Can We Feed the World on the Primal Blueprint Diet? – Part 2
Last week, I opened the discussion of whether or not the whole world could go Primal. As you may recall, I noted that given the realities of our infrastructure, our policies, and the entrenched interests who wield considerable amounts of power and influence, practically speaking such a dramatic shift simply isn’t likely anytime soon. While it may be true that much of the world can’t access or afford grass-fed beef or other examples of privileged dietary staples it shouldn’t keep those that can from enjoying it. In fact, pulling out wallets can go a long way toward changing the state of things as they are now. That was last week, though. Today, I’m going to address some of the logistical concerns many of you raised regarding a transition to a world of Primal eaters. This is a huge topic beyond the scope of any one blog post, and there’s no magic bullet, but I’ll give it an honest go.
What follows are a few commonly cited logistical concerns folks express regarding feeding a world of Primal Blueprinters, slightly embellished with selective use of punctuation and followed by my thoughts. It may not happen (probably won’t), but it’s helpful, I think, to entertain the possibility of a global shift. First, the most basic concern of all:
“Primal can’t match the calories people are currently eating!”
First of all, we waste a lot of food, folks. A lot. Globally, a third of edible food (PDF) is never eaten, mostly in industrialized countries. A third! It exists and can be eaten by humans, but it simply isn’t. In America, food waste jumps to 40%, or about 1400 calories per person. And when you look at the household level, at actual families bringing food home, 25% of it is wasted. In these studies, the definition of “food waste” is a food loss caused by retailers or consumers; other “food losses” occur in production, post-harvest, and during processing. The food, then, is there. We’re just squandering it.
Second, do people even need the amount of calories they are currently getting? Take a look at this interactive world map of global daily per capita calorie intake. The United States is, unsurprisingly, at the top of the heap with 3770 calories per person per day (up from 3510 calories in the early 90s). Most other developed nations fall in the 3000+ range, while emerging nations like China (2970 kcal/day, up from 2580 in the 90s) and India (2300 kcal/day, same as the early 90s) get by on far fewer. Calories don’t tell the entire story, of course, but it makes you wonder. Do humans really need 3770 calories every day? Unless they’re on a mass gain protocol of whole milk and squats (to which the vast majority of the 3770 calories-eating population of the country is assuredly not subscribing), I’d argue that they generally don’t.
I certainly don’t.
Although I don’t habitually track my food intake, my carbs, or my calories, I’ve done it for the blog on a number of occasions, and I’ll typically come in right around 2500 calories (or maybe even a bit less). Maybe a bit more on an active day, but it stays pretty consistent as near as I can tell. As my buddy Aaron Blaisdell says, I eat When Hunger Ensues Naturally, and since going Primal, my hunger tends to ensue calmly, naturally, and justifiably. Because I’m eating Primal foods, I get hungry when my body honestly needs the calories and nutrients. No tricks, no unnatural spikes in hunger brought on by industrial foods designed to induce ravenous, unnatural eating even though you’re already overweight and replete with energy.
So, yeah, maybe a Primal food system couldn’t match the hypercaloric intake of a sick, overweight population eating foods that dysregulate appetite (both by express design and by evolutionary mismatch) – but the point is it wouldn’t have to match it. I posit that caloric intake and “needs” would spontaneously drop, as they have for the many thousands of people who have already gone Primal. How far might they drop? A study (PDF) from 2000 examined, in addition to other stuff, the average daily caloric intake of extant hunter-gatherer populations. The authors found that average daily caloric intakes generally stayed between 1200 calories and 2700 calories, with one outlier dipping lower and one (the Hadza people of Tanzania) obtaining 4030 calories per day.
(Somehow, I doubt the Hadza were very fat.)
Next up are the myriad concerns folks have with the viability of grass-fed, pastured beef (and other animals):
“There’s not enough pasture for everyone to eat steaks!”
Perhaps so, but:
Grass-feeding cattle can be done far more efficiently. Take the famous (but not famous enough, it seems) Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, whose rotational grazing method gets him 400 “cow days” per acre; a cow day is the amount of grass a cow will eat in a day. Farms in his area average 80 cow days per acre. If everyone converted to his methods, or at least incorporated some of them, we could provide a lot more grass-fed steaks per acre than we currently provide.
