Dr Rupy: Dan, I really, I love the book. I've been going through it bit by bit. I just love the sections of it and it's made for people with short attention spans like me, you just dive into a particular topic and find out some interesting tidbits of information. It's brilliant. I really want to get into it, but I first want to talk a bit about your your background. You you just mentioned you came back from Sicily recently to to visit family, right? Tell tell us about your heritage.
Dan Saladino: Yeah, so my my dad comes from the southwest of Sicily and came over to the UK when he was very young. So he grew up in that post-war era where in which Sicily was extremely poor and there were very few options but to farm, which he he didn't want to do. So he left when he was about 15 or 16, ended up going through Germany, Switzerland and followed some of the older boys who'd settled in the southwest of England in Bristol. So when I was growing up, most of our family friends were from this same Sicilian town called Ribera. The hairdresser I went to, the restaurants we went to, the tailor we used to visit, everyone was from this this town. So when I was having my summer holidays from school, I would travel over, sometimes with family but mostly on my own because my parents were working. So I would have this insight into these two very different cultures, 1970s and 1980s Britain, but also this Mediterranean island, which was almost like walking back a hundred years as well because there were no supermarkets, everything was quite basic as well. But it was the first opportunity I had to walk onto a farm. And there was a completely different relationship with food as well. So we would sit around the table and my Italian wasn't great, so I would hear these elevated shouty voices and it turns out they were all engaged in this really intense conversation around food. And so it was also a period in which at a very young age, I understood that people could tell stories about food and have very strong opinions about food and that they were engaged and interested in the history of food and the quality of food as well. So that background, that heritage has been extremely important, which is why it also features as a story in the book as well. So there's a very particular ingredient of a vanilla orange, which is low acid, high sugar, quite a sweet, refreshing fruit. And it's just an illustration really of the diversity of flavours and foods on the island. So I wanted to include that and in that story, I also explain that influence the island had on me to start me off thinking about food in a completely different way.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I I mean, one of the things actually, I was going to get to this a little bit later, one of the many things I should say that I learned from the book was about how all citrus fruit has its origins in these three varieties, the citron, I believe, the mandarin, and there's another one that I forget, maybe the pomelo. And how all citrus has sort of like come down from there. But the description of of what you you just said there just really does remind me of some of the discussions I remember being privy to when I was a kid. My my dad comes from a farming background in northern India, Punjab. As you know, there's a rich sort of agricultural heritage there. And everything would be discussed from the weather changes, the drought, the seeds, the variety of different crops, the politics in between farmers, all that kind of stuff. It just and that was sort of like instilled in me in a very early age actually about the the storytelling around food, the politics around food.
Dan Saladino: Which most of us are now disconnected from.
Dr Rupy: Exactly, exactly. And I think if there's one sort of take home that I had even for myself is I'm so disconnected to food these days. I couldn't tell you any of these stories that that you've written about in the in the book.
Dan Saladino: And also that that citrus story does touch on one of the big themes, one of the biggest ideas really in the in the book. So as well as that origin story of the almost like the biology of citrus in that you've got these these big genetic groups that can then interact and create these hybrids and this infinite variation that that is possible around the world as they cross-pollinate and create huge amounts of variety. They also all originate from one part of the world, which is northeastern India, Myanmar, southwestern China. It was a it's a biodiversity hotspot. And thousands and thousands of years ago, there were indigenous people interacting with the wild fruits and these fruits made their way out through trade and and migration and then start to travel around the world. And what then happens is because of this ability to adapt, cross-pollinate and also mutate, we end up with huge amounts of diversity, which is why I mentioned this so-called vanilla orange, which is a mutation, so it loses a lot of the acidity. But what I the story I tell in the book really is the way in which we have used science and technology to take control of that diversity and to focus in on very, you know, a really small group of varieties of all kinds of food. And so we've bent nature to our will for productivity. So we've gone for the higher yielding fruits or the ones that are most convenient to transport. And so what I'm doing is I'm celebrating that diversity that existed in communities around the world and that people prized. So the vanilla orange, for example, that now only exists on farms where you get family farmers who want a collection of different plants and trees for their home table. As a as a as a commercial activity, it it doesn't work anymore. So they've got these little pockets of diversity in their farms. And if you go through South Asia, it's the same with rice. So farmers will be growing a commodity type of rice to take to the market, but they will still in some patches be growing a type of rice that their grandfather, grandparents or their great-grandparents used to grow because of what they believe to be better flavour, nutrition, because it's more resilient. They won't take it to the market, but that's for their table. And so the book is a celebration of that diversity that has been disappearing because of those commercial and agricultural pressures.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. I wonder if before we get into some chapters of the book and and some of the examples that you've you've laid out, maybe you can give us a bit of a brief history of how we got to growing food in the first place. I I love what some of the opening elements of the book where you basically give a very brief history of of food. You know, 13 billion years ago, we've had the creation of the universe, four billion years ago, you know, we have this fiery volcano-ridden earth. How do we get from from there to to growing different types of grain, fruit and cultivating it which led to the the increase in populations around the world?
