Food biodiversity (variation of life forms within the food system) is essential for good nutrition and global food security. Traditionally, humans have relied on a wide diversity of plants and animal species foods. Today over 98% of foods have disappeared or are at loss of disappearing. This is due to a multiplicity of factors; our industrialized food system has been built on principles of uniformity and effieciency. The result is our monocrop agriculture has led to monocrop diets. People have little variety in their diets, with a few varieties of corn, soy, and meat filling the national appetite for convenient and cheap meals, but our health is suffering.
The United Nations has declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. It's time recognize the extent and the scope of the problem and find a way forward.
Joining the many initiatives working to protect and preserve agricultural biodiversity worldwide (such as the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity and the Food and Agriculture Organization) is a local educational effort to promote at risk foods linked to Southeast Wisconsin. Building off the work of Slow Food USA and its RAFT Alliance and Ark of Taste, is Endangered Food of SE Wisconsin.
Sustainable Nutrition Bottomline: To be a bit kitchy--variety is the spice of life. But in all seriousness, the wide variety of food traditions that is our human heritage can help us to address the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease and offer alternatives to the current food system's destructive effects on the environment and our communities.
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