I can’t believe I keep having to explain how headlines like this are absolutely bonkers.

And how, even if they weren’t, growing your own is not a fix. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… 1) ‘Half as nutritious’

Which nutrients? All of them?

Nope, the paper only cites a halving for stuff like Sodium.

As an example, just seasoning your food would cause a x100 increase.

This is doing the rounds…

A reminder that the entire concept of ‘food miles’ is based on the idea that transport is a handy rule of thumb for estimating carbon emissions & thus sustainability.

Despite the fact that on average just 6% of food CO2 emissions come from transport. Now, I think the point of this meme is to point out that assuming a vegan diet is more sustainable than an omnivorous one is over simplistic.

And this indeed is very true. But it’s not really logical to try and refute this with something equally as simplistic and misleading.

I know I write for the guardian, and all.

But their science reporting really needs to take itself more seriously than just recycling activists’ press releases as truth, with very very little critical analysis.

theguardian.com/environment/20… How small are these traces? What are their ‘links to cancer’ and at what doses? Are these clinically relevant? What is a cocktail effect? What is the evidence for this in action? What quality is it? How does this risk compare with organic? Or with other crop lines?

Crucial Qs.

Excellent question!

I’d like to say I believe that in gardening people should feel free to enjoy anything they want.

However a love of variegated houseplants or flouncy, frilly bedding plants should be part of the diagnostic criteria for sociopathy.

https://twitter.com/jilldot2/status/1387399774102491140

Variegated plants if they were people:

If you hate dandelions, consider this:

A thread from Singaporean gardening Facebook of people desperate to get hold of the exotic dandelion plants they know from foreign holidays... ⬇️ With beautiful, bee-attracting flowers and super nutritious leaves, who wouldn’t want one?

One online seller flags up they only have three pots left on the Singaporean equivalent of EBay.

Those of a certain generation can be excused for having views that reflect their time.

We are all products of the society which we inhabit, after all.

What’s rather less understandable is the amount of press celebration about ‘slitty eyes’ comments every day this week in 2021.

https://twitter.com/Luiseach/status/1383540286870102025

Am sure my grandparents would have said and did things, on occasion, that probably weren’t that kind.

They are not things I would celebrate about their lives, or use to define them as people, though.

I’d say doing so, in fact, would be deeply disrespectful to them.

Absolutely U.K. gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA.

It’s so integral that when you point out it’s existence, people assume you are against gardening, not racism.

Epitomised, for example, by the fetishisation (and wild misuse) of words like ‘heritage’ and ‘native’.

https://twitter.com/eddwall/status/1337690633365037057

I was once asked to present a planting concept for E London to a room of (100% white) critics.

Feedback was that international planting ‘didn’t fit the area’ and I ‘should do native wildflowers’

The site was founded by Romans & an immigration epicentre for +2,000 yrs.

Maybe a surprise coming from me, but I am unsure of the value of a focus on diversity in workplaces.

Here’s why...

(Please read to the end)

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1306463302978019328

Diversity is all about ensuring the makeup of your organisation reflects the demographics of society.

Sounds great, right?

But this tick boxy approach often requires hiring people largely with their race, gender, etc in mind.

As a minority I find this a problem because...

Field research embarrassment story:

The Canary Islands was a stop-off for Spanish ships returning from the Americas.

So it is still home to some ancient Incan(?), and v weird-looking, potato varieties.

Being a geek, I had to go learn about them...

(📷grancanaria.com) I went to a local market in Las Palmas and a really generous señora spent ages telling me in Spanish about all the different varieties & their colourful names.

Then she said, her favourite potato variety is a rare one called ‘Kin Ay Waa’.

My brain nearly exploded...

(📷: ibid)

It’s so great people are increasingly motivated to help the planet.

However engaging in ‘mass unwrap’ demos in stores is sadly unlikely to help. In fact, they might do the exact opposite.

Here’s why ⬇️ While packaging is undoubtedly overused, plastic often serves a vital role in extending shelf life, by slashing food waste.

This is especially the case for some of the crops shown in the above image, like cucumbers (where it triples shelf life).

Why does this matter?

People are feeling confused about this ‘crops are less nutritious today’ claim.

I don’t blame them. Activists for a this idea insist the evidence is on their side. So who should one believe?

To help you out, here’s why we know that evidence is poor & not all evidence is equal! The first studies to investigate this question started ~20 years ago.

Without a time machine, how do you compare crops across decades?

Well one way is to compare tables of nutritional data from the 1930s w those of today.

Some of these studies found some falls in some crops.