There’s more pasture available than most people think. Consider that all cows, even grain-finished cows, generally begin on pasture. You know all those cows you see nibbling on lush grass besides highways? The vast majority of them will end up on a feedlot somewhere. If we keep them on grass, convert the cropland currently being used to grow animal feed grains to pastureland, and make sure to use efficient rotational grazing, yields would increase further.
We’re not just eating cows here. Other animals exist, like sheep, or the goat. We may not see many goats in the United States or Europe, but Africa has 511 million of the things domesticated, and Asia has almost 300 million. Goats produce milk, meat, and can thrive on forage that other animals wouldn’t know what to do with. In fact, incorporating other livestock, like sheep or goats, into your cattle grazing actually increases the overall output of all three. Since sheep, goats, and cattle prefer different types of forage, they work very well together.
Who said anything about eating nothing but steak, anyway? People would obviously have to utilize the entire animal from nose (or beak) to tail. Offal of all kinds would have to be eaten, including various glands, sacs, linings, cartilaginous tissues, skin, fat, blood, and bones that normally get processed into animal feed, discarded, or repurposed for other culinary and non-culinary products. A cow that weighs 1150 pounds live will produce a dressed carcass weighing just 715 pounds. From that 715 pounds, 146 will be discarded as “fat, bone, and loss.”
And now, the environmental impact of all those farting, chewing cattle:
“But grass-fed cattle produce more greenhouse gases!”
Ah, yes, that one. While a couple studies have found that grass-eating cows produce more methane than grain-eating cows (which shouldn’t really surprise you; just imagine the incredible farts you could produce by running pounds and pounds of fibrous grass through multiple stomach chambers), I’m not sure we’re getting the whole story. Feedlot-fed cattle may not fart as much, but they also don’t enrich the soil, generate new grass growth, or create viable sinks for carbon dioxide (PDF). Furthermore, grain-fed cattle consume grains that require the burning of fossil fuels for production and transport – they get “takeout” almost exclusively – whereas grass-fed cattle eat nourishing food at home that requires little to no external input. Overall, the “environmental footprint” of grass-fed cattle is lower.
Or:
“Yeah, but everyone knows grazing causes desertification!”
Not when you employ holistic grazing methods, like Allan Savory’s. Savory (who greatly influenced Salatin) has been reversing desertification in African lands by reintroducing cattle and grazing them in a very specific way. Instead of letting them go where they please across the land, he allows them to intensively graze on one section at a time. The cows are densely packed together and allowed to intensively graze. Their hooves break up the hard, barren ground, allowing water to enter and plant roots to gain purchase. Their manure acts as fertilizer, spurring vegetal growth, enriching the soil, and creating a sink for both water and carbon. As a result, once desertified lands are now lush pastures teeming with life and open water.
Hmm, maybe there’s more room for livestock than we think, eh?
Well, that’s it for today. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course. I had hoped to get to some of the (many) other logistical issues, but cattle and calories – two incredibly important topics – took up more room than I expected. Before you go, remember that these aren’t meant to be definitive answers. I’m not saying Primal eating will, or even can, sweep the world. I’m simply trying to explore these problems from a different angle than absolute defeatism since a better world is something worth being optimistic about, and because they appear to be of particular concern to many of you reading.
Next time, I’ll discuss and try to counter some of the other logistical concerns. Until then, thanks for reading! Be sure to leave a comment, and see you next time.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
As long as markets are allowed to work and there is a profit incentive entrepreneurs will produce. The real problem is there is a “war” on non-big agriculture farming, which is the antithesis of a free market.
Todayregulations are written by funded, big agriculture lobbyists, then implemented via bought off politicians, and finally enforced with tax payer money. What I just described is today’s status quo and it has name: Fascism.
Fascism is not free markets yet pundits erroneously call it “capitalism”. Crony capitalism, yes. But not real, free market capitalism.
I highly suggest anyone interested in agriculture and health to google the paleolibertarian, Karen DeCoster.
