218 Eric Jackson - Want to work on nutrient density? Start with animal protein

A conversation with Eric Jackson, board chair of BioNutrient Food Association, about nutrient density, the research, the practical implication, soil carbon credits, cell-based and plant-based meat replacements and more.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why should we focus our work in nutrient density on animal protein? What is dark matter of nutrition? And why did Eric Jackson, after a successful career, not retire, but took on the board chair of the Bionutrient Food Association? Third time on the show, but the last time was three years ago and in a very different role. He's been working in regeneration for so long that it's always great to check in with him about nutrient density, the research, the practical implications, but also about soil carbon credits. Mind you, he worked on one of the first ones in 2008, cell-based and plant-based meat replacement and so much more. Enjoy What are the connections between healthy farming practices, healthy soil, healthy produce, healthy gut and healthy people? Welcome to a special series where we go deep into the relationship between regenerative agriculture practices that build soil health and the nutritional quality of the food we end up eating. We unpack the current state of science, the role of investments, businesses, nonprofits, entrepreneurs and more. This series is supported by the A-Team Foundation, who support food and land projects that are ecologically, economically and socially conscious. They contribute to a wider movement that envisions a future where real food is produced by enlightened agriculture and access to it is equal. The A-Team Foundation are looking to make more investments and grants in the space of bionutrients. You can find more here, a-teamfoundation.org or get in touch directly, info at a-teamfoundation.org or check the information in the show notes below. Welcome to another interview. Today, we're gonna dive deeper and deeper into nutrient density, and we're doing that with a friend of the show who has been, I had to check my notes, has been on the show twice before, which I do remember, has been on a few webinars as well, but it was 2018, June, and 2019, July, which feels like an eternity, and actually is. He's officially retired, but absolutely didn't stop with working. Luckily for the sector, we have Erik Jackson back on the show, who's now the board chair of the BioNutrient Food Association, and we'll definitely link, of course, the other interviews with Erik before in his previous life and also other interviews we've done with Dan Kittredge. But I'm very happy to look at the lay of the land today, what's happening in nutrient density with Eric. So welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Thanks, Gun. It's good to be back here once again. And I can't believe it's been almost four years, huh?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Let's not mention that again. Let's just go to the everyday situation. What would you say, I mean, you mentioned in the pre-conversation a bit, what's your feeling of this whole nutrient density density or bio-nutrient discussion and conversation we've been having in the fringes for a long time, but has something materially shifted? Is it still very niche? What's your overview of where we're at with this conversation? We're recording this in the beginning of February 2023. What's your lay of the land at the moment? Where are we?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, I mean, as I did mention in our pre-conversation, I think it's very interesting to see how many folks are starting to pick up on the theme of nutrient density as a concept right I mean it's still there's a lot of definition that needs to occur but I don't think that gets in the way of at least a general understanding about food quality which is what really nutrient density at least initially is about you know what causes food quality to increase or decrease it's tied nutrient content is tied directly to flavor so there's also a culinary aspect to this that's quite interesting So we see some culinary folks that are looking into the subject matter. We see the health care sector is, you know, particularly post-COVID or almost post-COVID is quite interested in, you know, how nutrition affects, particularly the non-communicable disease, you know, of human health. And agriculturalists are starting to take notice. So, you know, my primary goal in this whole sector is to bring agriculture, food and health care into the world. health care into the same room and have those conversations go where they might. But now, independent of the work that we're doing at Bionutrient Food Association, other efforts are popping up. And that's great. The more the better. We need it. We need all hands on deck to try to peel the onion on this and try to understand, A, what does nutrient density mean? And B, how do we affect nutrient density in our foods?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

