The Value of Nutrient Density with Dr. Matt Kleinhenz

Well, greetings friends, and welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. On this show, we explore the science of growing exceptional crops and we work to describe why you have crop challenges and possible disease and insect pests, fruit quality challenges, and how you can resolve them. Our goal is to give you really clear and understandable information that you can put into action to help you grow better crops, grow healthier, higher quality food, and be more successful as a farmer. Many farmers have challenges. They have a desire to grow healthier, higher quality food and then be compensated for producing healthier, higher quality food, which is sometimes a challenge in the agricultural marketing sector as it exists today. In this episode of the show, I'm excited to welcome Matt Kleinhance from Ohio State University. Matt is a professor of horticulture and crop science and is very interested in understanding the dynamics of produce quality and food quality and then how that also connects to buyers in the marketplace. So, Matt, we're very excited to have you join us. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me.

So, Matt, you've done a lot of interesting work over your decades at Ohio State University and before. What are some of the memorable moments that have brought you to the spot where you are today and the various projects that you're working on?

Some of the most memorable moments specific to my career really spring from or involve interactions with growers and other members of the industry that brought to me a question or an issue that they wanted some input on. And after some lengthy discussion or experimentation or reaching out to other experts, we discovered that there may be a partial solution or at least a way forward to reach a solution. And the questions ranged. In this case, they often focused on how to produce more of a better quality product, mainly to satisfy certainly their customers, but also perhaps a larger aim.

So when growers are expressing the desire to produce a higher quality product, is that demand often coming from buyers? Is that demand coming from perhaps an altruistic sense that the grower has of producing healthier food? What drives the desire to produce higher quality?

In my experience, John, it's been both. Sometimes a grower has their own view, of course, their own ethic, their own aspirations, and they simply see themselves as being part of a much larger picture to enhance people's health and well being through the quality of the material that they would supply. In other cases, if you will, it's a little bit less altruistic. It has a business sense behind it, and there may have even been complaints about the quality of the product or questions about the quality of the product. Or questions about how can it be improved? And so they're responding to a real business scene, if you will.

When growers have a desire to improve quality, one of the questions that comes to mind as we're thinking about this and talking about this is what, what defines quality in their mind? What are they? And possibly there are some variations from crop to crop, but in general, what do you see growers seeking to produce?

It's a great question, and I've been privileged to try to address that question in different settings through the years, one on one conversations much like this, but also in a group setting, maybe even as a person that was asked to come in and comment to a select committee, if you will. And the answers have been different. And we typically start with establishing, at least for the, the immediate conversation, what quality is or how it's defined in the eyes of that particular person or group. Because it has physical components, it has chemical components, it has biological components, and these various components or properties essentially define the whole or describe the whole, right? But they may be focused on one particular property. It might be the shape, the size, the texture, the aroma, the flavor, the color, what have you. They may be looking at one particular property or component, and necessarily so, but really that's difficult, perhaps even unwise, to separate it from the whole of the product, if you will, unless there's a very, very specific application in mind. So I would say that there is rarely one particular component or property that is common to all of a particular grower group or industry group. It's ranged, but in that over that time it has covered, as far as I can tell, a very large number of properties that we look at in our fruits and vegetables, especially our fruits and vegetable crops.

Recently I've been a part of a number of conversations where growers are expressing the desire to improve the nutritional value. Sometimes they use the language of nutrient density and talk about improved nutrient density of food. And my observations have been that for the most part, the consumers at this stage and buyers aren't really having a conversation, at least not on a large scale, about nutrient density. That in general, kind of the analog that they're really looking for that might be an appropriate analog for that would be flavor and aroma. What have you observed and do you think there is the potential in the future to have a major market demand for nutrient dense foods?

