Eat This Newsletter 214: Science!
Hello.
Delayed delivery today to be able to bring you real science.
The Mything Microbiome
The study of the human microbiome — the microorganisms that live in the gut and outnumber body cells 10 to 1 — is a new and exciting field. The term microbiome was coined by Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, and the state of the microbiome causes several serious diseases. For instance, the relative amounts of two different types of bacteria is altered in obesity.
Or not.
Alan Walker and Lesley Hoyles, killjoy academics, have a new paper that shines the clear light of reason on these and many other factoids. Human microbiome myths and misconceptions in Nature Microbiology sets out to investigate “a degree of hype and misinformation, which can undermine progress and public confidence in the research”. Walker and Hoyles examine a dozen claims, from the novelty of the enterprise to the belief that most members of the microbiome cannot be cultured in the laboratory, assessing the validity of each and trying to understand how it arose. Each claim, they say “lacks a solid evidence base”.
So what? Well, although the authors acknowledge that some of the points they make may seem trivial, there are larger issues at stake.
If we are consistently repeating falsehoods about minor details, can our accuracy be relied upon when covering more important matters? ...
Given the many potential health impacts, the huge amount of funding and the keen public interest in microbiomes, rejection of unfounded assertions is crucial if we wish to avoid expending finite resources researching unproductive avenues and undermining public confidence in our conclusions.
The field clearly is genuinely exciting.
Waste Not
Cut food loss and waste, we are forever being told, because any food that doesn’t reach you (loss) or that you don’t eat (waste) squanders the resources that went into producing it and damages the environment to boot. Well, OK, the resources might not have been completely squandered if your waste is turned into, say, compost or animal feed. But still, eliminating food loss and waste (FLW) has to be a good thing, right? Maybe not, according to a new paper in Nature Food by Margaret Hegwood and colleagues.
On average, 14% of global food production is lost and a further 17% is wasted, representing 527 calories per person per day and almost a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions of the global food system. The cheaper food is, relative to incomes, the more likely people are to waste it. But here’s the twist. If less food is lost or wasted, that increases the overall supply. That, in turn, is likely to reduce the price of food which means ... more waste. That effect — efficiency lowers prices which increases consumption — is what economists call a rebound, and it has been well studied in areas as diverse as energy and irrigation.
The paper looks at different geographic regions and different food groups in detail, but the overall conclusion is sobering: the rebound would offset around 65% of the reduction in food loss and waste, meaning that only 180 Mt would be saved out of the 516 Mt currently lost and wasted each year. Rebound effects offset roughly the same proportion of any benefits to carbon emissions, land use and water use.
Of course there are complicating factors. Reduced prices would enhance the food security of the poorest people, for example. Nevertheless, this seems to be a salutary warning that campaigners should be careful what they wish for. Eliminating all food loss and waste may not be the best solution for very complicated problems that might be better tackled by policies to promote green energy and better food security directly.
Industry-funded Research
I do not see industry funding of research as a personal matter. I see it as a systematic problem.
If I see a study titled “Effect of food product X on disease Y,” I can often guess that
The food’s manufacturer or trade association paid for it
The study outcome will be favorable to the funder’s commercial interests
This phenomenon is so systematic that it has a name: The Funding Effect.
If you read that and thought, must be Marion Nestle, congratulations. She’s done more than almost anyone to draw attention to the difficulties inherent in industry-funded research, and I’ve often linked to her articles in this newsletter, not least just last week for her recent pieces on ultra-processed food.
The points quoted above are from an article in which Nestle expands on Industry-Funded Research: Why It Matters. Her conclusion:
I see industry funding of food and nutrition research as a serious problem for public perception. Even when the research is not conflicted, it appears conflicted. That alone is a systematic problem.
The Challenge of Modernity
I have linked before to criticism of George Monbiot’s ecomodernist technofantasy of all our food growing in shiny fermenter vats in giant cities. Thanks to Chris Smaje, the critic in question, I didn’t need to submit myself to an hour and a half of Monbiot vs Allan Savory on the topic of Is livestock grazing essential to mitigating climate change?, a not-very enlightening question, if you ask me. Instead, I could read an account by Gunnar Rundgren, another critic. While his conclusion appeared to be “a pox on both their houses,” the piece was an illuminating read.
To be honest, I frequently find myself in two minds over the whole future of food question and how it intersects with other huge questions, especially the climate emergency. Knowing what I think I know, it is hard to avoid a feeling of doom, if not for me personally then for many others. The idea of a small farm future appeals hugely to me and always has, even though the possibility of making my own contribution to that future has been receding for the past couple of decades. And yet, I’m also pretty confident that even if I never live to see it, something like a low-energy, small and local food economy is bound to arise if people are to survive.
Some people are fond of quoting Gramsci’s conclusion that he is “a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will”. I need to remind myself of the sentence that precedes it.
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.”
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Take care
p.s. Apologies. Last week, I said that “The Black Sea Grain Initative allowed the export of 33 tonnes over the past year, more than half of it to developing countries.” Silly me. Of course that should have been 33 million tonnes. Thanks to my old mucker John Gribbin for pointing out my error.