Key Drivers of Food Crop Composition with Kat Morgan

(upbeat music) Hello fellow foodies and welcome back. This week on the show we're gonna dive a bit deeper into the Rockefeller Foundation funded periodic table of food initiatives. Some of their food foci on understanding some of the key drivers of variation in food crop composition. So this week our special guest is Cat Morgan. She is a food systems professional with expertise in anthropology, environmental health and communications. She's currently pursuing her masters of public health degree at Columbia University and is really interested in addressing the intersection of food systems, environmental issues and health disparities. She has also developed and hosts two award-winning public health podcast of her own. So we'll get into that as well. But with regards to the periodic table of food initiative, she's been working as a summer associate at the Rockefeller Foundation under the guidance of John Delapara, where she's really gotten into this examination of how different drivers of variation affect food crops. So let's go ahead and begin there. Welcome so much, and thank you so much, Cat, for coming on the show. - Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. I'm just thrilled. So yeah, I'm happy to chat about some of the work that I've been doing at the foundation. I work very closely with John Delapara at Rockefeller and then you mentioned the periodic table of food initiative earlier. I'll just say PTFI to simplify it. - Okay, great. And I also work very closely with Dr. Celina Ahmed at the PTFI. And so I started my role at the Rockefeller Foundation a year ago, which is hard to believe. And then the scoping review kind of came into my plate last June, last July. So we've been working on it for quite some time and it's very exciting. Celina initially posed this idea to do the scoping review to really map out some of the factors that drive variation in food composition. Because as we know, there is so much dark matter, right? And in food biochemical composition that we really don't understand, much less do we understand the drivers that are affecting these changes in this dark matter and these macronutrients and micronutrients. So in this review, while we know there are a lot of different drivers that can affect variation in food composition, which I'm happy to chat about later, but we really focus on environmental factors, thinking about climate change, extreme weather events, and we're also looking at management factors. So for example, how am I a difference in agri-egalogical practices or regenerative agriculture versus our traditional monocrop, corn, food production? You know, how might that change the nutrient composition of our foods? And we know, yeah, that it'll have really significant human health impacts down the line. - That's great. I mean, I think many of the listeners can appreciate this on some level when we think about terroir and we think about how different coffees, for example, coffee beans grown in different parts of the world have a slightly different flavor. And that's what you're really getting at, right? Are the molecules that determine flavor, that determine the nutritional composition of a specific crop? Because, you know, a potato is a potato is a potato, but actually, depending on where it's grown, and the environmental conditions can actually change how it goes taste and what kind of nutritional benefit it might bring you. Is that what you're getting at with this review? - Absolutely. And I will say this review focuses a little bit less on flavor as a driver, and we're really interested in almost like reduced nutrient content, right? So we have three objectives in this review, really. One of them is just to identify what the literature is saying. Are these drivers of variation? Another one is to identify gaps, but then to really answer your question, we are interested in looking at different groups of food biomolecules that are really vulnerable to shifts and whether, right? So, like, derizing CO2 levels reduce the protein content of corn, for example. Or, you know, as their reduced vitamin A in an apple that is not grown regeneratively. And so we're really interested in seeing kind of how some of these, the findings of the scoping review will also inform PTFI's research as well. - That's great. Well, I imagine you're finding a lot of gaps because I think a lot of these questions haven't yet been addressed under different scientific studies, right? - Absolutely, yeah. What's really interesting, too, is there are gaps that haven't currently been addressed? And then, you know, there's also research that's trying to gauge, you know, how might? Some of this nutrient composition change in coming years, looking at weather projections, looking at, you know, potential climate change outcomes and extreme weather events, which is really interesting as well. - Yeah. Now, I think that's important. We talk a lot on the show about kind of genetic diversity across crops and also how transforming our foods, like whether it be through fermentation or other cooking methods, can impact flavor and taste. But again, I think all of these factors are really closely intertwined because some of those same molecules that do impart flavor, also those same molecules that impart some health benefit in particular with regards to like polyphenols and antioxidants that are found in some of these foods. - Oh, absolutely. And I also think too, on the other side of that coin, there's also the anti-nutrients in our foods and you think about how like rising CO2 levels might, you know, we've seen it, we've seen that rising CO2 levels probably are increasing anti-nutrient compounds in certain foods. And so what might those implications for human health be as well? - That's great. So can you just break down for the audience because I don't think we've covered