Perhaps. Let me get to that very significant question last, if we will, and maybe break up the response here, John, into a couple of different parts. First of all, nutritional value or nutrient density is a significant passion of mine. And I know it's a significant passion for other investigators that I work with, some of whom are not, if you will, in the so called public light as an extension person or as a grower advisor. But they're working tirelessly and quite, quite impressively towards a similar goal, but within their lane, if you will, Regarding understanding what nutritional value is and how it can be enhanced. So it is a, it is a big passion of mine. To the second part of your question or second part of the question. I think we need often to be very specific when we talk about nutritional value, nutritional density. It is a complex topic and we don't wave our hands and say, well, just because it's complex, we can't understand it, or we shouldn't, we shouldn't approach it. No, quite the opposite, we should stay on task. We should continue to focus on how a farm can become an instrument of public health, if you will, producing a more nutritious product, a more so called nutrient dense product, a more flavorful product, a product that is more desirable to eat simply because of its chemical, biological or physical properties. These are all parts of the process, in my view, towards the produce that we offer to folks playing a larger role in their maintaining or enhancing their quality of life, especially through their health status. To the final point, is there a, will there be a market? Will there be a time when more people are paying more attention to this aspect? I think so, but we're not there yet. I think that interest already is strong within small, if you will, community of eaters or community of buyers. And where there is that, though, those so called beachheads, you know, where there are those loci of interest, there can be growth, right? So whereas now here in 2018, we might say, you know, if we were able to do a Grand survey, 1/2 of 1% of people make decisions around nutritional value. Some years down the road we might be able to say it's 5% or 10%. And in that increase there will be so many opportunities for enterprising growers to be a part of that process that it will become that much more noticeable.

As I think about the question of nutrient density, it seems to me that there are perhaps a couple of different frameworks that people are using to think about this. On one hand, there is a conversation about food biofortification, growing specific plants that have higher concentrations of needed vitamins or minerals that are needed by a specific portion of the population, and growing biofortified foods that can really help supply those nutritional requirements. Then there is a second conversation happening around foods, crops that have inherently high nutrient density by default, such as blueberries or kale, for example. And then there is a bit of a third conversation happening that believes that we have lost substantial nutrient value in kind of all crops generally across the board over the last 40, 50, 80 years, whatever time frame. Here in North America in particular, I've seen this conversation come up quite regularly. What is your perspective, particularly on this latter piece? Is there evidence to support that we have lost a lot of nutrient density in our food supply?

Well, it's possible. As a matter of fact, I had a very lengthy conversation on the very same topic just two days ago with another grower and members of the farm's team, and they asked the very same question. Is there evidence that we've lost nutrient value over time, particularly within, if you will, our fruit and vegetable crops, our specialty crops? And my area of focus is vegetables. So forgive me if I happen to focus primarily on those as examples. It's just because I'm more familiar with them as organisms and as products and as experimental subjects and so forth. So those are. The vegetable crops tend to be where I turn my focus in conversations like these. But I'm aware that the picture is much larger. It involves obviously everything that we could eat and can eat. So I know that there have been reports suggesting that that is the case, that the nutrient density of the US food supply, or perhaps global food supply, has declined over a number of decades. I have no reason to question those reports at this point in time. But I also have no reason to go out and shout from the rooftops that the sky is falling. I think the devil is in the details, if you will, if I could use that phrase. As an academic and an investigator and also hopefully an educator and consultant advisor, I have to be very, very clear on the source of the information, how the information was developed and how it's being communicated and what it could mean. And so I look at the reports, I look at the data and I say, well, that might be the case and there are pretty understandable reasons for that. I'm not justifying it as a trend. I'm saying look at what has happened over the last 50 to 80 years in our food supply and the way we provide it and what people consume and what they expect of can't be seen as a separate phenomenon from how we've taken on our day to day lives. And as I think as we began this conversation, those how we've gone about our day to day life and what that means to individual growers. Okay? Growers respond to what the market asks them. They are business people par excellence. You know, most of the time they're working. I don't need to tell anybody on this call what it means to be a grower, but. And what the, you know, the fact, the forces that they face, but they're responding. One of those forces that they face is the demand. What does the market demand? And if the market has not demanded nutritional value, does not reward them financially for it, but instead rewards them for abundance, for consistency, for other attributes. That is what they're going to provide and who should fault them? So, yeah, I guess I'll leave that part of the question. There were other parts of that same, the biofortification piece and whether or not there are products that are inherently more nutritionally dense than other ones. We can return to those if you like, or we can move on.

Well, the follow up question that I would have to your response, and I absolutely agree that growers are responding to the market. And of course this is, this is because, not just because of buyer demand, but perhaps also because of the mantra that has been adopted by the agriculture industry as a whole for the need to quote, unquote, feed the world. And that has been a kind of a subconscious driving force, I would expect, for many growers that has. And of course you have the economic incentives which are a major primary incentive to incentivize growers to produce larger volumes and abundance, perhaps at the expense of quality and perhaps not.

