(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
There was a great deal of attention when the acclaimed British medical journal The Lancet in April 2016 published the latest figures for the world's obesity. More than one in eight adults now suffer from obesity – twice as many as in 1975. The islands of Polynesia and Micronesia are at the top. Then follow English-language high-income countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
The development is going in the same direction here at home. About two thirds of the adult Norwegian population is overweight, and around 22–23 percent suffer from obesity. The global wave of obesity leads to an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, joint pain and osteoarthritis.
At the same time, nearly 800 million people go to bed hungry every day. In other words, we need to be able to eat more properly, maybe appreciate the food more, while still producing enough where needed.
Tradition is winning. The global citizen still lives longer, and here at home we have had a decline in cardiovascular disease. But if the obesity epidemic continues, the development is in danger of being reversed. This is already happening in poor strata of the population in the US and in the UK. Our everyday activities are gradually reduced, while energy intake remains the same – or increases. Then the energy surplus becomes constant. How long will Norwegian health authorities take the bill?
Research shows that a diet based on ready-to-eat and high-fat foods leads to higher levels of depression and anxiety. Therefore, medicine and psychology want to promote what is referred to as "traditional diet" from the Mediterranean, Japan and now also Scandinavia. Nordic cuisine has had its renaissance. The Michelin stars are included. In fact, we eat slower carbohydrates here in the country than many other places. Roots and other vegetables stand. And we are slowly becoming more and more aware of what we eat. We start growing our own backyards and become farmers in the city – also in Oslo. In one of the city's busiest intersections, Bjørvika now manages an urban farmer with his own seats and animal husbandry.
Jamie Oliver's TV show Food Revolution cares about itself. Here he teaches children and their parents how to cook. This campaign is primarily aimed at the United States to change Americans' diet. The United States is the loser on all fronts, with over 45 million poor on food vouchers. In the sub-districts of the district, vegetables are not used, but the worst varieties of fast food. I've even cycled around some of the more stressed places in Washington and checked out the food selection at the local store. It was Buenos dias, increased BMI.
Industrial agriculture is likely to go out of fashion.
The health aspect will therefore further influence the diet and food regimes of the future. For example, so-called spectrometers will probably allow us to measure water, pigment and sugar content in fruits, and fatty acid compositions in meat. Optical instruments are becoming increasingly cheaper, and in the future spectrometers can probably be integrated into smartphones. Then we can go to the store and measure the quality of the food, while putting pressure on the food industry.
Produce enough. Living in the village no longer means being outdated, neither in the West nor in the global South. We may soon be online in the densest and most remote jungle. This also means that small producers can access market data that makes them less vulnerable to corrupt middlemen.
But in order to be industrialized, poor developing countries must have greater opportunities and better protection through international trade agreements. Industrialization could mean increased food production through higher productivity, opportunities for processing own raw materials and better infrastructure. In the long term, women will receive more education, and fewer children will be born. This is the message from the Swedish super statistician Hans Rosling, but also from Norwegian intellectuals who specialize in agriculture and economics, not least Christian Anton Smedshaug. "The world needs one new deal for the food supply, and then the farmer in today's poor country must be given framework conditions that make it possible, "he already wrote in the book Can agriculture fø world? (2008). This means that today's international trade regimes are not working well enough. They prevent poor countries from protecting their own industries, in the way we built ourselves up nationally, through power development and oil industry. With the election of Donald Trump as US president, international trade regimes will change, perhaps for the better for developing countries. There is then something.
Traditional and synthetic. In the future, we will probably live in two parallel spheres: one partially traditional and in close contact with nature, the other synthetic and added to laboratory and factory halls. Large high-rise buildings in the megabytes will be used as advanced greenhouses, where solar panels and hydroponic growth media without soil provide large quantities of vegetables for the urban population. We want to perfect the cooking and at the same time have access to simpler food. Either way, both worlds will be more ecological and involve less animal cruelty. We will still have cows for pasture, og get meat from the lab.
In about 25 years, synthetic meat will be available and cheap. Today it costs almost NOK 2,5 million to produce a laboratory citizen. A research team from Maastricht has already perfected the technique. With the help of stem cells from a cow, they cultivate muscle cells which in turn turn into a tasty burger. The cells from one cow can produce 175 million burgers, which would normally require 440 cows. Not even the one cow we get here from stem cells is damaged in the process. And, hold on: The method is reproducible. This means that the method can in principle also work for poultry, pigs and other types of meat.
Proteins can be separated from vegetables, grains and beans. These can be mixed with vitamins and fats from plants to form the three main components of meat: muscle, connective tissue and fat. This gives a burger that looks, tastes and smells like a ... burger. It will be on the market in a few years, optimists say. Things often take a little longer than we think, but that is coming, I am convinced.
In about 25 years, synthetic meat will be available and cheap.
Traditional family farming in Norway will also change. Agriculture will be an active participant in what is referred to as the green shift. The farm operation is being modernized, with increasing use of GPS, which ensures that the tractor drives straight ahead, so that the tracks do not overlap. Driverless cars come on the market, and the same goes for the type of machines a farmer uses. (The research community at NMBU has just launched a prototype called Thorvald.) Milking and feeding machines will be more advanced. Even smaller, organic farms will be able to use tablets and smartphones to direct the machinery – which of course will no longer run on oil. Electronic labeling of animals will result in better health control and animal welfare, and drones will measure area and draw maps so that the amount of fertilizer can be accurately calculated. In this way, also family-based agriculture in Norway will have a good opportunity to produce with surplus.
Eat like a Count. In the book The whole buffalo (2015), journalist Joacim Lund says something of the same: "It is quite possible to eat like a count, take care of health and make sure that the animal and the environment are good – without being ripped off in the box."
Industrial agriculture, based on uniformization and reduction of natural diversity, is likely to go out of fashion, but only on the condition that technological innovations ensure efficient production. At the same time, demanding but biologically enriching agro-ecological agriculture will gain ground. Not least in Africa.
We all want tasty food based on sustainable operating methods. Better carbon sequestration, good productivity, better animal health and welfare, but first and foremost the sense of a more proper lifestyle will promote the green shift in agriculture. Then we can also expect less food allergies, real as imagined.
One of the reasons I dare argue this is the work done by Olivier de Schütter. The former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food is today one of the leaders in a large European panel of experts on sustainable food systems. Schütter and his like-minded people are likely to have a greater influence on both decision makers and consumers.
And here we are. Affordable nature, as always. But now steal from knowledge. And with a myriad of choices. The hungry man will never be fully saturated. Food will be essential in our experience of being human. Food is culture, and we will always cultivate the gourmet in us. We want to put the taste experience at the center, be concerned about where our food comes from and how it is produced.
Kroglund is a writer and author of the book Knife, soul and fork. On the trail of the hungry man (Vega Publishers, 2016). andrewkroglund@gmail.com
