Food Fix

Food Fix will help you eat healthier and improve the environment at the same time by explaining how bad our food is for us and our planet and what we can each do to fix these problems.

When we look at the news, sometimes it’s easy to feel like the world is crumbling around us. There are conflicts, rising death rates, famine, the ice is melting, and we are losing vital species.

Believe it or not, at the heart of all of these problems is our food. How? Well first let’s look at the worst crises of today, beginning with our health. The main cause of death, suffering, and disability around the world is diet.

The abundance of ultra-processed and sugar-filled foods are responsible for the huge increase in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and they kill around 50 million people each year.

Next is inequality. Lower-income households are more likely to eat these foods, and children raised on these are more likely to suffer from malnutrition. Malnutrition strunts not only growth but intellectual development. This may lead to underachieving and poverty in adulthood, making the inequality cycle exponentially worse.

Another challenge is the disruption of communities that the big business of food causes. Big agribusinesses drive people away from their land and traditions, all while bringing harmful eating and farming habits. All of these are big challenges in today’s world, but perhaps the biggest is the damage to the environment, which we will explore in the next lesson.

Soil is one of the most important parts of the earth’s ecosystem. It is a living environment, full of microorganisms, worms, and fungi, among other things. These take nutrients from dead matter and feed plants. When soil isn’t healthy, we can’t continue to farm.

Soils are also the biggest CO2 absorber we have, and when we over-farm, we release more CO2 than all the fossil fuel companies combined.

The intensive farming practices of today are killing the soil with pesticides and fertilizers. It is estimated we may only have 60 harvests left. When we kill our rich soil, we are forced to add more and more nitrogen fertilizer, because, without it, nothing can grow anymore.

This harmful fertilizer reaches rivers, lakes, and the ocean, killing aquatic animals and plants, and in some cases poisoning our drinking water.

Pesticides are also killing animals, and they have been known to damage fertility and cause cancer in humans. Their effects can be so devastating that they can kill off species.

This is the worst for pollinators like bees and butterflies, a devastating problem for the earth. Without them, we won’t even have crops, meaning no food, and eventually no more human life.