Dan Saladino: Yeah, yeah, because there are there are many different time scales that I try and introduce in the book. And I the section that you mentioned is one in which I'm trying to just get people to start to think about and and appreciate really the mind-blowing inheritance really that does span back billions of years of biodiversity, or as some people might refer to it, agrobiodiversity, agricultural biological diversity. So, and I you know, I I I I make reference to the Cambrian explosion hundreds of millions of years ago when the ancestors of most life on earth start to appear. And then the arrival of grasses as well, wild grasses, just a you know, a few tens of millions of years ago. And and and then the crucial periods in human evolution. So the idea that, you know, whether if you take two million years ago and the fact that we start to, you know, our ancestors in their different forms start to walk on two legs and the way we interact with nature in a completely different way. And that that then becomes important in terms of our, you know, the way we forage and hunt. And I I the very first story in the book, and there is a chronology that does thread through the book of our our evolution and our relationship with nature. So the very first story is me spending some time with the Hadza in Tanzania, some of the last hunter gatherers in Africa. And and again, it's almost like the starting point because that lifestyle which they have held on to, or at least 200 members of this tribe in in Eastern Tanzania, near Lake Eyasi, is the is the oldest, longest and most successful human lifestyle to date. So, you know, the idea that we we only started farming, you know, we became agriculturalists 10, 12,000 years ago. Well, you know, that that follows on from hundreds of thousands of of years as homo sapiens, as hunter gatherers. And so I tell that story of the skills and the knowledge that the hunter gatherers in Tanzania still have, which which would have been the dominant human story. And then, yeah, 12,000 years ago in the fertile crescent, which is southeastern Turkey into Iran, Iraq, Syria, that part of the world, you you get hunter gatherers who are interacting more purposefully with these wild grasses, consciously and unconsciously selecting ones that are producing more food, more consistent, reliable food as well, which is how we then end up with domesticated varieties of wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, the so-called Neolithic package. And that really is a turning point because that then results in settled communities, food that can be stored, completely changes diets and also human civilization. So the very first cities emerge from those origins in the fertile crescent as well. And then what we see is these these these populations spreading out around the world and these practices so that farming really starts to take off and hunting and gathering disappears. And where it was wheat and that those other ingredients from the Neolithic package in the fertile crescent, in Southern Mexico, we have maize and maize culture, in in China, the domestication of rice as well, all from these wild grasses, but they are the ones that provide the energy and the storable carbohydrate that then goes on to change life and human human societies as we know it. So, yeah, I think the history is really important because it does explain really our evolutionary history in terms of the amount of plants those hunter gatherers would have been feeding from, the huge amount of diversity that they would have been exposed to through the seasons, and also the way in which those plants as they've been domesticated and then spread around the world adapt to different cultural preferences and also environmental factors as well. So we end up with huge amounts of diversity of the same kind of food, wheat as it travels around the world becomes hundreds of thousands of different things because it does adapt to different soils, access to water and so on. And that's why I wanted to tell that story. It's we all need to know that history.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think it's it's such an important anchor for a lot of people learning about food and the production of food and farming in general. A quick question about those different grasses. Would the dominance of corn, the dominance of rice and all the all the different plant varieties have occurred simultaneously as the wheat dominance in places like what we call now the Middle East, but the Levantine area, Jordan, Syria, all those sort of areas around that part of the world. Would that be in concurrent or would it be step changes afterwards, like a little bit further as as humans um migrated?
Dan Saladino: It's pretty much concurrent. So, um, archaeobotanists are still doing a lot of work and making discoveries um about uh, you know, early forms of farming. Um, but because of um, mostly we think climatic reasons around the world, these different populations in different parts of the world end up interacting with the grasses in this new new way. So the the earliest evidence of farming can be found in the fertile crescent. Maize and rice evidence appears later, but not we're not talking huge amounts of of gaps in time. So a few thousand years, but obviously in the big picture, I mean it's pretty all it's close together really in in in human history and one, you know, main explanation of that is because there were these climatic factors which meant that that lifestyle, that practice, that source of food was becoming more important to those small groups that inhabited those parts of the world.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And and just to zoom into the Hadza community, which is obviously quite well studied, you know, it's it's very attractive for researchers trying to sort of um figure out what the the ideal microbiota is and and what our diets have have been initially shaped on. Um, what what does a hunter gatherer diet look like in terms of the general macronutrient proportions and the predominance of meat? Because you've got a lot of diets like the paleo diet, the ones that comes to mind and the low carb diets that are sort of based on this idea that this is how we should have eaten. And I think there is a popular sort of perspective that it's actually quite heavy in meat rather than other plants. What what does a diet that we've evolved and adapted towards actually actually look like from from what you've seen?