And what would you say, like, what's the status of the science from your perspective now at the beginning of 23? Like, where are we in terms of understanding what nutrient density means or also just the variations in the density of the nutrients or the variation of the good stuff in food? How far are we along?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Well, I mean, the headline is we're still very young, very early in this whole endeavor. You know, when we started the work at the Bionutrient Food Association, and this certainly precedes me, Dan Kittredge and the team have been at this for a while, the initial question was, is there a high degree of variability in nutrient density of various foodstuffs? Because if it's not If it's not obvious, you know, 5% here, 10% there is not terribly interesting. But what we've discovered is that there are certainly in the category of phytonutrients and minerals and secondary metabolites, which are the true health-giving substances in foods, that there's variations sometimes up to several hundred percent, I'm sorry, several hundred times higher, right, between two bunches of spinach or two bunches of carrots. So it's staggering, quite frankly, and we were quite surprised that those results. And we've repeated those results several times. So we're confident that that kind of variability exists. So now the obvious question is, why? Why, why, why, why, why, why? And now when you start getting into how many variables there are in food production, right, you can understand the complexity that we're up against now in terms of trying to figure those things out. So I think as we move forward, the important knowledge that will be gained will be that there will be certain categories of agricultural practices which include genetics as well as on-farm practices that clearly indicate a higher degree of of nutritional density in the foodstuffs that come off of those farms. So we're going to continue to try to pinpoint some very specific scientific ideas, but then also be able to generalize categorically things that are then perhaps useful at the consumer level, right? Ultimately, what we want to be able to do is have a mechanism by which the healthcare community, the agricultural community, and the food community can use a common language to discuss these things.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

And so what is the path forward or what are the most exciting pieces of that? Is it the animal protein side? I mean, we've looked with Stefan from Fleet, or is it the spinach or a superfood, the kale? Or shouldn't we think in those specific categories? What do you see, not only in your work, obviously, but broader, the path forward in this discussion?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Well, we are a bit fixated on the animal protein side right now, partially because it's a huge category. If you take a at food spend in the food service world and in the consumer world, animal protein accounts for a very large portion of the spend, 40% approximately of the overall spend. It also is, you know, if you think about particularly ruminants, particularly cattle and the land use component of those animals, it's quite exciting to think about what can be determined in terms of practices that both impact nutrient density as well as ecosystem outcomes right so and i think that that animals are sort of in the in the crosshairs right now um from a lot of different sectors and you know people are obviously can have their own opinions we'd like to have make sure there's some facts out there as well about the importance of animals in the system as part of a system and then what it means not only at the agricultural level but also at the human health level um you the animal protein sector is one of the more direct farm to human consumption products, mostly. There's obviously many hyper-processed products out there that I'm not really

SPEAKER_00 8:55

talking about. Yeah, but maybe less. Yeah, that's interesting. It's sort of less processed. It's a huge acreage compared to veggies, which we often think about. And it's absolutely in the crosshairs of the environmental destruction side And at the same time, a growing, I think, enthusiasm in terms of the health benefits of keto diets and other things, like very extreme voices, let's say there. And so there's a lot of tension around it without often asking the underlying question, how was that animal grown or what did the animal eat and in what way, et cetera, which is the nuance we always have to add there. So it's definitely, yeah, it's a big one to tackle from multiple angles.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. I mean, you know, grains obviously occupy a huge amount of acreage as well. And, and they're

SPEAKER_00 9:47

very easy work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

The problem, the part of the problem is, is that grains are typically not always, but typically very processed. Right. And so what, what you find out at the farm level does not necessarily carry through to the human consumption level. Whereas what we discovered

SPEAKER_00 10:04

discovered now, like the, the more layers of processing, let's say mean potentially less direct connection between the health side and the farming practices and that's less interesting to to to unpack at the moment

SPEAKER_01 10:19

yeah i'd say at the moment i mean ultimately you know when we i'm going to say when but perhaps the perhaps the point is if we start testing at the consumer level at the at the packaged consumer level then those things might come to the forefront but at this point we're we're more focused on things that are likely to be less processed between the farm and and the human consumption, and then you immediately think about, to your point, the acreage involved. Because if our early discoveries, which tend to indicate that the types of farming practices we'd like to see from an ecosystem perspective, also lead to higher quality foodstuffs, if that idea persists through the research, then what we have is an opportunity to sell high quality foods to people who want to eat high quality foods, whether or not they care about the ecosystem outcomes, right? Yet knowing along the way that we get those ecosystem benefits. And, you know, study after study has shown that only a small fraction of consumers are actually making choices based on environmental components of agriculture, right? A lot of people choose organic because they believe that to be chemical free. But that's about as far as most of the choice making goes when it comes to people actually laying down money for ecosystem services at the retail level. But they will certainly, and again, this has been proven in study after study, both flavor, which is also tied to nutrient density, and quality, which is tied to human health. The

