Regenuary is the idea of an omnivorous and sustainable diet. Regenerative agriculture and animal husbandry, local and seasonal production, fair remuneration for workers and businesses.
‘Whether you’re vegan or omnivore, it’s all about eating foods that are seasonal, local, and farmed using regenerative methods’
(The Ethical Butcher)
Omnivorous dilemma
The omnivore dilemma is resolved by respecting each person’s food choices. Regenuary, from the spelling of Regenerate and Veganuary, is proposed by
The Ethical Butcher
, to go beyond the ideological ‘meat yes, meat no’ debate and address the sustainability of production and consumption in the interest of all.
The keywords are regeneration and short supply chain. That is, respect for ecosystems, animal welfare, local communities. These values in turn outweigh the omnivorous dilemma and are often overlooked, unfortunately, even in the offering of ultra-processed Veg foods. The giga-investments on Lab meat, after all, aim to replace rather than remunerate labor in the fields.
Ecological transition
Sustainability of production and consumption plays a central role in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in UN Agenda 2030. It has nothing to do with meat production in Latin America, but neither does it have anything to do with the production of Veg ingredients such as GMO soybeans, palm oil, and tropical fruits plagued with agrotoxics.
Agroecology is the model followed by the Regenuary network of English farmers and ranchers. Their plant- and animal-based products-derived by regenerative, uncompromising methods-are also delivered to your door in eco-packs. And they help restore ecosystems that are severely threatened by industrial agriculture and other human activities, in areas adjacent to where their consumers and users are located.
Agroecology and regenerative pastures
Grasslands provide a range of ecosystem services, from regulation and storage of water flows (Schlesinger et al.,2000; Havstad et al., 2007) to nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration (Schuman et al., 1999; Conant and Paustian, 2002; Morgan et al., 2016). They contribute to climate change through their ability to store more than 10 percent of total carbon biomass, up to 30 percent of total soil organic carbon (Scurlock and Hall, 1998).
Animals to light and moderate grazing, in grazing and i.e., defoliation, affect plant photosynthetic rates, root-to-sprout ratio, carbon allocation, functional root mass, and plant root exudates, with favorable impacts on soil biogeochemical cycles (Johnson and Matchett, 2001; Gao et al., 2008; Giese et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2015; Gong et al., 2015). Regeneration of plant tissue thus improves carbon ecosystem (Shao et al., 2013) and plant productivity (Holland et al., 1992; Zhang et al., 2015).
Sustainable food consumption
Balance in food consumption is indispensable, and there is an urgent need to review farming and ranching systems while respecting existing ecosystems by keeping them in balance. The FAO itself has urged the adoption of appropriate measures, in animal husbandry, to mitigate its environmental impact.
Likely, as already shared, the sustainable shopping cart will continue to accommodate a variety of foods of animal origin. Eggs and poultry first and foremost, milk and dairy products, pork, bluefish and aquaculture fish.
Interim conclusions
Organic farming and food sovereignty-in a word, Regenuary-express a revolutionary but realistic horizon. Certainly easier to achieve, in the decades to come, than the abandonment of production and consumption of foods of animal origin.
And it is perhaps therefore that the mainstream media distracts the masses from these goals-which involve, among other things, the redistribution of wealth in a primary sector-with operations of viral deception as the meat sounding phenomenon, whose goal is instead to promote laboratory foods produced by a few industrial giants.
Dario Dongo and Giulia Pietrollini
Bibliography
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https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/025012
Graduated in industrial biotechnology and passionate about sustainable development.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