Dan Saladino: Well, I'd sum it up by saying it's diversity because if you're actually, I mean, I didn't spend, I mean, there are anthropologists who spend years with the the Hadza. Um, but obviously I did a lot of research and I was there and I and I observed some of the practices. And I and um there's a figure that's presented which is around 800 different plant and animal species as their potential menu. Potential menu is really important because I think in most Hadza diets, they won't get anywhere near that, but that's that's out there for them. And obviously that changes through the year as well as the as the rains come and or there's the dry seasons. And there is also reflected in the amount of meat in the diet. So what what we need to get out of our minds is this idea that they are, you know, going through the savannah hunting and just predominantly eating a a diet of of wild meat. The reality is, um, they will um eat what is available at any particular time of the year. And that might result in, for example, uh, particularly during the seasons in which the animals congregate around the water holes and that they know the animal movements are more predictable, um, they will get more meat and they will feast on that meat and they will share that meat. That's the other thing about, you know, meat is prized. Meat is valuable. It's not just something that is is abundant all the time. And they will mostly eat the offal during uh and shortly after, I mean shortly after the hunt as well, that would be the first thing that they eat because obviously it's very difficult to preserve, but also that that is prized as well and they will share most of what's left over um in terms of the rest of the carcass. Then when honey is abundant, they will go and um find honey and they will gorge on honey. They will probably eat more honey than you or I are probably capable of of consuming and then they might not eat for three days. And then they might stay at camp and they will then become dependent on women who are going out finding tubers. So there is it, you know, in terms of the peaks and troughs of of eating, it's not as if they have breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's the other thing we need to understand. It's just a huge amount of diversity in quantity, availability and and food types as well. And um, yeah, I I I I found that fascinating and then you'll be with them as they're as they're walking through the savannah and they will just stop and gather and then just pick a few berries and then just sit around and and you know, talk for a few hours and then maybe if they're lucky enough, they will go out and you know, um, find a trail and and you know, hunt an animal. Um, but yeah, I mean it's they uh, I think one of the things that I I mentioned this quote in the book from Jack Harlan, who was a a botanist saying, why you know, just pondering on this question of why did we give that lifestyle up? Because um, there are many pitfalls of being a hunter gatherer, but actually the amount of leisure time and the intense labor involved in agriculture are very different things. And you can again, if you don't, you know, if if you're not eating for a few days, huge amounts of food, picking berries, feeding on a few available tubers, you can get away with doing very little, you know, work and just socializing a lot. So, um, and then obviously the huge amounts of energy you'd get from a find of honey, which also includes larvae and crunchy bee stuck in the, you know, it's high energy, high protein. And you'd gorge on that and that might last you for a quite a a good period of time. And then all around them are these baobabs as well, which they would just crunch these these kind of they're like the small size of size of small coconuts, crunch them open with their foot and inside you've got this flesh which is it's like tasting a vitamin C tablet. And again, lots of fiber, um energy and uh, you know, nutrients in there as well. So, yeah, it's fascinating. And actually, I think it it does make you think about how adaptable we are and how our habit of these three meals a day and expecting that we, you know, saying that we should be eating 2,000 calories or plus or whatever, they just spell all of that completely by these again, this this um these changes from day to day, week to week, month to month.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think I remember that quote in the book actually, uh, about how the the hunter gatherers they they play as much music, they're they're just as talkable, they're just as sort of, you know, creative, but they just work less hard than than your than your farmer.
Dan Saladino: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, to you know, to tend to and and actually that's playing out in real time. So again, this this did play out 10, 12,000 years ago, um, or over thousands of years ago. And and um, part of the story of the Hadza is that the that world is encroaching on their wilderness. And there are farmers who are struggling with climate extremes on the periphery of so-called Hadza land who are coming in with their cattle and trying to plant maize in places where it's not really suitable. But it it's almost as if these two worlds are colliding now and um, and and what you, you know, the Hadza are bemused thinking, why is it you would have to, you know, work this field hour after hour, day after day and the risk of whether you will get a harvest when again, they have this abundance or they have had this abundance around them.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. It sounds like they live quite an intuitive lifestyle where they just sit down, they eat, they go on a trail, it's sort of like they're go they're being guided by uh their senses and sort of the environment around them, which is which is very very novel in compared to how we're living our lives today.