Yeah, this is maybe a section when I push back just a tiny bit, I'd say, and it's just a conversation among friends here, I'd say that in an individual grower's decision on how they approach the management of their farm and their crops, of course I can't climb inside somebody's head. But what I've observed over the years is that they have their farm and their own personal welfare in mind first, the health of the industry second. And they have to have a hierarchy, they have to have priorities. And what I've seen is we don't point necessarily a finger at the industry and say, well, this is where the industry's led us or taken us. No, these are day in, day out, season in, season out decisions that a grower makes regarding what they grow, who they sell it to and what price are they receiving and what is required to make it all work. And little by little, farm by farm, region by region, if you will, industry by industry. One could look at the cabbage industry or the lettuce industry, or, you know, various industries they're not monolithic. There's quite a diversity within each. But you say, look at them farm by farm, area by area, and say over time, generational transfer over time, people have chosen to respond to the opportunities that so far, on the whole, do not reward producing less, but of higher nutritional value, simply because I would say the math is not in their favor. On the whole, there just aren't enough people that will pay more for the same product if it's claimed to be more higher nutritionally dense than the product. That's not because they're responding to their pocketbook. Right? So if I offer, if I go to the farmers market and I have a head of lettuce that looks in every way identical to the one that my neighboring neighbor and competitor has on display, and mine is twice the cost, but it looks in every way the same. But I try to make a claim that it is more nutritionally dense. How many customers will I have that walk away having given me the, you know, bought the product? Moreover, what evidence will I provide that my claim is true and on what will I base it? We talk about nutritional value as if it is one thing. It is most certainly not one thing. There are many components of nutritional value, but most of the time the conversations speak of it as if it is eye color. You know, it's not. It's a very complex attribute of a food item. And to understand it fully and its origins fully, like how is it shaped, one needs to really study it and be prepared to adopt, at least temporarily, some reductionist thinking and then reassemble all that little pieces that come from that reductionist thinking into something that's more holistic.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, and I think we are saying the same things. I believe this entire conversation has been one area of confusion, particularly within the organic industry. And I know, I'm certain that many of the growers who are listening are not necessarily organic. But there is, it seems every several years there is an industry report that, that gets published saying that organic foods have been discovered to not be any more nutritious than conventional foods. And then a short while later, there's a rebuttal from the organic industry that, oh, in fact, organic foods are supposedly more nutritious than conventional foods. And this is kind of this back and forth that has been happening for quite some time. I've seen the cycle repeat itself multiple times. And yet when you stop to think about it, organic certification has no parameters for nutritional quality. It does absolutely nothing to certify the quality of the end product. In terms of nutritional value or otherwise, it is purely a process certification that says a certain process was used that hopefully should substantially reduce the number of toxins and pesticides that might be on the food supply. It makes no reference to quality. And so I think, or to nutritional value. And so I think there's this conversation happening around nutritional value that really has no basis in the regulations or in the certification process, which I find to be an intriguing conversation. But I'd like to, I'd like to switch gears for just a bit, Matt, and I'd like to ask you a question. In all the work that you've done working with growers, working with various crops, what has been the one thing that has really puzzled you for a long time?

Goodness gracious, there are a number of things that puzzled me, but I don't mean to respond with humor. It's not a derisive laugh. It's a laugh born of the memory of so many mind blowing conversations that I've been fortunate to have with people in which I've learned so much. I've learned so much through those conversations. But I've also been dismayed, if you will, by some of the lack of understanding that folks sometimes exhibit around the crops that they grow. Basic biology. And I wonder, how would one practice medicine without knowing anatomy? How would one practice law without knowing basic, basic precepts? How would one practice, be a plumber and not know lefty loosey, righty tighty? How would one be as effective as they possibly could be at their chosen profession without a firm grasp of what I would call some of the basics? And what I've noticed is the capacity for people to produce a lot of material because they follow a process but in that process, or they don't know the finer points of the process nor the finer points of the organism that's at the central part of it. And so it's almost as if they're succeeding thanks to the process that was laid out for them by others, not because they have an in depth understanding of the crop. And occasionally that lack of understanding leads them to a problem that befuddles them and it holds them back. It may even undercut their, their income. And of course, understandably, they get confused, frustrated, so forth. And in some cases the answer is right before them. If only they had understood a little bit more about their crop. And so I guess the one thing that can, you know, kind of confuses me or has struck me is, if you will, the lack of understanding of certain basics around each of the crops that they grow.

Matt, this is an incredibly important piece and I, I had no idea how you would answer this question, but this, this is, I've been chuckling to myself because this is something that we have observed as well quite frequently in our consulting work and in areas where crop production has become more intense and more competitive, where crops are managed very intensely and margins become a lot tighter, risk becomes a lot higher. It is almost invariably these growers that don't have the foundational knowledge that end up not surviving for whatever reason. It might take a few years, it might take a decade, but invariably it does seem that these are the growers that don't survive in the long term. So the question I would have for you is, following up to that is from, from your perspective and observation, what are the important pieces that you would recommend that growers should study and should become really familiar with?