SPEAKER_00 11:57

flavor, of course, in less processed, I mean, the more processed it gets, the more you're being... duped with flavor. But of course, the least process you look at, the more flavor comes through from literally soil to plate. So there's another argument for that. And just you mentioned free of chemicals. You've made a great framework together with David and Mandy, David Lezak and Mandy Ellerton. I will link the white paper below of the Human Health Nexus and Regenerative Agriculture. Can you walk us through those four levels that we have a bit of a framework to think about nutrient density and that there's even a world beyond? and the level four, which is very exciting. Can you walk us through the framework so we can place, for instance, the organic you just mentioned?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Well, I mean, yeah, and I'm going to go a bit from memory here. I haven't reviewed that for a while. But as I recall,

SPEAKER_00 12:49

the first level is... I have the notes here.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

The first level, as I recall, is what we call the substitution factor, right? And clearly, no matter what kind of spinach, for example, you eat, regardless of the nutrient density of that spinach is better for you than French fries. I'll just pick on French fries, right? So the substitution factor is sort of the most obvious one and where we spend most of our time talking about today. And that includes things like getting rid of salt in the diet, getting rid of saturated fat in the diet, getting rid of trans fats in the diet. So it's mostly an elimination factor, if you will, of things that are known to not be nutritious for human consumption if taken on a daily basis. The second level would be, I would say, remind me, is it the chemical-free side?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

The free of chemicals and drug inputs, you're right. I think it's interesting because level one is often where we stop and say, okay, but if everybody just eats enough veggies, fibers, fruits, and that will be fine, which many people will be a lot better. I'm not saying fine, but will be a lot better. There are a few more levels in this case, the free from chemical and drug inputs. which takes it a step further.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah. And there are many organizations that are really focused on this, right? There are labels that are coming out, glyphosate free, for example, labels, free from chemicals, but maybe not actually labeled as organic because they don't meet the rest of the standard of organic. Chemicals have such a ubiquitous impact on everything that they touch, right? And I think that agriculture has tried not to be poisonous to humans and has tried not to be poisonous to the environment. But unfortunately, study after study challenges those assumptions, right? And so if you can free the food system from chemicals, you're obviously impacting the entire biosphere in which agriculture is practiced. You're impacting water quality, and then you're impacting the human side of health and the animal side of health. And

SPEAKER_00 15:01

chemicals are going from memory, but we we covered that quite a bit, I think, or it was one of your answers to like, or the magic wand question I asked before years ago, or what would you do with a billion dollars, like getting chemicals out of food and ag, I think was your answer. If I remember correctly, somebody is going to correct me if this is wrong, but so that's level two, like getting less in, let's say, and then level three differentiated on the nutrient density, which is what we're talking about here, which is more talking about what's, I think somebody quoted it, like what's in it and not what's not in it and that's where we're playing now basically or what we're starting to discover or starting to discuss now like okay great the chemicals are out now what

SPEAKER_01 15:43

yeah and i mean so when chemicals come out then you're actually looking at a natural system right it hasn't been influenced by by chemicals so there's still a ton of complexity but at least you've eliminated you know one family of variables if you will and that's that's the that's the synthetic chemistry side now chemistry is obviously part of natural systems so certainly chemistry is going on in the natural system but if you can eliminate the synthetics and then focus on what are the set of practices that create the highest opportunity for nutrient density which clearly includes genetics of the crop, right? Whether it's an animal or a vegetable or a fruit, genetics certainly play a role. But yes, zeroing in on what is in the products And how do we optimize for the desirables, right? How do we identify? Where do we get stuff that is perhaps better for us than other stuff? And it's quite an exciting field. There are people who are taking the research much more deeply than even we're doing it through the Bionutrient Institute, which is our research arm at the Bionutrient Food Association. There are folks studying the dark matter of nutrition. That's a phrase that has come up, you know, in the last couple of years.

