While Ray Peat's ideas are most easily interpreted through the lens of consumers of the food supply looking to figure out how to improve their individual health, his ideas have sweeping implications for public health, the industrial agriculture system, and the whole economy. Of course, these go far beyond food but a consistent theme in Peat's writings is the low quality of the food supply. Not only is the quality of individual foods compromised but the proportions of what crops are grown and the methods used are horrible from a public health standpoint when one is informed by Peat's perspective.
Some obvious examples are: the heavy focus on growing commodity staples of corn, soy, wheat, etc. produces low quality foods as common staples; the use of intensively fertilized monocultures in nutrient poor soils produces stressed plants that Peat has talked about being more allergenic and less nutritious than with better growing methods; stressed animals fed on stressed plants create meat and dairy that is far less than ideal.
In the modern world I believe there are more than enough resources that if it were made a priority we could change the food system to produce a diet of abundance that would produce drastically improved health for everyone. This is something that many people involved in sustainable agriculture and Permaculture have written about but I think that Ray Peat's ideas add an important variable to this discussion.
For example, permaculturists may like the idea of tree crops such as acorns or chestnuts in a perennial polyculture, but these may not be an ideal "abundance" food from a Peat perspective, having relatively high PUFA or gut irritants. Even when a crop like this is grown as fodder for animals, the question of PUFA content remains important and completely ignored by the sustainable ag perspective.
On the other hand, fans of Ray Peat's ideas might like to replace this with lots of orange trees, but I think that many of Peat's suggestions (like lots of orange juice) only get so specific because he is telling people how to avoid foods that are currently grown or processed in a bad way, like bananas, that could be grown in such a way as to be healthier. That said, some of the best foods in general are tropical fruits that do not grow in much of the world, so the question of the pros and cons of globalized food supply come into play here. Could it be efficient to grow enough tropical fruits in greenhouses to be a staple? Alternatively, people farther north could cook more of their fruits like apples and peaches to make them better food (as many have traditionally done). These are just some of the many issues that come up when one considers how Peat's ideas could be applied on a macro scale to the food systems.
There is, of course, a lot more that could be said on this subject.
Is anyone else involved in or interested in farming to improve the food supply, even if just for yourself? Any thoughts on how Ray Peat's ideas intersect with ideas in Permaculture and sustainable agriculture?
Some obvious examples are: the heavy focus on growing commodity staples of corn, soy, wheat, etc. produces low quality foods as common staples; the use of intensively fertilized monocultures in nutrient poor soils produces stressed plants that Peat has talked about being more allergenic and less nutritious than with better growing methods; stressed animals fed on stressed plants create meat and dairy that is far less than ideal.
In the modern world I believe there are more than enough resources that if it were made a priority we could change the food system to produce a diet of abundance that would produce drastically improved health for everyone. This is something that many people involved in sustainable agriculture and Permaculture have written about but I think that Ray Peat's ideas add an important variable to this discussion.
For example, permaculturists may like the idea of tree crops such as acorns or chestnuts in a perennial polyculture, but these may not be an ideal "abundance" food from a Peat perspective, having relatively high PUFA or gut irritants. Even when a crop like this is grown as fodder for animals, the question of PUFA content remains important and completely ignored by the sustainable ag perspective.
On the other hand, fans of Ray Peat's ideas might like to replace this with lots of orange trees, but I think that many of Peat's suggestions (like lots of orange juice) only get so specific because he is telling people how to avoid foods that are currently grown or processed in a bad way, like bananas, that could be grown in such a way as to be healthier. That said, some of the best foods in general are tropical fruits that do not grow in much of the world, so the question of the pros and cons of globalized food supply come into play here. Could it be efficient to grow enough tropical fruits in greenhouses to be a staple? Alternatively, people farther north could cook more of their fruits like apples and peaches to make them better food (as many have traditionally done). These are just some of the many issues that come up when one considers how Peat's ideas could be applied on a macro scale to the food systems.
There is, of course, a lot more that could be said on this subject.
Is anyone else involved in or interested in farming to improve the food supply, even if just for yourself? Any thoughts on how Ray Peat's ideas intersect with ideas in Permaculture and sustainable agriculture?