Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between the soil and us. In our sterile, modern world, soil is basically dirt. We don't welcome it into our homes, and even when we do, we like to confine it in cute little pots. Yet no matter how far we try to distance ourselves from soil, 99% of our calorie intake continues to trace back to it. Like it or not, soil health equals to human health.

I remember being so shocked when I first heard about the impact's of soil depletion on food nutrition. Specifically, the fact that we need to eat 8 oranges today to get the amount of vitamin A our grandmas would've gotten from one. It seems obvious that soil pollution would lead to health hazards, but I never previously thought that even the good substances we get from our food would be reduced in quantity. In mainstream reductionism, a carrot is a carrot, and a gram of protein is a gram of protein. But that's simply not how anything works.

This is yet another example of how we are inextricably tied to our planet's wellbeing. We could try to live in pods, yet ultimately our food comes from our soil, and if our soil is depleted, our food would also be depleted.

Here are a few links to read more into:

• UNFAO, resource on healthy soil and food production: http://www.fao.org/3/i4405e/i4405e.pdf
• "Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
• https://soilhealthacademy.org/blog/soil-food-and-the-elephant-in-the-room/