Healthy eating starts at the source - The secret lies in soil life

Healthy eating starts with the ingredients, and the ingredients come from the cooking oil. The quality and health of the soil determines how healthy and nutritious our food will be. The goal of regenerative farms is to produce real, nutrient-rich food - sustainably, while preserving soil life.

I could start this article by saying: "Unfortunately, there are still very few of us regenerative farmers..." - but I'd rather start with the positives of recent years. Regenerative farms, similar to permaculture gardens, could provide good quality, nutritious food to conscious consumers - even on a larger scale.

Fortunately, some people have already realised this. For example, there are several farmer-baker-baker partnerships, but there is also potential for other products using regenerative raw materials and products.

Change is already underway

Eight years ago, when I switched to regenerative farming, there were only a handful of us in the country who thought like that. At the time, I had no idea that the number of farmers choosing this path would grow so rapidly.

And as the number of conscious consumers in cities grows, the number of regenerative farms in rural areas grows. But the two are - for the time being - not really finding each other.

Regenerative food instead of industrial food

Why choose food from regenerative production? Because full of life. I deliberately use the word "food", not "foodstuff". The industry is producing food - a mass-produced commodity whose primary goal is quantity and profit, not quality or long-term sustainability.

Poor quality food does not support our health. On the contrary. There is now a wealth of research proving that unhealthy diets are closely linked to our modern, civilised diseases.

Industrial agriculture is often based on soil depletion. The aim is to squeeze as much as possible out of the soil, down to the last grain. These methods lead to a depletion of natural soil life, making plants increasingly dependent on external inputs - fertilisers, pesticides.

Pathogens, or pathogens, are the first to appear in dying soil, and because these are undesirable, the solution is more chemicals, more mechanical intervention - for example, potentially dangerous plant residues are deeply undermined to "keep them out of the way".

In contrast, a conscious regenerative farmer knows: without healthy soil, there is no healthy plant and therefore no truly nutritious crop.

And the conscious shopper is looking for healthy food that is truly sustainably produced, rich in nutrients and vitamins. So what should you choose to eat healthily?

Fruit is no longer the same - what happened to our food?

An According to a study published in 2024 the nutrient content of food has decreased significantly over the last sixty years, especially the levels of minerals and beneficial compounds found in fruits, vegetables and staple crops.

The reasons include:

• inappropriate fertiliser use,
• favouring less nutritious but high-yielding varieties, and
• the shift from natural to chemical farming.

The solution would be to return to the traditional cultivation of nutrient-rich crops, improve soil biodiversity and fertilityto ensure healthy food for future generations.

What does research show about the nutritional content of regenerative foods?

An 2022 US study regenerative agricultural practices such as the no-tillage, cover crops and crop rotation - significantly improve the nutrient content of the crops grown.

The comparative study compared the same crops on neighbouring regenerative and conventional farms. The result: plants grown using regenerative methods contained more useful vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and fewer harmful elements.

According to the researchers, soil biological health - in particular the presence of microorganisms - can play a key role in how soil quality affects the health impact of food. The research was led by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé, authors of Soil: the erosion of civilisations and The hidden side of nature, which is the subject of the books TMG's webshop are available.

According to research by Dan Kittredge and the Bionutrient Institute the only consistent predictor of plant nutrient density is soil respiration, which is an indicator of soil life activity - rather than the broader cultivation method.

Their results show that the nutritional value of food is directly determined by the health and biological activity of the soil.

Organic or regenerative - what's the difference?

People who want to eat healthily often opt for organic food. But the picture is much more nuanced than that.

Dan Kittredge's work shows that food is nutrient-dense when soil life is active. Since herbicides are not allowed in organic farming, weed control is done mechanically. Soil is constantly moved by tillage, which leads to soil degradation (the more intensively the soil is disturbed, the less biologically active it is).

A regenerative farmer has the image of healthy soil as his main concern and goal.

It does use pesticides, but it tries to keep their dosage to a fraction of the usual dose and not to cause problems for the plant or the soil. The more vital the soil, the better it can buffer and break down the chemicals. So they don't get left behind in the produce.

Regenerative farming is based on restoring and maintaining soil life, so we not only protect the environment, but also produce real, quality food. Of course, the best solution would be regenerative organic, but the development of technologies that can be applied in large-scale farming is still a challenge ahead.

What do you choose if you want to eat healthily?

Healthy eating is not just about what we eat - it's also about how we what production system we support with our choices. Because truly healthy food starts with the soil, and more specifically with the micro-organisms that live in it.

If we think long-term - for our own health, the environment and future generations - the answer is increasingly this: the regenerative food.