Dan Saladino: And millions of years of evolution and skills and knowledge passed on from generation to generation to the point where, you know, a Hadza child of three or five will know much more than we we will about how to survive and and you know, about wild animal behavior, about different plants, species. Um, they are experts in biodiversity. And I don't want to, you know, present it as some kind of idyllic lifestyle. They don't have access to health care. Um, you know, if you fall fall off a tree as you're hunting for honey, um, the risk of in serious injury and death is very high. Um, but what they don't suffer from is food-related illnesses, diseases. Um, you know, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and so on. Um, so this is why I'm saying we need to think like a Hadza. We will never be able to live that lifestyle or perhaps we wouldn't even want to. And yet that idea of being aware of what's around us and the ecosystem and that level of diversity that should be part of diets is is something that we can take from their, um, I guess the fact that they've retained that human experience that most parts of the world have lost.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And something that you mentioned there about the variety of uh species and and edible plants that surround these communities are in the, you know, 7, 800s. And I know there are thousands of species that we can potentially eat. But some of the um, some of the stats that you quoted in the book were pretty alarming in terms of the dominance of just a few types of foods that are in our diet. And a lot of people will think, you know, we have a diverse diet, we, you know, we we have an abundance of variety of drinks and and foods that we can consume. But in reality, it's just a few species. I wonder if you could talk to that a bit because that that for me was was pretty stark.
Dan Saladino: Yeah, I mean, you will hear various figures hovering around 6 to 7,000 identified plant species, um, from the likes of the UN food and agriculture organization that in human history have fed populations. And I I think the story I tell in the book really is the succession of um availability of of technology and increasing scientific knowledge which um I qualify here by saying it's been quite reductionist because what what that enabled us to do was to focus in on those plants, the small number of plants that could become um highly successful because of the levels of productivity, the amount of calories that they could produce and that they could be stored and transported around the world, which is why from 6, 7,000, we end up with around 9, 12 that feed most of the world, of which three provide, you know, the world with more than 50% of its calories and that's wheat, rice, maize, aka corn. So, um, again, in the 20th century because plant breeding science, the understanding of genetics really came to the fore, um, through plant breeding, we were able to focus in on those crops and improve them in inverted commas to the point where they were becoming, you know, increasingly high yielding, um, some of them could have disease resistance as well. And what you then get because of the artificial inputs as well, so the um, fertilizers that can be produced from fossil fuels, uh, pesticides, herbicides, that kind of thing, you can take the same plant variety, genetically identical pretty much, and take it to many other parts of the world and plant it there and displace all of that um, uh, diversity that existed because it had adapted to those conditions in the absence of those inputs and that science and technology. And look at where we are in the 21st century. So we have a, you know, huge amounts of calories. The world has enough calories. What we don't have is enough micronutrients, for example, um, you know, we there are obviously problems of distribution, which means some people are going hungry, but we've cracked the problem of producing calories, but as our as our understanding of nutrition and health, um, and the impact of farming on the environment increases, we're, you know, it that's why I say it's reductionist. It it was a short-term fix based on simple science, huge amounts of inputs, fossil fuels and irrigation, fresh water usage that delivered this big, big push of calories from a small number of selected plants. And I argue in the book, we need to go back in terms of that story and use the very latest science and technology to embrace a lot of that diversity that did exist, that had been kept and retained by farmers around the world of those plants that were adapted to all kinds of different conditions, some of which we now need because, you know, drought resistance, for example, resistance to pests and diseases. And and and bring it back, bring it back for our health and bring it back for the planet's health.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, there isn't uh a a plant that I think tells the story of what you've just described there better than the soybean because it seems as if it's gone through that whole trajectory of what you've just described. You know, you've got this fantastic uh crop. Uh it's it's, you know, turned into tofu thousands of years ago. Uh it's heritage is incredible, you know, it's it's a it's a beautiful product from the point of view of the composition, its micronutrients. And then it's taken over to the states and a whole bunch of other things are are sort of um are done to it and then it's become this this this uh sort of poster uh child for for a product that, you know, well, this is what not what we should be doing with ingredients. I I wonder if you could tell us that story of the the Ohigu soy of Okinawa because I think that that really hit home for me.