this term before what an anti-nutrient is, like how does that compare to like a macro or micro-nutrient? What's an anti-nutrient? - No, that's a great question. So, anti-nutrients are basically plant compounds that reduce the body's ability to absorb essential nutrients. So I do a lot of work in legumes and beans. And I think that's a really good example of where there are lots, there are pretty high levels of anti-nutrients in certain legumes. And so, you know, over thousands of years, humans have created special processing factors that help us digest these foods and capture some of the nutrients in them that otherwise these anti-nutrients would basically block per se. - Interesting, yeah. I mean, I immediately think of examples like tannins. I don't know if we've talked about this in the show before, but you know, there are recipes in which you can transform acorns into a flower that can then be used to make breads and kind of tortillas in different types of food items. But acorns have very high levels of molecules known as tannins. And tannins will bind to available proteins in your gut. So if you have too many tannins in your diet, that can actually basically act as an anti-nutrient. It reduces the absorption of important nutrients. But at the same time, different indigenous groups have figured out how to reduce some of those anti-nutrients as you're mentioning also with the beans that we have different ways of processing or either through selective reading or post-harvest processing to help reduce some of those anti-nutrients. - Yeah, really, yeah. - Well, let's talk a little bit more about legumes because I know that you're also interested in a legume-based agaricology. You've been doing some work also, I believe, in Africa. Is that right? Can you tell us a bit more about that? - Yes, absolutely. So I'm currently the lead author of a report on legume-based agaricology for African-nutrition security. And it's definitely been such an incredible project to work on. John Delparo, my manager at the Rockefeller Foundation, of course, is a co-author. I'm also working with Dr. Alex McCalvey at the New York Botanical Gardens. And really, the origin of this paper, it was supposed to be an internal case study, and my job was really to assess, okay, we know the Ukraine war is happening. They're gonna be some fertilizer supply chain disruptions. How might this affect nutrient security? And what are some affordable, accessible and immediate solutions to dealing with this problem for food security and food production? And so beans really are kind of the answer. They have all of these wonderful properties. They can enrich the soil with the help of a special bacteria with nitrogen. We know that they have all of these wonderful micronutrients and macronutrients. And so the report evolved from initially being like, let's just put out the immediate fire of these supply chain disruptions and now has brought into basically a four-tier solution. And it's been really cool. I'm happy to talk a little bit more about the details to if you're interested. - Yeah, I mean, well, maybe just getting to the basics of how the gooms enrich the soil. So you mentioned nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Are these, is the idea that they're planted with? or are there kind of crop cycles in which these might be planted strategically to enrich the soil? Yes, no, that's such a great question. So the rhizobia, what's the title of these bacteria are called rhizobia. And they have this really cool symbiotic relationship with legumes in the sense that the rhizobia can trap ammonia from the atmosphere and they have this special relationship with the legumes and they can transfer some of this into the legumes. And then that extra nitrogen, when the bean plant dies, that nitrogen stays in the soil, which is great. So it enriches the soil, but also the great thing about legumes is they have this very special nitrogen fixing property, which it's not very common. And scientists have not been successful in engineering cereal crops, for example, to do nitrogen fixation either. So the goons just kind of make sense. And they've been grown for thousands of years. There's so much rich traditional agri-ecological knowledge on how to grow these on intercropping practices, which is growing a couple of different plants together. And most people think of farming as rows and rows of corn. But legumes are really cool because you can, you know, in the Americas, we have the three sisters, the corn and the bean and the squash all grow together and have this harmonious relationship. And so I see kind of beans as this super solution that enriches the soil. They contribute to nutrient security. And again, like I said earlier, it's not a new solution. And I like to emphasize that when I talk about this paper, you know, we're reintroducing legume production, not introducing it because these farmers have been, you know, growing them for thousands of years. There's been this, you know, traditional knowledge that's been passed down. It's just that in the past, you know, 100 years or so, we changed the way that we produced food with the green revolution. And so now is this really interesting time that we can find, like, a harmonization or a hybridization of these practices, which is what this report really gets at. That's great. So I love this because this is really a kind of turn back to traditional aggregate ecology after the green revolution. And, you know, we've spoken about the green revolution in other episodes, which is to remind listeners, the green revolution is not like this. It's not this great thing. It was really a shift towards monoculture. It should be maybe have a different name for what. I think the intention was good. The idea is like we need to feed the world, but it did result in a lot of kind of negative, like long-term consequences with soil