What is nutrient dark matter?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

What's the dark matter of, or maybe we have to ask them, but what do you understand is the dark matter of nutrition?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah, I'm certainly no expert in this area, but there are folks that are, you know, they've looked very precisely at the 2,000 or so compounds that are in foodstuffs. And when you think about the USDA reports, about 150 of those, right, the dark matter Dark matter would be the other, you know, 1850 compounds that aren't really listed and understanding the interact activity between all of these compounds, right, is quite a, quite an endeavor. And certainly, again, a very nascent field of study. So like with anything, you know, an individual component might be interesting. The phytonutrient component might be interesting, right? But understanding how all these things interplay together, you know, both in the setting of agriculture, in the setting of food, and in the setting of human health is quite complex. And so, you know, this field of computational nutrition has emerged that is studying not, you know, the nutrition of dark matter, but also, you know, sort of a molecular mapping of food and trying to understand what it all means. And that will carry on at its own pace. That's being done, you know, partially under, I think, I think folks at Tufts are working on this. I think folks at USDA are working on it and I'm sure there are other, you know, other, other people that are engaged as well, but yeah, it's the study of what's in our foods and how it gets there. What does it leave behind? When we talk about the ecological component of this, if you're growing a crop, it's part of a living system. It's not just an individualized thing that sits outside of the system. What is that system outcome? What does the healthy plant, what does it give back to the overall system? It's a two-way, more than a two-way. There's an atmospheric exchange. There's a hydrologic exchange. There's a chemical exchange. change in the soil right which then leads you to level four which is the interesting you know to study about the microbiome right

What about absorption of nutrients, Level 4: Microbiome-centric

SPEAKER_00 19:33

and yeah because then the question is how do we how do we absorb that like what is the the it's amazing to have something full of nutrients and flavor but can we can we actually absorb that and i'm not saying this these level one two three and four are the different stages we go through in research i think they're all happening parallel there's a lot of work being done in parallel so what do you see at that level level four which sort of feels the beyond nutrient density level and can we actually absorb it in in our body and quote unquote put it to work or put it where it wants to be what do you see there

SPEAKER_01 20:07

yeah uh you know again another very lofty goal is to understand is to understand how the human microbiome works what impacts the human microbiome what enables the human microbiome what disables the human microbiome right clearly what we ingest is a is critical. And so looping back around to the chemical side of things, you know, I think we've had this conversation before, but you know, there's been a lot of, a lot of people that argue that glyphosate is not effective. harmful, right, to mammals. But the problem is the Shikimati pathway, which is part of the human system, acts more like a plant pathway than an animal pathway. And it is deeply affected by glyphosate. And glyphosate is a disabler of an important part of the human microbiome. So it's a very interesting field of study. So if you can look at the microbiome from a system level view which i think is what the attempt is and also understanding that there's a soil microbiome right and what are the what's the connection between those two there there were some early studies done uh where children who played in you know in the dirt right would pick up certain microbiological features that helped them stay healthy as long as they weren't playing in dirt which was chemical laden right so what are these connections is still a very very young field of study, but I think an important one because we have now the computational power. right? To be able to do things at a much faster speed and a much lower cost than we had just a few years ago when we studied the human microbiome initially, right? Or the human genome initially, right? Those were extremely expensive, very slow, relatively speaking. Amazing science, but now we have tools that are, you know, much, much faster and much, much cheaper. So we're able to ask increasingly hard questions and try to get to the Sure, the mysteries will continue to compound, but the mysteries that we're studying today, you know, the good news is I think we have tools that enable us to get to some answers much faster. And then stitching it all together, right? I mean... These fields of study have an interrelated component, but they're not being done necessarily in the same room at the same time, right? So the ultimate challenge will be to create data sets that are useful across all these various disciplines and that we can continue to dig farther and farther, you know, for the benefit of society and for the benefit of the planet.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

And do you feel that these four, they're almost also like four pillars of people working on it or four silos. Is the conversation starting to happen also more under one umbrella as in soil sort of, I don't know, getting healthy soil connects them or something, or are people really, okay, the chemical free labeling people, the microbiome people, are they at all talking to each other? Do you see any of that? Or is it relatively siloed in terms of, okay, I'm fighting for more veggies in diets, I'm fighting for, regardless of where they come from, I'm fighting for chemical-free stuff. I'm focusing on nutrient density like you do, or I'm actually focusing on the microbiome part of this because that's the crucial bit, or do many people see it as one continuum or one connected tissue?