Dan Saladino: Yeah, so I traveled to Okinawa, um, you know, a two-hour flight south of Japan, um, in the Pacific. And I was there to visit what probably is the smallest soy plot of soy in the world. So you imagine, you know, all those vast um, hectares of uh, you know, miles and miles of soy in in Brazil and the Sahado and and and Argentina. Um, this was a tiny, tiny plot because what what um, Okinawa had was um, an adapted type of soybean, um, and one of the properties was that it was quite fast growing. So they would plant it and it would produce um, the um, the bean, um, ahead of the arrival of the um, the rainy season and the insects that would kill the plants. So that again, that's just an example of adaptation really of the farmers interacting with nature to to identify something that was perfectly suited to producing food in a specific place. Um, lots of factors unfold in terms of the importance of that of that food. But I mean as you say, one of the key things is tofu. So the uh, the plant itself and some of the techniques for converting the bean into this amazing silky protein originates in China thousands of thousands of years ago. Um, and um, not only did the Okinawans have their own distinctive type of soy, they also had their own cooking style for tofu, um, which they call island tofu. Both end up going extinct in the 20th century, pretty much, because of um, first domination by Japan. Okinawa was its own kingdom for for a very long time. Uh, and then started to grow things that the Japanese state was instructing them to grow. And then in after the Second World War, they were occupied, they had the biggest American military bases in the world. And again, their farming system becomes distorted by what the um, American influence on the island was. And this is when early in the 20th century, you had these amazing plant explorers from the states working for the USDA, traveling across Asia, trying to find um, valuable seeds that could actually become part of the um, US um, agricultural economy. And so they come back with thousands of varieties of soy, they select a handful, and then they start to have a soy boom in in the US. Um, which is used for protein, it's used for the oil, but also they were doing all kinds of incredible things with um, the bean as well, extracting from it for the um, paint industry, solvents, all kinds of things. So this was a massive breakthrough in terms of industry, food industry and otherwise. And so you end up with the point at this expansion of a small genetic selection in the states and um, in the 20th century, US becomes number one exporter of soy bizarrely really, back into Asia where the bean originated. So China today, Japan today, hugely dependent on soy from the Americas. And I'm mentioning the Americas more generally now because from the US, it also expanded into Brazil and elsewhere, which is a fascinating story in its own right. But what what also happens is the soybean loses the value as an ingredient in tofu and becomes what the, you know, one of the world's most important sources of animal feed because of extraordinary, its extraordinary high protein levels. And and that's what really helped the um, the protein boom in the second half of the 20th century in terms of um, beef production, even aquaculture towards the um, uh, the latter stages of the 20th century as well. This this single bean which had been a, you know, such an important ingredient in vegetarian diets becomes the number one driver um, of of meat production and uh, fish, you know, farmed fish farming.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And in terms of, actually on that point, uh, those fragilities associated with lack of diversity extend to uh, not just other plants, but also uh, animal livestock as well. And I was I was pretty horrified to to find out that there are so few varieties of things like chicken and uh, cattle uh, for for for milk. And if you just think about in the context of the current pandemic, you know, if there is a singular virus or bacterium that's going to affect uh, a a type of um, of species, then, you know, there there is inherent vulnerability in that. Um, and also the ownership as well of those varieties as well by by corporations. I wonder if you could you could speak to us a bit about those.
Dan Saladino: Yeah. Well, it's it's a parallel process really with with the with the um disappearance of diversity in in crops and plants. Um, and so we end up with actually from the 18th century, um, uh, breeding of livestock, uh, and a desire to have, you know, faster growing, more efficient feed conversion, um, different traits, you know, more wool, thicker hides, you know, more muscle, for example. Um, and so that that trajectory carries on into the 20th century. And when when it becomes possible with more science to select um, you know, even um, the the focusing on these traits, we end up with in the American dairy herd, for example, 95% of the um, of the animals are one breed, Holstein Friesians. You know, there are hundreds of different types of of um, cattle breeds, uh, but because of the amount of milk that that can produce, the Holstein Friesian, um, which brings problems. You know, again, you know, disease can spread through the herd more quickly. Um, you ramp up the product productivity of an animal to the point where it becomes disease prone. In poultry, um, there was a competition in the um, after the Second World War in America, the chicken of tomorrow. So again, hundreds and hundreds of different um, poultry uh, types of chicken. This competition to try and find the fastest growing, um, meatiest bird results in two or three genetic lines which produce the modern day poultry industry, which is owned by now just two companies. So again, this uniformity spreads around the world in crops and it also spreads around the world in terms of livestock animals. And that's why avian flu, um, the African swine fever which hit which which almost killed off half the global pig population, um, by 2018. Um, you know, a lot of scientists are concerned that genetic uniformity is um, something that we've lost that could have slowed down or prevented a lot of the spread of those diseases, even if it's just the case that the types of breeds we've created enable intensive production. So, you know, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of animals in one location because of the genetics of the of the animal enable them to live in close proximity for short periods of of time because they can they can, you know, be grown so quickly. Um, so it might not be directly to do with the genetic uniformity, but the genetic uniformity enables the conditions to be created in which disease can spread.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And this um, this uniformity extends to uh, sea life as well. I I I remember reading about um, salmon and it being a special kind of fish. I mean, it's it's pretty ubiquitous. I can go to, you know, the local Tesco or Sainsbury's now, I can pick up smoked salmon, I can pick up fresh salmon, all the different fillets. But you argue that it's uh, unlikely that we'll ever get to see, let alone taste proper wild salmon. Is that is that right?