quality and also diversity of our crop systems. Well, let's -- and I want to switch back. So we have this idea of strategically using legumes, your enriched soil. But I want to touch a bit more also on the food composition questions. So you did mention a number of times rising CO2 levels as one driver. What are some other drivers? I mean, we're seeing a lot of changes happen globally. Issues with salinity, issues with, you know, temperatures shifts. Are these also driving changes in food composition or are we just not know yet or do we know? Like, absolutely. So the tricky thing is we kind of know and we kind of don't. You know, like, it depends. It's the really easy broad umbrella answer because, you know, we also know that rising temperatures, raising CO2 levels, extreme weather events, there are going to be disparate impacts of climate change in different regions of the world. So, for example, thinking about sub-Saharan Africa, like the extreme weather events, especially droughts, and also soil degradation from green revolution practices. These areas are already a little bit more vulnerable to some of these decreases, basically, in food biochemical composition or decreases in nutrient outcomes. And so, they're absolutely correct. You know, we know that as temperatures rise, there's probably going to be increases in anti-nutrients in our crops. But we've also talked, we've also seen a little bit in this review that agricultural management practices. Like the use of pesticides, pesticides, the use of fertilizers, practices where green revolution, like extension practices, farmers maybe weren't equipped with the knowledge or the tools that they needed to correctly use fertilizers. And so, there's a lot of fertilizer over use. There's a lot of pesticide over use. This has been really bad for soil. There's, like you said, soil acidification, some soil desertification, and the soil microbiome, if it's healthy, you know, our crops are going to be really nutritious. So, these things go hand in hand. And you know, one of the reasons it took us so many months just to develop our search terms for the scoping review, because the climatic factors, these agricultural management factors, it's so broad. And so, it's really hard to be broad enough to trap these articles in the search, but specific enough to say, okay, we can kind of hone out these themes. But so far, it definitely seems like soil micronutrients as related to agricultural management practices, fertilizer use, pesticide use. You know, these are some of the more like human mediated drivers of variation. And then, of course, changes in temperature rising CO2 level and just general extreme weather events are definitely going to affect composition. Yeah, that's a really good point, with extreme weather events we're seeing, of course, many wildfires on the west coast of the U.S. and, you know, there are big changes happening everywhere. So, we really need resilient systems. And I think that also this idea of desertification of our soils is really important. I spent this past winter in Egypt working in the western desert, and there you have, like, legitimate like Sahara desert sands. And yet, what was really, I think, hopeful for me was that there are practices, regenerative farming practices, biodynamic agricultural practices be specific, in which you can actually restore the viability of soils through, you know, intensive composting practices and integration of that into the soil. So, there is a way forward. I know, when it comes to climate change, we often talk about things with such doom and gloom, but I want to highlight that there are practices out there that are being tested, that are being piloted in the field to help restore some of these soils. And that gives me hope, I think. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, that's what this lagoon paper that I talked about earlier. I mean, that's what we really get at, things like cover cropping and intercropping. You know, there are people, a lot of people, are interested in forests, which is, like, the byproducts of insects as fertilizer or as food for cattle or chickens and whatnot. And so, you know, how do we integrate all of these common sense and affordable practices together to prevent, I mean, to mitigate climate change the best we can to regenerate our soils and to just improve human health and nutrient security. Yeah, and I guess there is an affordable element to this, but there are also costs because many of these practices as I understand them, can be more human labor intensive. Yes. Right? And so, with the Green Revolution, came mechanization of agriculture, which has its benefits, but, you know, we've lost a lot of people, you know, we don't have the same populations of farmers we did in the 1940s because it's just not a business so many people go into. But, you know, that may need to change in the future. And I think, you know, maybe that opens up a new economic sector for people. This idea of farm work being, you know, not a viable path is, you know, we can change that. We can make farm work attractive and appealing and actually it does stand at the foundation of our entire society's ability to flourish. So, it's really important to be able to farm in a way that's non-destructive to the soil and to these ecosystems. I completely agree. And I see a lot of potential in leveraging subsidies in new ways that aren't just focused on corn and, you know, chemical latent inputs, right? Like, there is money that is potentially could be leveraged, in my opinion, in much better ways to support these practices and these transitions. Like, the harmonization of what has worked. And, you know, I think that these aren't mutually exclusive. I think there's a lot of polarization and politicized-- politicization of farming. And it has to be monocraft and it has to be agroecology and it's really--it has to