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Well, there certainly are a lot of specialists engaged, right? And by definition, they specialize. You know, like I mentioned before, funding tends to go in one direction or another. And the more specialized you can, you know, explain what it is you're trying to look at, the better chance you have of getting funded. of interest, people may or may not decide that that's worthwhile for funding. So, you know, you have the funding aspect of it, but then you also have certainly the opinion aspect of it. So unfortunately, a lot of folks who I think would agree on 80 or 90% of the topical ideas wind up disagreeing about some things that I think are not important, but they do, right? And so we have sort of a food fight going on between the, you know, it's at some level, the vegans and the carnivores, right? I mean, we've got this whole plant-based area of endeavor right now, which has received a lot of funding, right, and sparked a lot of imagination. And I think people should be able to eat whatever it is they can afford to eat. But on the other hand, I don't think that it's doing anybody any good if we don't really understand what the nutritional value is of these various foodstuffs, but people are dug in. So some of those opinions have already built walls and moats and it's hard to get across all of those. So I think it's still a lot of silos to directly answer your question, but there are a few of us who are trying to be non-opinionated and trying to at least keep the doors open between the various corridors and chambers in this massive area of ideas. Because nobody has definitive research that can absolutely say something at this point that would completely defile the others, right? We're all still very young in this, no matter which position you came to this from. Nobody has definitive research that can prove anything other than, I would argue, and again, this is partially due to my opinion, I would argue that the chemistry side, I think, is becoming clearer. because it's relatively easy to test because it either is or it isn't, right? And because it's not part of a natural system, you can do some black and white comparison between

SPEAKER_00 26:43

chemistry. You mean like the negative side of chemicals in food and ag or the chemical residue or what do you mean by making it easy?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Both. I mean, you know, because you can either include chemicals in the production system or take them out of the production system. You either have agricultural land that is tainted with chemicals or you have agricultural land that is either, you know, virgin from chemicals other than atmospheric, which is still a factor, but which hasn't been directly applied to or has healed itself over the course of time, you know, due to the practitioner doing certain things. So you do have some black and white opportunities for testing in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Do you see that as day It's... Regenact gets quite a bit of pushback now from especially the activist side and they have a point of that big corporations are sort of hijacking the term and of course putting everything under it what they would like to see so maybe a bit of no-till with quite a bit of spraying and calling it regeneration is that is the push for this nutrient side of things and the chemical side etc chemical free side is that an answer to that or part of an answer to the potential downplaying or regen washing or whatever we want to call it, like diluting of the term regenerative, which of course we haven't defined as well, which probably for good reasons. But there's a lot of interest, let's say, to also make it slightly less regenerative from certain aspects. And chemicals, yes or no, is quite a black and white thing, as you said before. Is that part of an answer there?

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Well, I think the the closer we can get to outcome-based measures as opposed to process-based, right? To me, the less controversial things become because by definition, outcomes are measurable. You can name them. The metric may not be perfect. That can always improve over time, right? The way that you do the measurement, you may be able to get to modeling as opposed to direct measurement at some point, which then becomes very convenient if that is true. But the outcome-based concept to me is ultimately where the whole discussion needs to go. And so it Chemicals, yes or no, right? It's clear. Residue, yes or no, it can be measured, right? Nutrient components, yes or no, and to what degree, right? Those things can be measured. And I, again, this is very early in our research, but there tends to be The results that we have to this point tend to indicate, and I don't want to be definitive because a lot more research has to be done, but tend to indicate that those things that we would say are good for the environment are also good for food quality, right? And intuitively that sounds fine, but we still have a lot more research that needs to be done. And if we can put our finger on that, then there's a possibility that food quality becomes a single biomarker for the entire system.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

In my third sense.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

People, I mean, people can say they did this or they did that, but if you test their food, right, I don't really care from a process standpoint. And that's the other challenge is if we try to define a set of processes, right, and every farm is so individual in terms of its parameters, we try to define a set of processes rather than a set of outcomes, then I think we're working against ourselves I think we'll be able to categorize some processes that will tend to improve food quality and ecosystem services. But I think that if we can get to a point where measuring food quality is the reliable indicator of both the processes that preceded that food, right, and the human health aspect, the post seeds, if you will, right, the food consumption, I think we may have discovered something glorious. But there's so much work to be done before we can get to that point.