Dan Saladino: Yeah, well, when I was growing up, I mean, what salmon of all kinds, I mean it was an extremely rare um, source of food. Um, but in the um, and and across the river systems of the North Atlantic, thousands of different rivers would be um, genetic diversity. So each salmon would leave its river, um, change its body to become sea going, feed in the North Atlantic for a couple of years and then return to its place of birth to spawn. And again, huge amount of genetic diversity. What happens in the 60s and 70s is Norwegian scientists select from a small number of rivers to create a new type of salmon, one that can actually be confined in pens and, you know, high feed conversion, um, grow quickly and that produced the salmon industry uh, today in which you have hundreds of thousands of um, fish swimming around in circles producing the the salmon that you see in the supermarkets. Um, and that that in a sense, the domestication of of livestock and of animals that happened during the Neolithic period. And in a sense, what we're seeing in the six, what we saw in the 60s and 70s is a modern day version of that of a selection process and the domestication of a wild fish into a farmed one. And it could be that um, that's also contributing to the really scary decline in the um, wild Atlantic salmon population. So we now realize that uh, they're leaving the rivers, but they're not coming back to spawn. And in some river systems, it's likely they will become extinct. And and it's now illegal to fish them in most river systems and out at sea because they are now on the brink. Um, but it could be that the farmed salmon are adding to the problems and the pressures on the wild population. So lice, for example, build up in the pens on the west coast of Scotland or around Norway and can find their way into the wild population and weaken the wild population. And likewise, there are many escapes from pens and so that that particular the genetics of the farmed salmon, which isn't suited to an existence in the wild, um, when when these pens break and thousands of fish escape, it could be that their genetics also find their way into some of the wild salmon populations and weaken them as well. So that combined with, you know, climate change, changing the way in which um, you know, acidification of the oceans, um, the the feed for the wild salmon is changing as well as fish populations move towards warmer or colder waters. So, um, it's almost as if the um, the wild salmon is the, you know, it's it's the most important character really to understand what's happening um, to this this diversity on land and at sea because it captures what's happening uh, in terms of the way we've changed rivers, we've polluted, we've created dams, we've overfished out at sea, we've created these domesticated animals that could be weakening the um, genetics as well. So in one fish, you can tell this big story of how humans have changed so much of the planet in a relatively short space of time.
Dr Rupy: I mean, listening to all these different stories and reading about them in the book as well, it just feels that we are at the point of no return and it's going to be near impossible to unravel decades of commercial agricultural techniques. And if there's anything that even during the pandemic that has taught us, you know, is is that politics, governments are tied by the economic uh reasons to to to make any changes. And it and it seems that, you know, bringing us backwards almost, not backwards in terms of the the environmental sense, but certainly backwards in terms of an economic output sense is going to be a hard pill to swallow and almost impossible, I would say. What what are your thoughts on actually changing practices that lead to more diversity, reduces reliance on monoculture? Is this actually feasible?
