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Open
Letter to the produce industry in North America
(A
version of this article appeared (July 2007) in a produce business
newspaper The Packer as an op-ed
piece)
An
earlier version (shorter) appeared as an Op-Ed in the
E.
coli and the future health of America
By
Jeff
D Leach
In
2006, Americans learned that a salad could be hazardous to your health.
The media flurry and the elected official posturing that followed the
September 14 outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 associated with spinach, is still
fresh on American minds and making daily headlines thanks in no small part
to the brisk recalls associated with tainted beef.
So
is our food supply less safe and are the growers, shippers and various
groups and agencies tasked with oversight not doing all they can to
protect the consumer from deadly microbes as some believe? While the media
and the public at-large lays blame at the doorstop of industry and
government, might the brunt of this burden be misplaced? Simply, are we so
involved in finger pointing, fences and hairnets that we don’t see the
forest for the trees? An evolutionary perspective on the problem suggests,
maybe.
Forgetting
for a moment that the latest deadly microbe on the scene originates in
cows, one needs to come to grips with the fact that the microbes have us
out numbered. When a handful of rich soil contains tens of millions of
tiny microbes, and that a single leaf of spinach may be covered in
millions more, you start to get a feel for the germ warfare we are up
against. Even worse, our so-called modern diet which is dominated by
highly-processed grains and added sugars and fats, is putting us at
significant disadvantage in the battlefield that is us.
But
evolution has equipped humans with an ingenious system for defending
against this daily microbial onslaught, most of which are harmless. Our
very own microbial foot soldiers, which set up shop in our guts the minute
we entered this world. There are so many microbes in the human body that
if you added up their total number of cells, they would out number our
human cells 9 to 1. In other words, we are more microbe than mammal.
The
vast majority of the trillions of bacteria that live in our gut, most of
which can be found in our large bowel and represent hundreds of species,
make it their evolutionary job to keep out the pathogens that seek to do
us harm. In this complex bacterial ecosystem, potentially pathogenic
bacteria (e.g., E. coli 0157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria) from the
“outside” world are typically suppressed by a mechanism called
colonization resistance. Since the human intestinal tract is a continuous
system from mouth to anus, anything present within our gut is technically
still outside our body. That said, a deadly strain of E. coli does very
little harm as it travels through our gut, it’s when it attempts to
attach to the wall of our intestinal tract that problems occur.
In
order for deadly pathogens to attach, they must compete for nutrients and
colonization sites under a steady fire of microbial substances being
hurled at them by our resident gut bugs. No doubt about it, this is germ
warfare 101 and our gut bugs want to win. If our microbial foot soldiers
are successful, then the pathogen cannot gain a foothold and consequently
are swept from the system. If they are not suppressed, we quickly become
aware of the lost battle from the all-to-familiar gut ache, cramping, and
diarrhea, or even worse, death.
This
germ warfare has been raging in the human gut for as long as humans have
been around. But recently, breath taking changes in our diet has put us at
a disadvantage. In order for our gut bugs to fight the good fight, they
need nutrients and a critical component of that nutrient base is dietary
fiber. By definition, dietary fiber is any part of a plant that cannot be
digested and absorbed in the small intestine and ends up in the large
bowel (colon). Once in the colon, dietary fiber is broken down and
utilized by our good bugs for their own growth. This means, dietary fiber
is not food for us but food for the trillions of bacteria that live in our
colons. If you feed them, the bacteria will do their evolutionary job and
make life a living hell for foreign pathogens.
Our
modern genome and the symbiotic relationship we developed with our gut
bugs was selected on a nutritional landscape very different from the one
we find ourselves today. Our not-so-distant ancestors consumed between 50,
75 and up to often greater than 100 grams a day of dietary fiber. The
average American today consumes between 12 to 15 grams. More importantly,
our gut bugs evolved on a diet that included an extraordinary variety of
fiber sources from hundreds of plants. Humans and our evolutionary
hitchhikers went from a large quantity and diversity of fibers, to a small
quantity and a limited diversity. We are literally starving our gut bugs
to the point that we have opened the pathogen door just enough for E. coli
0157:H7 and its band of pathogenic brothers to compete successfully for
nutrients and attachment sites. Not good.
The
decrease in quantity and diversity of nutrient sources (dietary fiber) has
created a nutritional tipping point in the germ warfare raging in the
American gut. While increased oversight, inspections, sampling and
stepping up good agricultural practices are important, there are simply
too many contamination variables from plough to plate. So rather than look
at the recent spike in outbreaks as a result of more pathogens in the food
supply and sloppy farming, might the problem have more to do with our own
dietary choices. That is, our breathtaking drop in the diversity and
quantity of dietary fiber might be the real problem – or at least part
of the problem. In other words, dare I say, there is some personal
responsibility the American public has in this germ warfare.
When
someone spends a lifetime smoking two packs a day, are they not aware that
if they succumb to lung cancer, that it’s in affect their own fault? So
where is the personal responsibility in our national discussion on
food-borne illness and the produce industry we seek to blame? Rather than
run from spinach, let us run to it.
As
the amount of dietary fiber in the American diet continues to decrease –
and probably even more so since last years outbreaks – and our ignorance
of the consumers responsibility in this germ warfare continues, we may be
seeing a perfect storm of our own creation – though unintended. The
litigious atmosphere surrounding this perfect storm has already
created the potential for a public that sees diarrhea
as a result of a nasty microbe as something akin to a winning lottery
ticket. And the situation is likely to get worse.
However,
the public’s current mistrust of the produce industry may be an
opportunity. Though tragic in its realization, the microscope the industry
is currently under may provide a platform to explore some positive steps
the industry might take in educating the public about how to increase
their natural resistance to food-borne pathogens by returning the quantity
and diversity of dietary fiber needed to support a healthy population of
gut bugs. By consuming more vegetables and fruits, the American public may
be able to add another weapon in our arsenal in our battle with food-borne
pathogens and importantly, own some of the responsibility in this germ
warfare. Currently, the consumer is totally unaware of the important role
they play in keeping themselves and their family members healthy.
The
produce industry does not need to wait until tomorrow to start this
process, but start today. On September 14, 2006 the produce stepped
through a door and there is no going back. It’s time to reposition
produce in the American conciseness. The antioxidant and other
micronutrient wagons the industry has hitched itself to in the past is
tired and the American public has been yawning at that message for years.
The American public needs a reason to eat more produce, something new,
something fresh. Significant gains may be realized if produce is
positioned more as fiber – that is, produce farmers are in fact fiber
farmers. This “Fiber Defense Diet” may in fact play a role in a much
need rallying call for produce in America and give consumers a very
important reason to increase intake.
Some
may suggest that the fiber defense argument for fighting food-borne
pathogens is too simple, and therefore could not possible make a
difference. And they may be right. However, the human immune system and
accompanying colonization resistance mechanism that is facilitated by our
own natural gut bugs, makes all external attempts such as fences,
increased inspections, and triple washing look like child’s play. Our
best defense has always been and will always be our natural resistance.
Not nurturing our gut bugs with the nutrients they need has consequences.
Continuing to ignore this basic tenant of human biology will only result
in an increasing number of our fellow citizens in the emergency room and
decreased sales at the farm gate.
Comments
welcome jeff@paleobioticslab.com
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