What about cheating with nutrient density

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And how likely or easy would it be, or is it to cheat with that? What's the argument of... how can we do all our tricks with processed food to get to the level of nutrients or, or you would like to see is, do you see any first signs of that? Because I'm betting somebody is going to try. Well,

SPEAKER_01 31:22

somebody is always going to try if there, if there's a, if there's a premium involved, if there's a market share involved, right. You're always going to have folks that are trying to figure out how to play within the very loose rules of the game. Right. And, and, and, put themselves in a better position. But I think that there are certain outcomes that can only be generated by natural systems. And as far as we know today, even with gene editing, even with all the current trickery that can go on in an attempt to manipulate, there are certain things that only occur in natural systems. And to the extent that those are the things that we are focused on, I think it would be a long time before somebody can get away with this idea of presenting, you know, I'll pick on spinach again or on beef, on presenting a product that mimics a natural system but that wasn't done in nature. Lab-grown meats are maybe a good proxy for the discussion right now because lab-grown meats fall far short in terms of their nutrient component. They claim to have the same flesh and blood, so to

SPEAKER_00 32:37

speak. Yeah, I was going to say, everybody, like when you read the announcements or the headlines, it says we have exactly the same. It's the same from a nutrient perspective. What is your answer to when somebody says, yeah, but it's the same. Why wouldn't you choose that?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah. Well, first of all, there's much testing to be done to be able to make that claim. So it's easy to make a claim, right? It's much harder to refute the claim. The research is what's going to have to tell us the story. But if you think the logic through of, you know, an animal eats, an animal converts, an animal becomes, right? Try to mimic that in a Petri dish. Try to mimic that in a vat, right? What is the animal consuming? in a vat. Sugars, right? So I think that if we stop testing at protein, fat, moisture, and fiber, if that's all of the farther we go, that's not telling us really much of anything. Available protein, what is the amino acid profile, right? What is the fatty acid profile? What are the phytonutrients and secondary metabolites? Are there even any secondary metabolites, right? What is the metabolism that creates these products, how does that get mimicked in a fermentation tank? Those are things that have to be well understood. And so if people say, yeah, well, we have the same protein level in our lab-grown food as what you would find coming off the farm, that may be true, but it's an insignificant point.

UNKNOWN 34:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

It's an insignificant point because protein as a single measure is almost meaningless.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

So also there, the level of research needed, and that's something I think I still remember from having Anne and David on like a lot of the nutrient claims or even food claims we've done over the last decades, like maybe went like a few centimeters deep to stay in the soil analysis and never went a meter or two meters. And now we're discovering that the real interesting stuff are very small quantities, but much deeper, they're hidden within, but you absolutely need them not to survive because most of us fortunately and depends where you listen to this but are in a position to get enough food in to survive but to thrive we absolutely need those and we're only just starting to discover the other 1850 that we didn't really measure until now and we have no idea how to work together so yeah making that claim of it's the same as is very easy but not very easy to state or to really to build upon So we're going to have to do a lot of testing. I think it's going to be very interesting to see those early results and just unpack. But also it's going to be difficult to teach the general consumer that you have to look beyond protein and sugar levels or beyond two or three things. It's a lot more complex than that.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yeah, it's much more complex. And again, I don't want to deprive anybody of the choice that they want to make in terms of what they eat. I just want people to be as informed as possible about what it really is that they're consuming. And again, the natural systems produce an amazingly complex set of outcomes. And mimicking a natural system is not to be taken lightly. And you can do things in a controlled environment, like a vat, that can produce a mock-up of what a natural system creates. But to your point, you can't lay claim to having produced something that is exactly the same as a natural system. Do

Do you see a role for tech

SPEAKER_00 36:32

you see a role for that kind of tech or that kind of precision fermentation and a lot of the cellular stuff in the food system in general? Maybe not for the complex things like growing a steak in a vat, but something much more on the vegetable oil side or much more on simpler, quote unquote, because nothing of this is simple. Do you see a role of that high tech in the food and ag system?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

