More on the, on the organ side. On the mineral side, I would argue that oysters and seafood products are really top notch now. What I see as the long-term fix to all of this is besides, you know, raising your own food and doing it in a regenerative way is regenerative farming in general.

You know, fortunately now we've heard the government is investing a lot of money in regenerative farming. That's a good thing. Studies have shown over and over again that regenerative fields had, you know, two x the organic matter, three x, the soil health scores, you know, more vitamins, more minerals, more everything in the soil.

That's a good thing now. If you can grow your own food, if you can be part of that, great. You know, we are doing that. We are, you know, rotating our cattle every day. We are moving the chickens behind them. We are raising our rabbits on grass by moving them every single day. We do a lot of the things to help.

Speed up the process. But if that's not you, if you cannot farm yourself or you don't want to farm yourself, supporting farmers who care about soil, who are grass farmers, first and foremost, you know, I consider myself a grass farmer, uh, interested in soil quality. And our cattle are just a means to get there, you know, to improve the soil, to improve the forage.

So we get nutritious food and, you know. Improve the situation overall, you know, so support regenerative pharmacy is not just a buzzword, it's not just a marketing term. It makes a huge difference in the way. In, in, in how soil quality improves or declines over time. You know, grass fed, grass finished beef is fine.

It's better and conventionally raised. But if I look around here, you know how everyone is ranching. They just turn their cattle into large paddocks. They graze everything down until there is nothing left, and then you know they have to be fed hay in winter because there is no more forage That does not improve soil quality.

You have to. Rotate your cattle, you have to do it management intensive. That is part of regenerative farming, and that is a huge difference as far as soil quality and nutrient density in the product that you end up consuming is concerned, and you know. One thing that you can do to bridge your, your gaps right now, because truth be told, you know, that whole regenerative thing, it's a long-term prospect and it's not gonna happen overnight.

Hopefully, I'm, I'm hopeful that it'll happen that more and more regenerative, uh, more farms start doing it regeneratively, but it's not a given. You know, maybe that's not gonna happen. Maybe it turns out that, you know, it's, it's easier to make a quick buck if you do it in the conventional way. But what you can do right now is, besides supporting regenerative farms and.

Uh, consuming products from those farms is to. Include, you know, organ meats and oysters, you know, and if the raw thing is not your cup of tea, then freeze dried beef organ supplements, freeze dried oyster extracts are your next best thing. And that's one of the reasons why my wife and I launched MK Supplements in 2021, you know, to come up with those products.

We recently launched the Oyster Extract. It's one of my favorite products. I consume it every day. Together with the beef organs to get all of my, uh, vitamins, the, a lot of the key minerals from the oysters. I mean, it's really a combination. They really work together to bridge each other's gaps. So I get a comprehensive multivitamin.

At the end of the day in the most absorbable and bioavailable form. So check it out, you know, mk subs.com. Check out our beef organs, our oyster extract. Um, they're one of the easiest and most convenient ways to bridge any dietary gaps you might have, because believe me, you have dietary gaps as much as I do, even though I try to eat as well as I possibly can, and we raise our own food, but I know what's in our soil and it's not perfect yet.

I'm working on improving soil quality, but we are not. They are yet where I can bridge all of my gaps or avoid having gaps in the first place by eating the beef we grow on our farm, you know, or the eggs we grow or our, our hands lay, you know? So what you can do this week, you know, find a local return rate farm.

We are fortunate enough that we found one, uh, across the, the state line in Alabama. So we are right on the border to Alabama. They do, uh, grass fed, regeneratively raised, you know, meats, pork, et cetera. Our calfs are still growing, so in the meantime, we source some of the beef from them. We found a, another farmer who raises, uh, regeneratively raises dairy cows and they sell their raw milk in glass.

I can't believe it, even though I'm, me and dairy are not. I can only handle dairy in, in small amounts, unfortunately, because I start smelling like a, like a pig. Well, I think our pigs smell better than, than I do when I consume or drink a lot of raw milk or milk in general. But nonetheless, there are, there are farms around us that we discovered.

I encourage you go out and see Eat wild.com might be a resource you can check out to see what local farms are around you. You know, add organs, uh, organ and oyster supplements if you can. And, you know, accept that food isn't what it used to be. Act on it. You know, have that realization and do something about it today to bridge the gaps you have.

And you'll see the benefits of doing that in the long run by less chronic disease. You know, staying healthier longer, staying fit for longer, you know all of the good things that you want so you can keep living a meaningful life for longer. To close all of that up. You know, the nutrition in your food depends on the soil, and the soil is not what it used to be.

We've depleted our soils, unfortunately, across the board. That means the food is less nutritious. We need to do something about that, both from improving soil quality as well as bridging the gaps right now until we get, we can get the soil to a point where it produces then food for us. Again, that is nutrient complete.

That's not gonna happen overnight. And I don't mean to scare anybody, it's just meant to get you thinking about what you can control and what you can do today. So prioritize nutrient dense animal foods, source from people who care about soil and then supplements strategically. You know, nobody's going to optimize your nutrition for you, not your doctrine of the government, but the information, the tools are there.

So thanks for listening. Share with someone who think could benefit from it Until next time.