I am self imposed grammer fiend. Unfortunately I am working with an antiquated work browser that keeps jumping the page around, making it difficult to coherently type.
I usually type my comments in Word first (where I can spell and grammar check). Then I copy and paste them into the comment field in the browser. I seem to catch more errors that way.
I’m with you on that.
With you on the Capitalism/Facism bit rather than being a grammar fiend.
I think oligarchy is a better suited term than fascism.
You are right though. Sadly…
The phrase “free market Capitalism” is insane gibberish. Capitalism and the free market are inherently in conflict.
The Capitalists erect barriers to entry to destroy the competition, because they don’t want people who see a better way coming in from out of nowhere and disrupting the massive profits of the established players. (This erection of barriers does not require government intervention.) The situation we have today, which you named Fascism (and I don’t disagree), IS Capitalism. The claim “No, it’s crony Capitalism, not the good kind!” is BS.
Therefore, keeping the free market free requires constant gov intervention, to prevent the Capitalists from closing the market.
The “Capitalists” you speak of, Jeffrey, use that very same gov intervention to force small upstarts out of their respective fields through regulations(usually conceived and written by lobbyists for said industry), licensing, taxation and subsidies. That is not free market capitalism.
I like the way that Joel Salatin explains keeping the cattle packed together and constantly moving by stating that he is emulating the predators which in a natural environment, keep the herd tight together and constantly on the move.
I’m really happy to see both Joel Salatin and Allan Savory’s names on MDA!
A few weeks ago, after watching a mind-opening lecture by Allan Savory, I made a post in the ideas section of the TED.com forums, suggesting that Allan Savory be invited to do a TED talk. The original post has expired now, but excited by Mark’s mentioning him in this post, I’ve created a new one here:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/9849/to_invite_allan_savory_to_do_a.html
If at least some of the people frequenting MDA would register on TED (which is worthwhile in any case) and give a thumbs up or a positive reply to the post, maybe we could help Allan Savory get the exposure he needs. As most of you probably know already, TED has a huge, well-read, intellectual audience around the world.
Done!
I have done this too.. he sounds like he’s a man worth hearing.
Joel Salatin is a snake oil salesman who makes many claims for his products which are not true, including the implication that many of his products do not require grain consumption.
What are you talking about?
He might be referring to the chickens, but Mr. Salatin has said that they are not sustainable, i.e. are fed with grains obtained from elsewhere.
Salatin’s pastured pigs eat mostly corn: they live on grass but are fed corn from a large feeder which is put on the field. When they finish the corn, they are moved to another field and given more corn.
All of his chickens and such are fed mainly corn and kept in quite confined conditions: 100 chicks in a 10×12 pen is not much room. He raises standard cornish cross chicks which butcher out at 8 weeks and are too stupid to forage, yet charges $5 a pound for this. Ditto turkeys.
I’ve been to his farm days and seminars. It’s a fraud.
The logistics of this are interesting, because grass farming (or pasturing animals) is the only sustainable way to farm. Every time you till the land for crops you lose part of the soil and nutrients, and if you go no-till the soil gets more and more compacted and overrun by weeds.
Having a rotational method focused primarily on pasture and some grains is the ideal solution to the farming problem, and it just so happens that this also coincides with primal eating!
What a coincidence!
Also, monoculture crops are shallow-rooting and fail to aerate the soil properly allowing deep absorption of water and nutrients. Grass, on the other hand is deep-rooting, aerates the soil and promotes water absorption and retention. Here in Iowa there are people using pasture grass areas near their crops to absorb heavy rainfall and field runoff to prevent crop loss due to flooding. It’s pretty effective since pasture land can absorb 5-7 times the amount of rainfall than shallow aerated crop land in the same amount of time. Imagine how much flooding could be mitigated or flat out prevented if more land were used for pasture.
I really appreciate the mention of goats, as they are incredibly thrifty and versatile animals. I suspect that the average suburban back yard could support a small herd of dwarf goats (and a small flock of chickens, too) if only the local laws or covenants would allow it. And think of all of the highly chemical-infused shared turfgrass areas that we refer to as “green space” — and all of the animals we could be grazing there!