be common sense and it needs to be fast. Well, I think, you know, as you're mentioning subsidies, I've probably said this way to me times on the show, but I'll repeat it again because I really believe this. You know, the Farm Bill, the U.S. Farm Bill, is the most important piece of legislation for our entire--not only food system, but for our health care system. Because that is really what underpins a lot of the chronic diseases that we suffer from. due to the sad diet. The standard American diet has the acronym of sad, which I don't really believe is the appropriate term for it. You know, it's because we have the subsidization of corn, at such a level that it makes corn syrup based products and other engineered products so intensely cheap that just completely takes over our entire food system. So yeah, a lot that needs to be done with the farm bill. And I think you're right, regenerative ag can be integrated into that if there's a will of the people to have it happen. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's talk a bit more about the PTFI. So you're writing this scoping review with partners and with the team at Rockefeller. And out of this review, this review is really based on the published literature. But I know that at the same time, PTFI is actively working towards developing a better scientific understanding of these micro and macro nutrients in different crops across the globe. Can you tell us a bit about how this report might inform those steps or do they are they linked in any way for next steps? Absolutely. Yeah. So I mean, I think this scoping review is definitely posed in the beginning to inform some of PTFI's metadata to be captured when looking at food composition. And you know, I'm not sure if you've interviewed either John or Selena because they can really speak to, you know, the PTFI mission and the PTFI goal. So I would divert listeners to those episodes. Yeah. Okay. But I will definitely say, yeah, we're hopefully this review will inform, you know, some of the tools that they're working on, some of the analytical approaches that the PTFI is working on. Well, I guess that leads into my next question then is how will how will this review kind of shape next steps when it comes to food systems change making? Yeah. How how does something this help when it comes to those decisions? I so when I think of food systems, I think of 500 things pop into my head at once. I mean, we know food systems are so broad and they encompass cultural aspects of our life. The the scientific, the qualitative, the quantitative, and so I really see this scoping review as weaving together siloed areas of food systems research. So for example, we're looking at articles that address like bioremediation, we're looking at regenerative agriculture versus monocrop agriculture, we're looking at climate change, we're looking at all of these different obviously related academic disciplines that maybe haven't been connected before. So I think that this review is going to be really important and weaving together a picture of here's some baseline of what we do understand. Here are gaps in the literature and hopefully inform and form future researchers, right? Especially when we think about how can we make our food production more climate resilient? You know, what might be potential research avenues? What might be gaps that haven't even been looked at? And we know there's a lot of gaps and that's why the PTFI exists, right? So I'm hoping that again this this review can sort of weave together a lot of siloed disciplines and and yeah. That's great. That's great. I think that's so important to really understand how to move forward. We have to know what we know and what we don't know. So that's that's huge. Now I know that in addition to your work with Rockefeller, you're also really passionate about science communication in your own right. So I'd love it if you'd shared a little bit about your podcast with us and what your goals are with this new show. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for the opportunity to chat about it. It's definitely been a passion project. So I really love working in translational like science, translational work, communications because I find these things interesting, but I also know that you know sitting at the dinner table talking with friends or talking with family, a lot of this information as interesting as it is is very niche is not accessible. And especially thinking about public health, I work in public health and pursuing a master of public health. It is a broad multi-disciplinary field, right. You can have an epidemiologist doing quantitative work and a mixed methods researcher looking at cultural food ways, right. But they both might be working in food systems. And so I created this podcast. It's called Oakrop, a public health podcast. And it really focuses on educating the public health community about environmental justice, health equity, unsustainable food systems. And so I do my best to I've got my introduction episode and I do my best to simplify these things. But also to communicate how broad and interrelated and interconnected they are. So taking kind of like, I think systems thinking is really important for food systems type work. And I do narrative storytelling. My most recent episode I was had the privilege to interview Mark Bittman, who has been in the field. He's been in the field for a really long time. Well, this is last book. It's Animal Vegetable Junkers and like that. Yes, yeah. Great book. It's session. When we talk about is we talk about his book a little bit in the podcast. And so it's cool because it's an interesting thing to listen to. But I also see it as a tool. And I've created like a deliverable for for listeners to use that talks about for the academicians like you can do plume based modeling or these are some environmental justice things in