“Look deep into NATURE and then you will UNDERSTAND everything better.” Albert Einstein
Nature is made of more than a million species of life and elements that interact with each other in network pattern called an ecosystem. Often termed the web of life, the myriad of life and non-life forms in an ecosystem coexist in a complex chemical-energy dynamic that can be visualized as a web. The food web includes bacteria, virus, plants, and all kinds of animals that are interdependent upon each other. The health of the earth’s ecosystems can be measured by its biodiversity.
The definition of biodiversity is: the variety and variability of life at different levels of biological organization, such as genetic, species, and ecosystem levels.
What do ecosystems have to do with our diet?
Ecosystems that are healthy have their full biodiversity and the web is intact. The land is healthy, soil is rich, forests and wetlands are doing their job at filtering rain. We need nature for our clean water and healthy food. Healthy ecosystems produce our soil. They support abundant honey-bees, pollinating insects, and other beneficial bugs needed to pollinate our food crops and to suppress infectious disease. Water purification, nutrient cycling, and climate regulation are other examples of ecosystem services that man requires for survival.
Human health depends on healthy food and healthy food depends on healthy soil and healthy soil depends on healthy ecosystems. All these things are connected. Our health is connected to a healthy earth.