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  4. Regarding marketing, I was looking at [a] PowerPoint, which I think could be helpful to introduce what I do to my community. It’s a slide that talks about agriculture leading to the decline in overall health. I live in a farming community. Would you clarify for me the best way you talk about that in my case?

Regarding marketing, I was looking at [a] PowerPoint, which I think could be helpful to introduce what I do to my community. It’s a slide that talks about agriculture leading to the decline in overall health. I live in a farming community. Would you clarify for me the best way you talk about that in my case?

Chris Kresser: Paula on the live call asked, “Regarding marketing, I was looking at [a] PowerPoint, which I think could be helpful to introduce what I do to my community. It’s a slide that talks about agriculture leading to the decline in overall health. I live in a farming community. Would you clarify for me the best way you talk about that in my case?”

Big question, Paula. Yes, I think in general, you just want to say the shift from a hunter–gatherer diet to an agricultural diet and lifestyle. My guess is [that] people aren’t going to take that super personally. It’s a human scale shift that happened 11,000 or 12,000 years ago. It’s not criticizing agriculture, particularly, as a profession or a livelihood because that’s the way we’re all living now. Well, not all of us, but there are very few hunter–gatherer societies left in the world. Virtually the entire population is living with agriculture as the means of food production and industrial food production now, too. But I think the point of that slide, as the note suggests, is there is a decline in nutrient density that happens with that. We went from the primary foods being organ meats, meats, seafood, nuts, seeds, non-starchy vegetables, [and] some starchy tubers to some things like grains and legumes, which are lower in nutrient density, [but] that doesn’t mean they’re bad. Also, there was an increase in things like famine and food scarcity with agriculture relative to [the] hunter–gatherer lifestyle. It doesn’t mean that agriculture is bad. There were a lot of benefits that came from agriculture. But I think if you frame it in this larger context, and just make it clear that you’re not criticizing agriculture today as a profession and we all depend on it, then I think that would be fine.

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