Goat meat is the most popular meat worldwide. Ain’t bad, either.
Yes. Goat is grand. I shed a tear when my pastured goat herder closed up shop at the Culver City farmers market a month ago because he was moving back to Libya.
Moving forward seems to bring unexpected regressions. Perhaps it’s due to being motivated by the wrong reasons. $$$
I couldn’t agree more with the view that if you rotate in more types of livestock you can get even better utilization of the same grazing area. Reminds me of the part of the documentary ingredients where the goat farmer (in Washington State I believe) was rotating goats, cattle, and ducks through the same pastured area. Allowing for better usage of the land and the ability to grow not just one but effectively three types of naturally fed organic livestock.
The food market is radically distorted at this point given that these more efficient methods of using the land which produce a higher quality product are viewed as inefficient compared to industrialized farming. If the true costs of industrial farming were included in the the price of the meat grass feed animals might even be price competitive. Particularly when you consider the price of these unhealthy animals is being subsidized by the federal government through corn subsidies.
I’m a big guy (not as big as I was a year ago), I’m 6’4 and 250 lbs, I have a bit more percentage points to drop for fat content, but unless I get into the mixed nuts I rarely go above 2500 calories in a day and I cook for a living. (talk about temptations)
More pasture land could be created as well is homes are built in places that animals couldn’t graze. Take back the housing tracks and give them to the animals.
I’m bringing down the US average with you!
Pre-primal is was pulling in close to 3500 calories a day (not good on a 5’7″ frame). When I take the time to add it up now, I rarely go above 2000.
One thing people don’t seem to understand is that once a housing tract is built, it will never be able to be used for any kind of farming again. Too many pollutants and no way to extract them efficiently or effectively. You wouldn’t want to eat a cow that had been grazed on that land. Better to just preserve what we have and encourage the rotational grazing methods described above. Oh, and vote with our wallets, of course.
You didn’t address the clothing issue. With so many people losing weight and getting fit, they will all have to buy new clothes.
Are there enough 30-inch jeans to go around for everybody?
We’ll need a new boom industry when ConAgra and Monsanto and Cargill go belly-up… LOL!
I’ve got it covered both ways. I have enough fabric to “insulate my house when the big one hits” (sewing joke), and I know how to use it. Alas, I have no denim.
I love this! People get so caught up in mantras that they forget to think through the implications of their assumptions!
P.S. I get about 1300 – 1800 cal per day.
A well thought out and informative article, I love your way of thinking Mark, it just makes sense.
+1
I love this. I really wish I had this information when I was going through college and was getting tired of hearing the same non-sense over and over again from vegans and nutritionists and vegetarians and health food nuts. If you read the Vegetarian Myth you’ll find it’s much more damaging to the environment to eat mono-crop plants like soy than a nice piece of grass fed beef. Sadly, we are very inefficient with our farming practices because it can be costly to implement and does not produce as much profit. The big food corporations are not going to go for food models that endorse healthy eating habits. It’s up to us to take our health in our own hands and share the beauty of a good lifestyle with others (when they are open and receptive to such info).
Mark. I have been a primal diet man for almost a year. Long story short i have lost 50 lbs and at almost 60 years old have never felt better in my life.
But that is not what i want to talk about today. Thank goodness some city folk are finally getting exposure to intensive Rotational grazing and Holistic management as in the ranching community it is far from mainstream and never will be if the urban community doesnt strongly push for these methods.
There are ranchers out there who believe and follow methods of livestock production that believe it or not are very similar to what we are trying to do with Grok and the Primal diet. Livestock have evolved over million of years and can get along fine without all the technology and artificial inputs but the vested interests will continue to push their toxic products on livestock people in much the same way as they do in artificial human food production.
It is i repeat that urban consumers must push very hard for more natural production of food in our society and then and only then will it happen.
In closing after a lifetime in the livestock business it amuses me how we urbanites refer to all bovines as cows.THe proper term is cattle. The term cow is for the female of the species that have young called calves. Their fathers are bulls and the female young offspring are heifers and the neutered males are steers. Neutered why you say can you imagine the pandomonium if you exposed one young woman who was in the mood to a roomful of young men who only job is to reproduce. It is the same with cattle so you have to remove the testostrone factor to keep things under control in the pasture.