Dan Saladino: Well, I do, I am hopeful and I think there's a lot of optimism threading through the book because of the numbers of people I profile who are making a difference and saving a lot of the um, the foods from extinction. Um, so if you and also there's the argument that if if the Green Revolution happened in the 60s and 70s and Borlaug could be awarded a Nobel Prize for completely changing the farming system then, um, you know, we can change it, we can we can change it again. And we have more reasons now to do so and more tools in the toolkit to do so as well in terms of our what we now understand to be the importance of biodiversity, diverse diets and and so on. Um, it's not easy and there are huge amounts of economic interests uh involved in sustaining the the current system. But I I do think the conversation just in the last decade has changed so much about uh, you know, the word biodiversity. Go back 10 years, it wasn't something that most people had come across outside of a, you know, a kind of a scientific community. And I think the same is is is becoming the case um in conversations around food and farming that diversity does matter, resilience does matter, uniformity, homogeneity is a is a problem. Um, the you know, the emerging science of the of the gut microbiome. Um, there are so much evidence building up that the um, that we need another paradigm shift really in the way we think about food and and and farming. So all the reasons are there. How how that happens, uh, I'm not sure. I mean, we we're seeing so much turbulence globally at the moment, particularly in in food production, what with Ukraine coming out of COVID, the you know, the the disruption of COVID and the and the economic recovery following on from that, food prices, you know, energy instability, you know, in a sense, in a sense, that could accelerate the transition towards introducing more diversity, becoming less dependent on a small number of regions around the world for most of our food because of what we've learned about Ukraine, Russia, the Black Sea region. Um, you know, when as I mentioned before, when things are working well, fine, you know, and you know, huge amounts of abundance can be produced. When things break in that system, it's disastrous. And which is why we've seen so many concerns expressed from the likes of the World Food Program about people, you know, in parts of the world, um, experiencing famine because of how integrated this whole system has become. So, uh, and and obviously, you know, climate change, um, frosts in Brazil recently impacting on coffee harvests, um, drought in across drought across Europe, record-breaking temperatures in India. Um, you know, this idea that we can plant wheat everywhere of the same kind and and and kind of create conditions where we can override these climate extremes is is unrealistic, which is why actually next year, um, after the lobbying from the Indian government, 2023 will be the UN year of millets. Millets were a really important crop in India pre-Green Revolution, tiny, tiny grains, huge amounts of genetic diversity. Um, when it comes to water usage, uh, you know, impact on soil, uh, you know, nutrition, it's win-win-win. Um, but what happened is that huge amounts of millets disappeared from India and were replaced by the expansion of rice cultivation, Green Revolution rice and the Green Revolution wheat as well. Recognition now by the Indian government that millets, a more traditional crop that disappeared with the backing of the UN, I think that's really significant that it's saying this diversity matters, these traditional foods are part of the future.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And as a consumer, what can we do? I mean, there is a a predominant sort of uh message out there that I think is it's becoming more pervasive that just go vegan or just go 100% plant-based and you'll fix the world's problems, which I personally think is a quite simplistic view of of the world. What what are tangible things that us as consumers can do on a day-to-day basis when it comes to choosing our food or uh lobbying governments, uh electing officials, like what what what can we do today to to to improve the environment that our children will inherit?
Dan Saladino: Well, firstly, know the story. So as I mentioned at the beginning, I think all of this matters, knowing the history, knowing, understanding why diversity matters. I'm not just saying buy the book, you know, but I'm saying find a way of understanding this story. You know, because it it really does matter. It will inform how you see the world and your understanding of food. Um, in the words of slow food, uh, become a co-producer. You know, try and get as close as you can to the source of your food. I mentioned a story in the there's a story in the book, um, a rice farmer I visit, um, near Chengdu in southwestern China, um, who is saving this rare variety of nutritious rice, um, in the middle of nowhere and I'm I'm this guy in his 70s and I'm thinking, how on earth is he making any money? How is he getting his rice to market? Takes out his phone, you know, and he shows me this app, WeChat, you know, it's a bit like eBay, a bit like, you know, we, um, well, you know, it's a bit like Amazon or whatever. And he's selling his rice to people in Beijing and and other cities. Technology is actually enabling us as consumers to engage with primary producers, farmers or whatever, and we can support them and and help save this diversity directly. Um, and we have the most selfish of reasons to do so because again, you know, this idea of the gut microbiome, think about the Hadza, the amount of diversity in human evolution, the evidence does point to the fact that the more diverse your diet is, the greater the diversity in your gut microbiome, the more beneficial that is thought to be for your physical and mental health. Um, and Professor Tim Spector, who also like me is who, you know, spent time with the Hadza and and looked at their um, uh, you know, the impact of their diets on their gut microbiomes. Um, his data is showing that people who had um, fewer complications with COVID had greater diversity of of plants in their diet. Um, but it and and I don't think it is about um, going plant-based or vegan. I think it's having that more holistic approach to food because um, my own view is that um, livestock have played an incredibly important role in farming and shaping landscapes for thousands of years, in terms of a fertility cycle. We shouldn't be eating huge amounts of meat, but actually part of that mixed farming system is incredibly important to the planet and and to us if done in the right way, whereas I think a lot of the new science to create another generation of of um, protein foods, um, you know, kind of the the the meat substitutes, um, I'm not convinced that um, the complexity of nutrients, micronutrients in the plants and the meats that we have been eating for thousands of years can be replicated. I just don't think we are, it's far too complex for us actually us to fully understand and replicate in in a in a food production process.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Dan, as as part of that sort of drive to educate more of us on the realities, I think your your book is definitely something I would 100% promote and advise everyone to get. I've got a couple of ideas for you to uh uh to sort of spread this message. So, uh, first of all, uh, I hope you've already thought about it. You might have already been in the in the and and throws of it, but have you thought about making this into a a Netflix documentary?
