Food Matters - Season 1

In this first episode Michael Kelly travels to West Cork to visit Dr. Steve Collins, a pioneer of regenerative agriculture,who is growing a superfood in bad soil.

Many menus and supermarkets advertise seasonality, creating the impression that all produce is available year-round. However, this is far from the truth. The ability to follow the seasons with an understanding of what can be grown during each season is vital for the planet. Growing your food connects you to seasonal rhythms, which become essential when growing seeds. These small, unpromising seeds require favorable seasonal conditions to mature into edible plants. As climate change continues to create unpredictable weather patterns, planting during the correct season becomes increasingly crucial. To grow successfully, it's essential to follow the four growing seasons: seed sowing and transplanting in spring, harvesting in summer, a time of plenty in autumn, and a period of rest in winter.

Growing food reveals our lack of knowledge about the natural world. Leaves curl up and turn yellow, and seedlings disappear due to nocturnal visits by slugs. Commercial farmers turned to chemical solutions to tackle this issue, but the disadvantages associated with fertilisers, pesticides, and packaging have become apparent. Although these quick fixes have assisted in the short-term production and distribution of food, the long-term consequences of soil degradation, water pollution, species loss, and human health impacts are the tragic legacy of food pollution. Join us to discuss the actions needed to stop food pollution

In this episode we're all about the small producers and the value of "supporting local" because if we don't look after them we're never going to fix our broken food system. Farmers and small producers face increased pressure from market forces to produce more and more for a fraction of the price that their produce is sold for. This is not sustainable for our fragile food system.

Across the world, we collectively eat just 1% of all the edible plant species we can eat. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, there are between 20,000 and 50,000 discovered edible plant species, which is a hefty selection of plants to start adding to your plate. But the truth is, only 150 to 200 are regularly consumed by humans. In fact, 75% of all the food eaten in the world come from just 12 plants and 5 animal species. The reason for this is economic efficiency, but an industry so deeply embedded in the health of our planet and ourselves can't play by standard economic rules.  There is still so much food out there for us to discover.  If we want to create more sustainable plates of food, we need to understand more about all foods – the ones we grew up with and the new plant-based alternative

Research by the EPA has shown that Irish people generally have a strong understanding of use-by and best before dates, but this is not translating in to good food management behaviours around dates, with 52% of people saying food passing the best before date is one of the main reasons they throw food away!
Stop Food Waste have an amazing guide which really is the best resource for delving deeper.