A keen gardener will only know too well the benefits of a healthy compost heap. A magical place where seemingly endless amounts of garden waste can be fed into to be broken down into the most nutrient dense soil. These are literally ‘hot’ beds of immense microbial activity where the decaying material is broken down to into new life giving compost.
This is an example of how microbes are our friends and as such should be celebrated for their amazing and astonishing feats that are vital for our health. This nourishing compost is inoculated by a rich ecology of microbes with enzymes, minerals and mycorrhiza that will give life to the plants that are subsequently grown from it and ultimately, feed us and or microbiome. The health of the soil directly impacts our own health. When thinking about the health of our vegetables, people often think about conditions such as light and temperature but the health of our soil is critical.
Networks of mycorrhiza are also fascinating with these delicate strands providing a symbiotic connection between plant roots and fungi essentially extending the reach in the soil to valuable nutrients and water and so exploiting a much larger area that the roots can access alone. Oh how we love the wonder that is mushrooms!
There are many growing methods to enhance the health of our vegetables, from crop rotation to ‘no dig’ gardening, and these methods are all with the intention of improving the quality of the soil. We then have ‘organic’ growing but to us this shouldn’t need a term as this is just the way that crops have been grown for centuries before the widespread use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Time and time again, when studies look at the nutrient density of organic versus non organic vegetables, the difference in various nutrients is often staggering with the ‘organic’ vegetables coming out with hugely elevated levels of vitamins and minerals in comparison to their non organic counterparts.
One study from Newcastle University[i] published in the British Journal of Nutrition, analysed 343 peer reviewed research papers looking at the nutritional benefit of organic grains, vegetables and fruits and concluded that organic vegetables provided much more antioxidants and polyphenols as well as lower levels of nitrates and cadmium. It is these polyphenols that are considered prebiotics and are critical for the health of our microbiome. The study suggested that moving to an organic diet would provide a whopping 20 to 40% increase in antioxidants and polyphenol consumption, which the authors concluded to be equivalent to an extra one to two servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Given that most of our food is not grown organically means that the health of our soils have been depleted from what they used to be which is why supplements have become a useful aid to bridge the ‘nutrient gap’ however, we must still consider our foods first.
So we know that eating foods from good soil with good microbes is essential for our health but we also have to take into account food miles as the longer a food is in storage or time spent travelling to get to us matters! Nutrient density of foods deteriorates with time, we therefore recommend eating more seasonally with foods that are available locally to us where possible. We also know that ‘organic’ certification is expensive but lots of farms across the UK are opting for this more traditional way of farming although not officially certified. The popularity of veg boxes from these farms is growing and we love it as a way to recommend that people can access the most nutrient dense foods in the absence of growing your own. However, if you do grow your own then we salute you and encourage you to take care of your soil as it will take care of you.
[i] Barański, M. et al. (2014) ‘Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: A systematic literature review and meta-analyses’, British Journal of Nutrition, 112(5), pp. 794–811. doi:10.1017/s0007114514001366.
