The Third Plate summary

Bread, pasta, pastries, couscous… They all have one thing in common: wheat. But where does all this wheat come from?

Historically, wheat was processed in gristmills that ground the whole kernel of the wheat, producing a wheat rich in minerals, protein and fatty acids. But this method also meant that the wheat only kept for about a week. Modern production techniques have changed that.

Picture boundless golden stretches of corn and wheat, the wind billowing through it. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Unfortunately, there’s a nasty downside to it.

Monoculture, or the practice of growing one type of plant in one area, wreaks havoc on the soil and drains its nutrients. But there is hope: namely, traditional farming techniques. Native Americans, for example, used the three sisters technique, where corn, beans and squash were all grown together, each playing vital roles in replenishing the earth’s nutrients.

Since soil is food for the plants that grow in it, imagine what happens to them if they only eat junk food. That’s what’s happening today: food grown in monocultures lacks nutrients, which affects our health.

When plants can’t get what they need to thrive from the soil, they become stressed. Just like us, this makes them more susceptible to sickness and pests.

Picture-perfect scenes of chickens frolicking freely around the barnyard were a reality a few decades ago. But times have drastically changed since then. What happened? The American broiler chicken: a prime example of how we’ve industrialized meat production.

It started with The Perdue Chicken Company, founded in the 1920s to produce eggs; chicken meat was only a by-product. But when Frank Perdue, the son of the eponymous founder, took over the company, he saw the chance to focus on meat production.

The Spanish word tierra is often translated as land. But it’s far more than that: it’s the earth, roots, climate and so on – a complex, biodiverse place. The dehesa, in the Southern region of Extremadura in Spain, is one example of this. Once filled with flocks of Merino sheep, the land is sectioned off by stone, crops and oak trees. On the surface it might seem barren, but it’s home to one of the world’s most beloved foods.

The world’s best ham, Jamón Ibérico de Bellota, hails from the dehesa. This ham comes from the Iberian pig, whose food of choice is acorns, which give the ham its signature nutty flavor. As the pigs are free to roam and exercise, their muscles make room for oleic acid, which comes from the acorns and is the same unsaturated fat found in olive oil.

If industrialized farming on land wreaks havoc there, why not turn to the resources of our seas? Bad idea. We’ve already taken so much from our oceans that overfishing has reached critical levels.

Over the past 60 years, fishing increased fourfold, from 19 million tons in 1950 to 87 million tons in 2005. Now, over 85 percent of the world’s fish are endangered.

Fish farming presents an alternative to fishing in oceans and rivers. But this is nothing new: China has been doing it since 500 BC.

The annual growth in fish farming, which hovers around 8.8 percent, is just enough to keep pace with the global increase in fish consumption. Some even argue that, by 2018, all the fish we eat will have been farm-raised. While this doesn’t seem problematic at first sight, the environment is suffering for it.

Whether it’s grains for animals or for human consumption, they exist thanks to seeds. Seeds hold the answer to our food future. And, as we know, being ready for the future requires learning from the past.

Let’s look back to the proliferation of hybrid plants, which created today’s monocultures. Hybrids are essentially two plants which are crossbred to create a new plant. The plus side of hybrids is that, for example, a corn plant can become more resistant to drought or a wheat plant can produce larger yields.

We now understand that monocultures have a negative impact on our environment, our health and our cuisine. So what might sustainable cuisine look like? Let’s take a look at two dishes.

First, the beloved risotto: a classic first course at many high-end restaurants. However, it’s also the quintessential monoculture dish of rice, stock and cheese.

The key message in this book:

The way we eat affects the way we produce our food, and vice versa. But the way we farm and produce food today is unsustainable. Still, there is hope. We are capable of growing, producing and cooking food that is better for our environment and tastes great, too.