research. And for the more pragmatic like boots on the ground workers and you know, I try to give people the tools and the information that they can incorporate into whatever their role is within the broader picture. That's really exciting. I like that. You've got kind of an add-on kind of learning kits with these. That's great. And so what do you see as someone that's passionate about food systems? What do you see as some of the major challenges moving forward when it comes to food security and food sovereignty across the globe? Oh, yeah. That's such a good question. I personally am really focused on agricultural management, the way that we the literal way that we produce our foods and kind of harmonizing different actors to communicate. Like I think that there is a lot of knowledge. There are a lot of wonderful researchers. There are great farmers out there in the world. But I don't necessarily think that there's a lot of communication across these silos or across these walls. And so I think thinking about nutrient security and food security moving forward, it'll be really important for cross-sector collaboration. And when I say cross-sector, I don't just mean public sector private sector, I mean working with community members. I'm a cultural anthropologist by training and I really value the importance of, well, the necessity of community-based participatory research. Working with farmers and working with communities because I think a lot of our past shortcomings and failures with the Green Revolution were because we felt that some of these new methods could usurp these practices. And so now I think humanity is in this really interesting place where let's harmonize, let's talk, let's work together, let's work across sectors. You know, these, what we thought was mutually exclusive, I don't think has to be. And so, yeah, for climate resilient food production, I see a lot of potential in, you know, these different actors working together, hopefully for more sustainable management practices, for more climate resilient food production. Well, that's great. Yeah, I agree. I think for me, it's all about resilience because change is a common. You know, it is here. I think we have to be resilient in terms of our crop genetic diversity in terms of our, you know, systems for, you know, rehabilitating soil for educating people and how to grow crops in this new world. So there's a lot of different factors, but I like that resilience is key. And equity, I think, yes, yes, climate change will disproportionately impact people. We know that. And equity with green revolution practices, not everybody benefited, and the people that didn't benefit, you know, some communities were really, were really harmed. And so that's I think is built in with resilience. Yeah, no, for sure. Well, just being aware of it, I think for a long time, this wasn't necessarily something that the general public was aware of, and I think that's changing. And I think that's for the good. I think we all should be aware of kind of how these food systems lead to our foods. And I think a lot of people try to make the right decisions, but it's also very difficult to make good decisions around food. Some of our, you know, the sourcing of food is often obscured. It's not clear how things are grown, where they're coming from. You know, what does organic really mean? What does antibiotic, you know, free really mean? Is it really antibiotic free? They're, you know, we talked about that a bit with chickens and eggs that are actually injected with antibiotics that can still be considered, you know, marketable as antibiotic free. So like there, there's a lot of, a lot of hidden language behind the ad language around foods. And yeah, my hope is that maybe I would add a third factors. We have resilience, equity, and how about transparency? Yes. I think that would be that the trifecta, if we could have more of that, those three things. Especially with environmental, you know, yes. These are our tax dollars that go towards, you know, towards supporting a system that ultimately makes a huge portion of our population very ill. I mean, leads to early, you know, shorter lifespans. And so I think, I think there, yeah, there's a lot to cover. I could, you know, maybe even dedicate a whole season just to the farm bill. You're taking it apart. Maybe I'll do that. It'll be season six. I'm wondering how cat, so any other things we should be aware of that are coming out soon. And you've got your podcast. You're working with me on the review and we'll look forward to reading that once it's published. Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, I will see you as soon at the Society for Economic Botany and Society for Ethnobiology joint meeting in Atlanta. And I'll present on the Skipping Review and more detail there. So for any listeners who might be attending, I would love it if you came to my talk. So that's the last thing I have to present. Thank you. Amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing your talk. It's going to be a great meeting. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Kat. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in this week. This is Dr. Kueh, and you've been listening to Foodie Pharmacology, the Science Podcast for the Food Curious. I want to again, thank our producers to Rob Cohen and Christine Roth for paying on a great show for you each and every week. And if you'd like to support the show, you can do it really easily. Head on over to mysterycontrol.com. We have a whole section of really fun t-shirts and mugs and bags and lunch boxes, all kinds of cool swag with the Foodie Pharmacology logo. And you can also learn more about the show at Foodie Pharmacology.com or check us out on the YouTube channel on Teach Ethnobiology or my website CassandraWave.com. So thanks so much for listening. Stay healthy out there and see you next time.