Great question and I'd like to hasten to add that the understanding that I spoke about earlier, it can come from many different places. And I'm sure that people listening, appreciate the different ways of knowing, the different ways of coming to understand something as complex as lettuce growth or tomato growth or what have you, different ways of knowing. And in my, my baseline, my kind of constitutive, always on way of thinking is that to employ more of them leads to a better outcome. So to your question about pieces, what are the important pieces I would include in that? Obviously what they're doing on a day to day basis, the business of farming, the process of farming. Take notes, observe, take notes. If a camera is an option, take pictures, record in down times, when there are any in downtimes, study those notes, look at those pictures, think about what was going on at the time, install ways of collecting more information. People say well, what can I do in that way? Well, there are very simple devices to record temperature. One can measure obviously rainfall and so forth. Flow meters on the irrigation, they can take. There are steps that can be taken that will describe their system, if you will, to them for themselves and maybe even for others that will provide very important bits of information. And in the process they've not changed really anything about their farming practice. They simply know more about it actually. And soil testing would be another obvious example because if they, if at some point they need to turn to somebody else for input, maybe somebody like me or you, we value that information. I'll say myself, I value that information. I'd say, boy, if I had more input, if I had more data, so to speak, if I had more information, I could Help you, I could be more effective at helping you. So that's one piece. Just take, observe, take notes, record as much as it's reasonable and be strategic about it. The second part would be read, listen. You know, if videos are an option for you, watch credible ones. Be healthily skeptical of what you're seeing and reading. Don't accept 100% at face value, just about anything, but don't be so skeptical that you accept nothing. You know, be an informed consumer of information. And as you deal with the confusion that can come with that healthy skepticism, there still will be growth. And I think in the long run, the quality information rises and then you can, you know, rely on it. It can be. It can be put to you, it could be put to better use. So I'd say employ as many ways of knowing as a person can consistently and just begin with the simple ones. Take notes, you know, record, take pictures and go over them. And in your spare time, do some reading.

Matt, your comments bring so many thoughts to mind. I will have a few to share. I'll perhaps begin with a quote from William Albrecht that comes to mind in one of his articles. He wrote the quote, read books and study nature, and when the two don't agree, you throw out the books. And I think, of course there's an element of humor in that, but the fundamental, I think that perhaps encapsulates a bit of what you're describing and kind of the foundational piece if you want to read books and study nature. And then when the two don't agree throughout the books, in order to be able to throw out the books, that means you need to have very high quality observation, which goes to the point that you were making is observation is absolutely key. And being able to understand what's going on.

Absolutely. Through those observations, one might be able to write their own book. Right. That maybe somebody later will throw away or maybe not. Maybe that book will remain quite viable and informative for a very long time. So, yeah, absolutely, there is. I don't want to say there's a lifetime to all information so much as there is a lifetime to how it is applied in certain ways. And what we see, I think, in the evolution of understanding of people's business is their reliant change in what information they rely on or seek. Okay. As they become more proficient at certain areas of their business, they no longer need certain types of input as dramatically as they may have needed some years before. And simultaneously they're seeking out other types of input. So if we boomerang back, John Just for a real quick second, we boomerang back to the question of nutritional value. They could begin with, okay, well, what is nutritional value anyway? How would a dietitian, nutritionist, a health professional, define it? Not as it's being defined by people who are recycling information. I want to go to the primary source and ask what, what do they do with it? Well, there are people, professionals of one stripe or another that have written some very impressive, provided some very impressive resources on nutritional value of various food items. And learning from that primary source can be enormously important. So to bring this back, ways of knowing about the farm, what to do with one's soil, what to do with one's, whatever aspect of the farming operation, if one looks for input and doesn't find it, that's a cue on something, that's a clue that maybe it's not been investigated, maybe it's not been written about. And so they are at the so called cutting edge of understanding it.

