Episode notes
New Zealand produces food for three and a half times its own population — and still imports most of what it eats.
That paradox is the whole episode. We're self-sufficient in five of the seven major food groups: fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, seafood. The two we fall short on are legumes, nuts and seeds, and starchy staples — wheat, rice, oats. The calorie backbone of the modern diet.
The reason is 150 years of optimisation. Pastoral farming occupies about 40% of New Zealand's land area; horticulture, the stuff that directly feeds people, occupies 1.5%. We grow what the world pays most for, and buy back what we actually live on.
So what would the isolation diet look like? Nobody starves. But you'd be eating a great deal of lamb, butter, potatoes and kiwifruit, and almost no bread.
At The End Of The World is hosted by Nic Roland and produced by Jamie Thomas. More at ateotw.com