You know, here I have to try to be really careful not to be too opinionated. You know, I think technology always has a role to play. How technology is used and for what purpose sort of determines its efficacy, right? And we've been really, really focused on efficiency. And we've, I think, sacrificed resiliency as a result of that efficiency. And technology has enabled the efficiency. Technology has yet to prove itself to be able to enable resiliency. So I think that's where the baby is going to get split, is going to be along those lines of efficiency and resiliency. So technology continues to evolve. I have no basic qualm with technology as a component of the food system, but I would like to see technologies that are friendlier to the natural system because up until now, most of the technologies that have been deployed are either neutral to the natural system or against the natural system. And there are very few technologies that I can point to Matter of fact, I can't name one off the top of my head, right? That I would say have been designed with the idea of optimizing natural systems as part of their... as part of their mission. So if you want to create something in a lab and it has a price and a value, more importantly than price, if it has a value that can be measured in the same way in which we measure food coming out of a natural system, have at it. But You know, if I step back and look at this from a sociological perspective, one of the things that always concerns me is technology is controlled by somebody, right? And technology by its very nature is an intellectual property that is owned. And if you flipped a switch and we became the Jetsons, I don't know if you remember the Jetsons.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Vaguely,

SPEAKER_01 39:10

yeah. It's an old cartoon. They could punch a button on a screen and food would come out on a tray or something that they would consume would come out on a tray. Somebody owns that system, so you've disenfranchised the food production system. with that kind of technological quote-unquote advancement, right? And that concerns me. It's kind of where we are today with a lot of the genetics, right? The genetics are largely owned by a few companies who are also the same people who sell us the chemicals that are designed to work with those genetics. That's their package, right? And if, God forbid, if you should save their seeds and try to plant them next year, they'll come after you. They'll sue you, right? And so that's my concern about technology and the system, as I think the food system is a part of a natural system that we should all be able to own without it being intervened upon by whoever it is that owns the technology. And so the farther we go into the technological realm of food production, that worries me from a sociological standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

And we briefly touched upon it before and the whole hype. I'm basically turning this into what do you think about all the aspects of RegenEgg? Because it's always so good to check in with you. And the carbon hype, what are your feelings and thoughts there? Because you've been in this space for a while. That's why I'm asking these questions. And you have definitely shaped some interesting thoughts on many of those. Is it something like to talk about another sector, let's say within food and ag that got a lot of attention and interest interesting funding as well, to a certain extent, not as much as the plant based and cellular ag space for sure. But what about the carbon, the carbon focus, the soil carbon focus? Is that something that you're interested in or not? And if so, why?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Well, you know, I'll be dating myself here a little bit. I was engaged in sort of the first round of carbon soil sequestration back in the era of the Chicago Climate Exchange, right, in the mid and late 2000, 2005 to 2010, let's say, in that range. So I've been around this sector for a very long time. And I still see the same, many of the same discussions happening today that were happening back then. There's a question of a term that's It's called additionality, right? How do we prove that what somebody has done has made a carbon benefit that wouldn't have occurred naturally or it wasn't already occurring, right? So there's a measurement component. There's an additionality component. There's a permanence component, right? How do we know that carbon that is sequestered sticks around, right? So the carbon cycle is clearly an important component as is the nutrient cycle, as is the water cycle, right? These are all very, very critical natural system cycles. I would say the interest in carbon today is largely because we've partially figured out how to monetize the carbon cycle, right? Whether or not it's good science behind it, I think can be, is a question that needs to continue to be asked, right? Looking at it as a panacea for climate change solution, I think is a fool's errand. I think that it's a part of an answer to a very large, broad problem, but it's not in and of itself going to be, you know, the saving grace of the climate challenges that we are now facing. I think it's more important important, quite frankly, from a nutrient perspective, right? Because soil carbon, organic carbon as a component of a healthy soil microbiome is critical. So I'm more interested in part of that process in terms of creating more

SPEAKER_00 43:06

nutrient-rich foods. Not as much as the exact quantity and then create a credit to be sold.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Right. And I think, you know, to me, an inset idea around soil quality, carbon being one component, is a valid way to move, but we don't see very many companies willing to buy an inset idea as part of their supply chain. They'd rather buy credits because it's an offset.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

They'd rather buy the offsets and not do the hard work in their supply chain and buy the insets. Not do the

SPEAKER_01 43:40

hard work in the supply chain. So that also kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, right? If we are really serious about this, the food buyers, the ingredient buyers, right, would be folks on an inset system as opposed to an offset system. And they get more serious than they are. Although I'm not trying to minimize, there have been some investments made by some companies in a limited sense, and maybe they're just practicing on how to get better at this. So I don't mean to be entirely dismissive, but it is a very true general statement that there are very, very few programs, procurement programs that are insetting ecosystem services into their into their purchasing plans, right? And so it's, I don't know. I'm sure we'll get better at all of this, but right now I think we still have a long, long ways to go.