One of the pieces that we've observed in working with growers, we've observed one characteristic of growers that are exceptionally successful that has really stood out, which is these most successful growers seek to understand the answer to the question is how do you make money? How do they make money? And so if for many, particularly for fruit and vegetable crops, as you mentioned at the beginning, oftentimes the key to having a successful profitable crop is some quality component, whether it might be fruit size or fruit shape, a specific firmness, There are often very specific fruit characteristics or vegetable characteristics that are desired by the market. And one of the things that we've observed is that the most successful growers seek to understand that specific characteristic and how to manage it. They don't delegate that piece to an agronomist or a consultant or an advisor. They want to understand if the key to having a profitable tomato crop is having a high soluble solids content. What are the specific components and factors that contribute to achieving a high percentage of soluble solids. So they focus in on that piece specifically and they want to make sure that they personally understand that very deeply. They don't delegate that knowledge. And I think this speaks to this entire conversation of what are the important pieces for us to learn about as growers? I think really understanding the pieces that contribute to profitability can be a very valuable place to begin.

No question. I agree with you completely. They don't delegate in part because consciously or subconsciously they recognize that quality is the target. In my perspective, quality is the platform for repeat sales. One might be able to make the Initial sale based on some other factor. But the repeat sale comes from the quality as one enormously influential component of the overall value that the buyer sees in the product. Of course, there's a price quality interaction, but one never really wants to be racing for the bottom price, do they? In that scenario, quality has diminishing. The importance of quality is diminishing. And as the price rises, the value of quality in that calculation in the buyer's mind increases. So my argument has been you want a better price, raise the quality, improve the value of the transaction that you're trying to consummate with the buyer by offering them something in return that is going to prompt them to give you more money for the product. As far as ways of knowing, and you know, many on this, so if you go, one goes to the produce auction and they see what's being bought, what's, you know, what the, what the prices are. That is immediate feedback on what sells and what does not sell. Correct. I mean, there's no more dramatic demonstration than at the farmer's market on Saturday or at the produce auction or wherever one can see another person's product and what is being sold, purchased, and what price. And to be a student of that transaction, I think, is one way of improving one's operation. Understand why yours was purchased or not and understand why it got the price that it did and how it could possibly go higher. In as much as quality is a force in that understand what the buyers are responding to. It could be the color, it could be the shape, it could be the consistency. Whatever it is, remember those physical, chemical, biological components of it. If it happens to be nutritional value or the holistic expectation that the buyer has about it enhancing their diet in some way, study it and understand the origin. And I know that brix, or total soluble solids is on many people's minds, but brix is not a nutritional component. It has little bearing on nutrition specifically. Nutrition, as people who study nutrition for a living define nutrition. Brix has other implications, but they rarely include nutrition specifically. And so, as I say, be a student of it. And agreeing with you completely. The grower rarely delegates what's most important because it tends to be something they want to have more control over, be more informed about. And in the case of quality, it's often the target of what they're trying to produce.

Matt, what do you believe to be true about agriculture today that many other people don't believe to be true?

Well, I hear from so many people and I hear so many different perspectives on agriculture. I hear that it's going to heck in a hand basket. I hear that it's enjoying a complete revitalization and everything in between. So I hesitate to say, to point to one area and say, oh, this is something that people don't believe to be true. But I would say that there are areas that are topics that, you know, I hear about less than other areas. And I would say one of those that I hear less about, that I'm not sure if people more widely appreciate is what role the grower plays in our culture, in our society and our daily life. Right. They're part of a fabric that is ensuring our access as consumers to healthy, nutritious, safe, and enjoyable to eat, pleasing to eat food day in, day out, meal in, meal out. They're kind of like this background group of folks that many in the population take for granted. That's unfortunate, but there are probably a number of reasons for that. So what do I believe to be true? They're often underappreciated under recognized, but they keep on going, just like we hope that they do and have done for so long.

So within that, obviously you thought about this a little bit. If you believe that growers are underappreciated, which I absolutely agree with, have you given any thought to how that might be remedied?

Well, I think not to share an unpopular idea, but I think they need to ask more of themselves. And I also think that they could benefit from being a bit more assertive professionally in about what they do, how and why and what role they play. It's. Obviously, you know, there are, John, there are, you know, dozens of possible responses to that. Some people will become activists, if you will. Some people will become involved in grower organizations. Some people will keep it one on one and simply have, you know, excellent conversations with their buyers on Saturday mornings or wherever they happen to encounter them, all of which are necessary. But on the whole, I would encourage folks to use the opportunity to display their understanding of the farm's role and the food's role in that person's life. Because too many of our eaters, a lot of our eaters more or less just eat to avoid being hungry. Right. Which is entirely fine. It's a choice. Others, though, look to food for other types of, if you will, return on investment. It's an enjoyable experience. So when a grower encounters a person or a market that might be wired that way might be.