Dan Saladino: I have and I've and somebody's somebody's, I mean I approached me, um, and and said likewise, I mean, I think with these things, um, I know the, you know, the the rate of um, pickup is is is extremely um, rare for these things to happen. I I do think, I mean it's a book, I come from a radio background. Visually, I just think it's such a powerful story and I do hope somebody out there uh, ends up making it because it's such an important story to tell of this global diversity. So I'm completely with you on that one. And if you have any way of making it happen, I'd be very happy to to discuss it with you.
Dr Rupy: 100%. Yeah, yeah. No, I I think this is like just ripe for a documentary, you know, on the same sort of magnitude as um, as Michael Pollan's done in the past. I know, um, uh, I forget his name now. He's uh, he's on the BBC quite a bit. He's done a couple of books on fasting diets and all that. Michael Mosley, yeah. So he's done some interesting documentaries as well on the BBC. But I just see it because you've you've it's almost like you've written the script for a documentary already in the way you've structured the book. You know, you've done cereal, you've done wild food, you've done and I just imagine like the um, it would be so fun to make to visit all these different tribes, visit different scientists, botanists, the uh, the seed bank in the middle of like uh, the north uh, is it the the Arctic circle? Is that where it is?
Dan Saladino: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the Arctic circle. Svalbard, yeah, exactly.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. No, I think visually these these are gifts really. Yeah. So yeah, I mean just spread the word and let's see if we can get some um, producers in uh, somewhere in the world to to pick this up and make it happen.
Dr Rupy: I'll uh, tell Netflix this has to happen.
Dan Saladino: For sure. Yeah. No, I definitely see that.
Dr Rupy: Now tell, I'll tell Netflix. I'll tell Netflix. If anyone knows anyone from Netflix, you need to make this show. And the other thing is, I reckon, um, this is a uh, small to medium-sized business idea, right? So, hear me out. Uh, what I would do is collect uh, a selection of all these different foods. Uh, people can buy them uh, online, like a little Amazon shop for all these different rare foods of the world. Part of the profits of that sale goes into uh, cultivating and help propagate the particular crops as well as the local farmers. I would pay a premium to have a selection, like almost like a little hamper of all these different foods from around the world in the knowledge that A, this is helping my health in terms of increasing diversity, and B, it's also having a positive impact on the environment. I think that would work. I think that would be awesome. I reckon Fortnum & Mason should do that as well. Look, they're they're it's their book of the year, so, yeah.
Dan Saladino: I agree. Yeah. Well, I want to I want to see you I want to see you go on Dragon's Den and pitch this.
Dr Rupy: We'll see. This is your, this is your book. This is uh, this is your business to to to take to market. But no, I I think it's brilliant, honestly.
Dan Saladino: I'm I'm I'm too busy making I'm too busy making radio programs.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. No, that's epic. Um, and uh, just to give us a tease, this isn't going to come out until after Sunday, but you you're making a program at the moment on the cost of living crisis. I wonder if you can give a a few sort of insights into that and uh, and what that show is going to be about.
Dan Saladino: Yeah, so I'm uh, trying to get across what this means for people on extremely low incomes and, you know, and looking at some of the solutions. So the program hears from people who are um, getting together. Uh, the scene is a is a pub in in Liverpool and they're learning how to cook with um, slow cookers, uh, which again, you know, it's about cooking skills, but also keeping their energy bills down. Um, and I also start to try and unpick some of the pressures in the supply chain. So I do look at why wheat has gone up. It's starting to come down in terms of price. Um, I'm hearing also stories of um, people who who monitor the retail business as well about some of the strains and the pressures. So it's it's looking at the causes and the consequences and a bit of the human story of um, yeah, at the moment, 12% inflation, but it's likely to go up in when it comes to food prices. It is pretty scary. Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Well, you and the whole food program team do such an incredible job. Um, I I regularly point to it in my my newsletter weekly about programs that I've been listening to and stuff. So, thank you so much for that service and uh, I wish you the best with the book and uh, yeah, I will definitely keep an eye out for any producers and make sure that I thrust this into their inboxes as well. But I appreciate your time, Dan. Thank you so much.
Dan Saladino: Wonderful.