Love the Grok way of life
Ivan, you are correct in your nomenclature for bovines, but I’m afraid that some modern dictionaries are now allowing “cow” as a generic non-gender-specific term for any bovine. I still use the correct terminology myself, however — even if my audience has no idea what a “steer” is.
Some good thoughts here. Of course, there’s a huge variation in the amount of calories people get on so-called “primal” or “paleo” diets from plant matter. Even in the case that the earth’s ecosystems are incapabable of providing a 16 oz steak for everyone, every day, there’s an enormous amount of land currently in north and south temperate latitudes that could yet be devoted to plant and animal production. Take a look in your own yard or all those strips of landscaping and grass on your drive to work.
My grandfather did rotational grazing with his sheep back in the 50/60s, in New Zealand! I thought that was the norm, he wasn’t the only farmer around that did it either. He’d allow the sheep to graze for a couple days, move them off to another paddock. By the time he moved them full circle the grass was up again. Rinse and repeat!
In my area, the city is using goats to eradicate invasive plant species. So raising goats isn’t necessarily restricted to a rural setting.
We could eat other animals too, such as deer and geese. Perhaps pigeons too. Pigeons are something you can raise in an urban setting and lots of people already do on the rooftops of apartments (if you don’t want to catch the ones walking everywhere in the city). I think it’s very do-able. We just don’t think of many of the animals that live near us as potential food. Squirrels? Sure. Why not.
“Yeah, but everyone knows grazing causes desertification”
I’d say the midwest is more of a desert now than it was when countless millions of buffalo roamed there. Just think how much meat could be produced if we grew that in the plains instead of wheat.
I recommend the book “The Worst Hard Time,” which is about the Dust Bowl years. It’s difficult reading due to the intense human suffering involved, but well worth it to understand the worst-case scenarios that occur when humans use land without understanding its limitations. Basically, using the prairie for farming rather than grazing bison or cattle destroyed its viability, and to this day large swaths of it still remain desertified.
Thus, the Buffalo Commons concept.
It’s sad how many lots are for sale in my area. I bet there used to be a lot more farmers in this area by the look of the lands for sale…
Lots of very good points. Occasionally environmentally unsound ideas are thrown around in the primal crowd. (Such as getting coconuts and cocoa sent all over the globe) But this article provides a strong argument that, at the very least, primal eating is not inherently environmentally unfriendly.
Respect.
Very good article!
If people tell me that a primal diet is bad for the environment, I usually reply: “Like we’re doing so great right now.” If a primal diet can’t feed us all, no diet probably can.
Nice article, Mark.
Excellent! Sane, logical dismantling of reflexive regurgitated objections. Bookmarking for future reference. Love your reference to Allan Savory’s project reversing desertification in Africa. Awesome. I didn’t realize it predated/influenced Joel Salatin, another hero of mine. Very cool.
This is a bookmark-worthy article.
I’m pretty sure I could beat a grass-fed cow in a farting contest.
THAT one will make the “Post of the Week” list!!
Great documentation. I love the interactive map. I remain skeptical that the world can sustain anywhere near 7 billion people, but this gives me somewhat more hope. Long term, an ancestrally oriented diet is the only possible way for us to survive.
Great article! Makes me want to start a farm
Mark, has anyoone told you recently what an excellent writer you are? I read and write for a living and you really are good.
Before reading this today I was searching online for grass-fed farms across the country, just those that sell online, and I was encouraged by how many I found. I know there are even more small farms that only sell locally. It gives me hope that the trend toward grass-fed, pastured farming is growing and will continue to grow and hopefully fundamentally change the industrialized feedlot system someday.
We could also utilize pigs better. I don’t remember where I read it but there was an article that pointed out that basically pigs turn garbage into meat. What’s more green than that?
What about fish? They don’t take up pastureland.
Regardless of the feasibility I don’t have a choice
my immune and digestion system led me to this diet not a book and if I don’t follow it I would croak I am sure of it. Are frogs Paleo?