BRB w/ Nathan P - Agroforestry in Costa Rica, Garlic Chili Noodles & Food Rules
Costa Rica's regenerative success, a comforting weeknight meal, and a quick read on food principles to live by.
Welcome back to BRB with Nathan P.
Before we get started, here are some highlights of food & climate news this week:
India Plans $4.3 Billion Spending for Energy Transition (Bloomberg)
Shell’s actual spending on renewables is fraction of what it claims, group alleges (The Guardian)
New School Foods’ filet looks and tastes like salmon, but it’s actually plants (Tech Crunch). They just secured $12M in seed funding to bring better fish alternatives to market.
💥 Breakthrough: Agroforestry in Costa Rica
In the late 1970s, Costa Rica experienced one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. Its forest cover was reduced to 25% of the country. After Costa Rica eliminated cattle-ranching incentives in the 1980s, farmers realized they had more to gain from incorporating trees in farmland rather than cutting them down. Regulation and innovation enabled a promising practice: agroforestry.
Agroforestry combines trees, crops, and animals in diverse and productive farmland. Trees provide the right conditions for rain; they foster habitats for animals who protect from pests; they protect the biodiversity that allow plants to be resilient. Alexander Retana, a Costa Rican farmer featured in Netflix’s documentary series Our Planet, produces up to 22 different crops on a single plot - from pineapple to cacao and vanilla. Bananas, right?
Around 40% of continental land is farmland. We cannot afford to clear more forests for open pastures or monocultures: we need to make our existing land more productive. Agroforestry not only increases productivity, but also increases revenues for farmers per acre. One acre of agroforestry in the Amazon can rake in $1,000 per year, far out-performing $100 per acre per year estimate for open cattle pastures.
Agroforestry is part of a broader philosophy called permaculture, which is bio-mimetic and seeks to grow food with nature rather than against it. Permaculture is a set of design principles meant to produce in harmony with nature’s principles of diversity, resilience, and reciprocity. More on that in a future newsletter.
Today, agroforestry has doubled Costa Rica’s tree cover since the ‘70s. The country now regenerates trees 7 times faster than it cuts them down. Agroforestry has potential to revamp communities and ecosystems everywhere, from the Amazon to South East Asia.
🥘 Recipe: Garlic Chili Noodles
Do yourself a favor and make yourself and your loved ones these garlic chili noodles. The best part? It all comes together in 15 minutes.
Vegetarian, deliciously umami, and spicy to your liking. My twist on the recipe below.
PS: if you make it, please send photos!
Ingredients (makes 3 generous servings)
1 block of firm tofu (I recommend sprouted tofu)
1 pound of egg noodles (knife noodles work great)
3 cloves of garlic
1 inch cube of ginger
Chili flakes (ideally in chili oil like Lao Gan Ma’s)
Oyster sauce (I like the vegan one from Whole Foods)
Soy sauce
Green onions (optional)
Instructions (total time: 15 mins)
Start boiling water in a midsized pot with salt.
At the same time, drain the firm tofu and break into fine pieces in a bowl. Sauté the finely ground tofu for a few minutes with a drizzle of oil. Add 2 teaspoons of soy sauce and sauté for another minute, then set aside.
Finely chop the 3 cloves of garlic and finely cut the piece of ginger into small cubes. Sauté with a tablespoon of oil in the same pan as earlier, until the garlic is fragrant and slightly translucent. Add chili oil with flakes and continue sautéing and 1 tablespoon oyster sauce. Add tofu back in and mix.
When water is boiling, add the egg noodles and stir to prevent sticking.
When boiled to package instructions, drain noodles to mix in the pan sauce. Continue to heat and mix. Add some sliced green onions for garnish (optional), and voilà.
📚 Book: Food Rules
Michael Pollan is one of my favorite authors. He has written extensively about nutrition in bestsellers like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food.
The book I want to highlight today is both his shortest and most actionable: Food Rules. He synthesizes his learnings from research and experimentation in a set of 64 Food Rules. 1 page each, short and sweet.
Michael Pollan introduces the book by suggesting that nutritional science is today where surgery was in the 1600s. We know very little on the full impact of the foods we eat. But we do know a few things: that folks consuming a ‘Western diet’ have obesity and diabetes rate far higher than any other diet, and that health outcomes improve when transitioning away from the ‘Western diet.’
The book is split in 3 sections summarizing his philosophy: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” It could seem almost too minimalist to be meaningful, but its implications are larger than you might imagine.
For instance, in “eat food” Michael Pollan suggests that not everything we consume is food. If it comes to you through the window of your car? Not real food. Your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food? Probably not it.
I will let you discover the two other sections when you give it a read. If you do, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.
A few of my favorites Food Rules I live by:
Avoid food products that have more than 5 ingredients
Eat wild foods when you can
Treat treats as treats
Everything in moderation, including moderation
That is all for today - BRB next week ✌️
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier - I’m an avid reader, food enthusiast, and climate optimist. I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
BRB w/ Nathan P is a weekly newsletter on all things food & climate. Each Wednesday, I’m excited to pour your inbox 3 freshly roasted brews: 1 Breakthrough, 1 Recipe, and 1 Book revolving around food & climate.
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Amazing recipe, I should try it!