What inspired me most this Earth Month….
April has flown by! However, I wanted to acknowledge Earth Month with a short post before it’s over.
A Beautiful Example of Sustainable Nutrition
Over the weekend, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (Expanded by To Be Magnetic), specifically an episode from 2021 with Zach Bush, MD. While I hope most of my readers already follow him, he’s worth looking up if you’re unfamiliar. Through his journey as a medical doctor, he came to discover that the health of our planet was the only way we, as a global community, could achieve optimal health and restore homeostasis here on Earth. His work has now largely shifted towards the pursuit of planetary health, as clean air, water, and soil are the very foundation of who we are as human beings on a cellular level.
While the entire podcast was beyond inspirational (I was *snapping* throughout the whole thing), this quote gave me significant pause:
“…if the global community came to the realization that if we re-fostered a healthy relationship with soil, water, and air—and came to understand human existence as a result of nature, not in combat with nature—we would change our global behavior.” – Zach Bush, MD
I specifically rewound the episode several times to hear to him say these words a few more times as I think they’re so important…not to mention at the heart of sustainable nutrition as well as overall health and wellbeing.
Soil Health and Nutrient Density
Much of Bush’s work these days is rooted in restoring healthy soil (as well as water and air) as it’s key to our survival as a species. In the podcast, he discussed the anatomy of certain dinosaurs, specifically those with body types like the Seismosaurus. The Seismosaurus was unique in that it weighed around 100 tons, or 200,000 pounds (about the size of commercial airplane), yet had a very tiny head for an herbivore.
He linked this fascinating anatomy to the nutrient density of Earth’s soil during the dinosaur age (252 to 66 million years ago). And if you think about that explanation, it makes total sense. A head that small could never take in enough plant material to garner the nutrition needed to sustain a body that large in a single day if the soil (and thus, the plants grown from it) wasn’t extremely nutrient-dense. This would never be possible in today’s day and age with the lack of nutrient density seen in our soils globally….and could partly be why we don’t have many large land specimens like the dinosaurs left.
But this is also why the use of carcinogenic synthetic fertilizers has become so routine and rampant in our current agricultural landscape. Global soils have been degraded through the use of these and other agrochemicals as well as monocropping, tilling, overgrazing, deforestation, and development to the point where chemicals are required to grow many crops at all, let alone nutrient-dense ones. In fact, it’s predicted that 95% of Earth’s soils will be completely degraded by 2050 if we continue on this path.
Soil nutrient depletion can be seen through nutritional changes in our food, too. According to a 2024 study published in Foods there has been, “a fall in nutrients such as calcium (26.5%), iron (36.1%), vitamin A (21.4%) and vitamin C (29.9%) in vegetables from 1975 to 1997. Different vegetables lost a greater part of their iron, including cauliflower (60%), collard greens (81%), mustard greens (51.3%), onions (56%), and watercress (88.2%), and vitamin A in broccoli (38.3%), cauliflower (68.3%), collard greens (41.2%), and parsley (38.8%). A sharp decline rate was observed in calcium, with 57.4 percent in lemons, 58.8 percent in pineapples, and 65 percent in tangerines during 1975 to 2001.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, this study was loaded with similarly staggering data. These statistics are just a glimpse into just how pervasive this issue is within our greater food system.
Thankfully, the magic of regenerative agriculture can help resolve many of these challenges. With this way of farming, we can redevelop the nutrition and vitality of our planet’s soils without all the harmful additives, taking important strides towards better global health. With healthier soil, we can grow more nutritious food and rely less on damaging agricultural chemicals, toxic food products, and expensive dietary supplements.
Just some ways to support this movement include:
- Invest in organic—regenerative organic certified is even better!
- Buy locally from farmers that employ ecological agricultural practices
- Limit ultra-processed and conventionally-grown food consumption as much as possible
- Reduce animal-based food consumption as these options require massive amounts of land and inputs to produce…and are significant drivers of deforestation
- Build healthy soil in your backyard by composting, cover cropping, and rotating your crops
- Plant native, perennial species in your yard and gardens to draw in native pollinators, reduce water consumption, and build healthy soil (check out Meant To Bea for more details)
- For apartment and city-dwellers, grow potted herbs or leafy greens to reduce your reliance on the food system (even if just by a smidge)
The Bottom Line
To summarize this short but sweet post, Bush perfectly highlights why we should all care about planetary health…namely that it directly impacts our ability to survive here on Earth. While I mostly honed in on soil health here (since it has the greatest ties to nutrition), clean water and air are also critical as they make up who we are on a molecular level.
As we exit out of this year’s Earth Month, I hope you feel inspired to take action in your personal life to support the soil, air, and water health of your greater environment—whether that be through the actions I highlighted above, or volunteering, donating, voting, and/or calling your representatives. While there’s no shortage of concerning statistics to show that we’re headed in the wrong direction environmentally, we each can individually make a meaningful and lasting impact to turn the tides.
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