What would you do if you were in charge of a 1B investment portfolio

SPEAKER_00 44:35

And on the nutrient side or the nutrient density side, for sure I asked, but you were not involved in this specific work. I always like to ask the billion dollar question in this case, what would you do if you had to invest it? Of course, you are the chair of a foundation or an association and the board chair, sorry. And the investment piece is maybe a bit further, but you are an entrepreneur at heart. And so what would you do if you had to put money to work? A billion dollar is a lot of money. And at the same time, it's nothing. So what would you do? I'm not looking at dollar amounts exactly. I'm just looking at priority areas where would you, with an investor hat on, for the people at home, you cannot see Eric, but he's wearing a hat. Let's say that's an investor hat. What would you do if you had to, were forced to put a billion dollars to work with a return profile? Could be different returns, very long-term, et cetera, but at some point it would be nice if some of this came back.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

You always ask the tough questions, Ken. That's a difficult one. I'm so focused right now on research and then the frameworks in which that research gets quantified. So if you think about the area of true cost accounting, which is something that folks can study on their own time, but the concept is actually quite simple, even though the practice can be very challenging. The concept of making sure that the pluses, all the pluses and minuses associated with any production system are accounted for, right? So you give credit where credit is due. You propose a cost where a cost is appropriate. The numbers may not be exactly right, but at least directionally, you're getting something into an economic equation, which largely doesn't exist today. And so I think that that ultimately is where I would probably put a billion dollars, although I would struggle trying to figure out exactly how the return component of that would work.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Maybe partly lobby to create the market and then the rest follows investment. I don't know, I'm just speculating.

If you had a magic wand, what is the one thing you would change overnight?

SPEAKER_01 46:48

You could create a unique economic formula or set of formulas that would be all-encompassing. But how you sell that... in our current way of thinking about a return, it doesn't fit the model. The research doesn't fit the model because you're not trying to create intellectual property in research. In my opinion, public research, publicly funded research would be ideal. So it's not the domain of the investor. But I think those are two huge categories that need investment And I do not have a return profile that supports that from a VC perspective. So it's going to have to be foundational work, philanthropic family office work, government agency work, publicly funded stuff, and public-like funded work. programs to get to the bottom of those two things. I think that the true cost accounting is largely the elephant in the room because it addresses everything else that we've talked about, right? We're not valuing things that should be valued in our current economic equations. You can't find them on the balance sheet or in the income statement. You also can't find the costs on the balance sheet or the income statement of virtually any manufacturing or production system that I can think of, all those things are absent. So we keep talking in these platitudes, but yet we're stuck in this measuring framework that is very, very limiting in terms of creating true understanding. So that's If

SPEAKER_00 48:38

I had the answer to the other question, what would you do if you had the magic power, the magic wand question? If you could change one thing overnight, what would it be, Eric?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

True cost accounting. I would force all production systems into a true cost accounting, and it wouldn't be perfect. It's a continuous improvement project, right? The numbers we assign to certain things wouldn't be perfect, but at least they're numbers, because today all these things are zero, right? Water is worth nothing. Air is worth nothing. Soil is worth nothing, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Emissions are pretty close to nothing.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Emissions are worth nothing. Human health is worth nothing. I mean, the nutrient component of food is worth nothing. You can just keep on going, keep on going, whether it's an ecosystem outcome or whether it's a health outcome or whether it's an agriculture outcome. None of these things are in the equation. So my magic wand would be to convert the world to a true cost accounting system. and enable, through that system, enable us to at least have the conversations about what are the values that we put on these things, positive or negative. It's not all negative. There's some very valuable positive things that should also be in the equations. But let's complete the exercise of creating an economic system that actually shows the full economics. It doesn't stop short because it's convenient and it's easy to stop short.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

I think it's a perfect way to end this check-in, this conversation. I want to thank you so much, obviously, for not retiring and continuing the work you do and for taking the time here to share. I don't think it's the last time. We have regular people. If there's one thing about regular guests, they tend to become or they tend to stay regular guests, let's say. They keep coming back. So I'm hoping for that and obviously hoping for your insights, your work and the great work you do in this space. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Well, thank you for giving us all a platform to have these conversations. It's much appreciated.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Thanks again and see you next time.