In keeping with the agricultural theme.. If you’ve been following Rev Fisk the last couple of years, you will have heard him speak of the benefits he and his family have gained by leaving behind the Standard American Diet and especially sugars. A long article at American Conservative picks up a number of threads searching for reasons why we’re so unhealthy.

While processed food is a rightly scrutinised as a source of what ails us, writer Carmel Richardson focuses particularly on seed oils. In the bid to mechanise production and make everything efficient, she argues that being cheap, plentiful and versatile, seed oils have made their way into everything. She writes that the evidence that sunflower, palm, corn, soybean and cottonseed oils are better for us than animal fats, however, is rather flimsy.

Richardson highlights the downsides of our highly-efficient supply chain, which she sees as limiting our ability to step off the metaphorical conveyor belt and eat as we need to. Whatever you think of sunflower, canola and all the others, Richardson statement rings true: “Eating in a way that builds our bodies up rather than tearing them down is a choice that involves an increasing amount of commitment.” Strange as it may sound in the midst of modern Western abundance, our forebears might have been on to something. As they knew if it’s worth doing it probably won’t be easy.