Why crops grown this way might be better for us
Many of the nutrients we rely on come from plants. But plants can’t wander around looking for minerals; they have to build a living system around their roots to bring those nutrients to them. This root zone is a biome not unlike our own gut microbiome. In healthy soil, the root zone is teeming with microbes, in quantities that are almost beyond imagining.
The trading relationship
The microbes in the rhizosphere — mainly fungi and bacteria — can’t photosynthesise because they live underground. Instead, they have formed a long evolutionary partnership with plants. The deal works like this:
- microbes supply plants with minerals, trace elements and compounds essential for growth
- in return, plants feed the microbes with sugars, starches and fats produced through photosynthesis
A plant can send 30–40% of the sugars it makes down to its root zone to feed this biome. In exchange, it receives the raw materials it needs to create phytochemicals: compounds that help plants defend themselves, communicate, or produce pigments for flowers and fruits.
When we eat these plants, many of those phytochemicals benefit us too. But when plants are grown in conventional systems — ploughed or dug soils, chemical fertilisers, fungicides and pesticides — this trading relationship is disrupted. The result is often food with far fewer beneficial compounds.
(reference: Royal Agricultural Society, https://www.rase.org.uk/news/is-regeneratively-farmed-food-more-nutritious/)
How plant chemicals help us
When we eat plants, we absorb a wide range of these chemicals, many of which we cannot produce ourselves. Some are simple trace minerals like selenium, iron and copper. Others play major roles in preventing chronic and infectious diseases. Many phytochemicals are anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer or antioxidant.
A lot of these compounds are bound up in plant fibre. When that fibre is broken down by our own gut microbiome, the phytochemicals are released and absorbed. Because conventional growing can damage the root biome, crops may still be abundant but less nutritious over time. It can also reduce soil fertility and the long-term nutritional quality of food.
(evidence summary in What Your Food Ate, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58999199-what-your-food-ate)
Further reading: Growing Real Food for Nutrition: https://grffn.org/