Food provenance and depressed young people

As the population of the world is expected to reach close to 10 billion by 2050, there’s a lot of pressure to produce more food. But at what cost to our health and environment? And is it OK for us to transition undemocratically into a Soylent Green type scenario (something that will be meaningless for those who haven’t seen the cult, post-apocalyptic movie from 1973)?

Being the start of a new year, we felt it appropriate to provide a piece that might trigger some increased awareness of where food comes from. If you’re already there yourself, you might find the piece useful to share with friends, relatives, workmates or your social groups. The bottom line is that with a lot more people buying sustainably produced foods from agro-ecologically-based food production systems, both human health and our disintegrating natural environment could be transformed – positively.

Our second piece takes a young person’s perspective on teen depression. That person is a highly valued member of our small, incredibly hard-working team. Charlie looks not just at the political and sociological landscape the youth of today have to navigate, but some of the impacts of our contemporary, technologically-fuelled culture.

In our weekly news round-up we report on a call to fund new research into aluminium in vaccines, the UK government call for reduced daily caloric intake, the proposed boom in the food/dietary supplement market and some recommended reading that provides a stark reminder of the dangers of government ‘healthy eating’ guidelines.

In health, naturally

Rob Verkerk, PhD

Founder, executive & scientific director