Getting calls from TV bods asking for an expert to explain why food is less nutritious today, why traditional diets are healthier, etc.

They inevitably don’t like it when I tell them they are wrong.

If only TV crafted its narrative around experts, not the other way round. Recently, I was asked to talk about why Western chefs cooking Asian food was disrespectful ‘cultural appropriation’.

Offer quickly withdrawn when I said ‘It really isn’t’

WHAT ARE ‘ANCIENT GRAINS’?

Every week I read how hybrid wheat is a ‘toxic, modern junk food’ & ‘ancient grains’ are superfoods that are key to good health.

But what does the science really say? Here’s a take from a botanist ⬇️ ‘Ancient grains’ is essentially a marketing term used to cover a motley crew of seeds that aren’t bread wheat.

Many are anything but ‘ancient’. Quinoa, for example, has a history of human consumption only a third that of wheat. (3,000 vs 9,000 yrs.)

I guess ‘people shouldn’t be racists’ is so 2009...

https://twitter.com/paulbranditv/status/1138878344496369664?s=21

For the 1st 17 years I lived here (from 1999-2016) I experienced probably one or two racist comments.

Since then it’s about once a week. Spurred on and normalised by these people.

Terrifying how anyone can consider voting for them and not realise that makes them a racist.

Think fruit is unhealthy because of articles like this on low carb social media?⬇️

Well, I interviewed the zoologist whose work this is actually based on for @newscientist & here’s what she said...

dietdoctor.com/monkeys-can-lo… It turns out the monkeys in question were largely leaf-eaters.

Yet they were historically fed a diet v high in fruit, as well as stuff like meat, yoghurt, cheese & eggs.

Totally inappropriate.

So she swapped them to a leaf-only diet & (unsurprisingly) their health improved.

Have you seen low carb diet gurus cite this comparison of a watermelon in a renaissance painting with the type you see in the supermarkets as ‘proof’ they are more sugary and therefore unhealthy today?

Here’s why understanding basic botany makes this argument tricky... The main diff between the 2 watermelons in these pics is the modern one on the right is redder.

This red pigment isn’t evidence of sugar (which is colourless) but of the antioxidant lycopene.

All this comparison suggests is today’s varieties are simply richer in this nutrient.

OK, the ‘Modern fruit has been made unnaturally sugary by humans & is thus unhealthy’ claims are storming on into Sunday.

Many are using this comparison of wild vs modern bananas to support the idea that this *must* be true.

Here’s what the science says...

#BotanistToTheRescue Let’s start with the ‘modern’ claim.

The hybridisation event that created the types of banana we know today happened millennia ago.

*Some* evidence suggests at least 5,000 years, in fact.

So they aren’t *that* modern, really. Unless woolly mammoths are also ‘modern’.

As a botanist, let me be clear...

There is zero truth to this claim.

In fact, given the relatively tiny amount of time humans have existed to breed plants, this achievement is biologically (& thermodynamically) impossible.

#TrustScienceNotScaremongers

https://twitter.com/kendberrymd/status/1149769352960532480?s=21

You see, plant leaves are basically living solar panels.

They harness solar energy & turn it into sugars to fuel growth.

But like the electrical grid, this energy is limited.

So to make fruit x100 richer in sugar they would have to...

You know that smell of fresh cut grass?

It’s created as a chemical distress call to alert neighbouring plants to prepare for imminent herbivore attack.

It’s the smell of plant fear... What are plants meant to do with this info?

Well, lots of things. They can switch on the hormones that activate defence systems. Shut down leaf growth, directing energies to safe underground storage organs. They can make their leaves tougher, sharper and more bitter & toxic.

105 years ago today, this guy was born. ⬇️

His work saved an estimated 1 billion lives from starvation in the 20th century, likely including yours and mine.

This makes him arguably the most important person in human history (that you’ve never heard of).

This is his story... Norman Borlaug was an American plant scientist.

Growing up in the great depression , he was surrounded by human hunger. It became his life’s work to do all he could to help stop it.

His amazing work breeding new wheat varieties could quadruple farm yields.

The humble banana has a weird & fascinating history, which until recently was buried in the swamps of Papua New Guinea. 🍌🍌🍌

So as you asked, @LittleGwhizz , here’s the story in 6 tweets:

https://twitter.com/littlegwhizz/status/1097188363642306560?s=21

Modern 🍌 are the result of a chance hybrid of two wild species from totally different parts of SE Asia.

How? Who knows!

Like many inter-species hybrids, they are bigger than their parents and sterile. (Kinda like mules)

Hence why they are fleshy, tasty & not packed w seeds.