Posted on Apr 14, 2019
Can This Breakfast Cereal Help Save The Planet?
870
7
4
3
3
0
This past week in San Francisco, food writers and environmentalists gathered to taste some breakfast cereal.
This particular cereal had an ingredient — the milled seeds of a little-known plant called Kernza — that's the result of a radical campaign to reinvent agriculture and reverse an environmentally disastrous choice made by our distant ancestors.
The campaign began 40-some years ago with a scientist-environmentalist named Wes Jackson. He argued that humanity took a wrong turn, thousands of years ago, when it came to rely on crops like wheat and rice for basic sustenance. These "annual" crops need replanting each year, "which means that if you're going to get your seed to germinate, you've got to destroy the vegetation at the surface," clearing away anything that might compete with the fragile seedlings, Jackson said.
As farmers use tillage tools or herbicides to get rid of competing vegetation, they inevitably wipe away habitat for birds and insects. Bare soil washes away and pollutes streams and rivers. Tilling the soil releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This particular cereal had an ingredient — the milled seeds of a little-known plant called Kernza — that's the result of a radical campaign to reinvent agriculture and reverse an environmentally disastrous choice made by our distant ancestors.
The campaign began 40-some years ago with a scientist-environmentalist named Wes Jackson. He argued that humanity took a wrong turn, thousands of years ago, when it came to rely on crops like wheat and rice for basic sustenance. These "annual" crops need replanting each year, "which means that if you're going to get your seed to germinate, you've got to destroy the vegetation at the surface," clearing away anything that might compete with the fragile seedlings, Jackson said.
As farmers use tillage tools or herbicides to get rid of competing vegetation, they inevitably wipe away habitat for birds and insects. Bare soil washes away and pollutes streams and rivers. Tilling the soil releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Can This Breakfast Cereal Help Save The Planet?
Posted from npr.org
Food/Chow
Climate Change
Science
Environment
Renewables and Environment
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
1
1
0
Very interesting article! I was thinking the title sounds like BS, but after all big goals are executed a step at a time, and this is one of countless things we could do better. I like oatmeal, especially steel cut oats, or granola for breakfast, and other tasty grains like wheat berries. Sooner or later this will come to some natural food store. I do most shopping at stores that are also economical, both ordinary and organic foods. I look forward to the Kerza beers, which hopefully we will have in Boulder CO soon.
(1)
(0)
1
1
0
PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
SGT Everett Bickford I'd Like to Try It. The native range of intermediate wheatgrass extends from central and southeastern Europe to Asia Minor. Although it was first brought to the United States in 1907, the first successful introduction to that country was from the Caucasus region in 1932. The plant can now be found growing wild throughout the Western United States and Western Canada.
(1)
(0)
1
1
0
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google