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Experimental Food Science & Nutrition
Review Article
SARS-CoV-2 A New Era of Opportunity *Corresponding author
*
Miguel Ángel Galina Hidalgo, Facultad de Estudios Superiores
Cuautitlán. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Cuau-
titlán, Estado de México, México
Miguel Ángel Galina Hidalgo1*, Rosa Isabel Higuera Piedrahi- Received : 09 Dec 2020
ta1 and Jorge Luis Olmos2 Accepted : 14 Dec 2020
Published: 29 Jan 2021
1Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlán. Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México. Cuautitlán, Estado de México, México Copyright
© 2021 Miguel Ángel Galina Hidalgo
2 Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Querétaro
OPEN ACCESS
*Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic forces us to look at animal production systems and their impact on human health. In this regard, why is Mexico one of the
most affected countries, USA; 15, 618,488 and 293,899; India 9,761,377 and141,712; Brazil 6,682.652 and 178,295: Russia 2,541,196 and 44,718; France
2,309,621 and 56,352; Italy 1,770,149 and 61,739; UK 1,766,819 and 82,566; Spain 1,715,700 and 46,646; Argentina 1,649, 919 and 40,009; and Colombia
1,384,610 cases and deaths are the ten most affected countries. México with 1,193,255 and 110,874 cases and deaths is number 12th in the list but 4th in
deaths due to COVID.19. This paper’s objective is to carry out a bibliographical search on Mexico’s state of health, its junk food consumption, and the
impact these factors have had on the infection rate of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The high intake of processed foods increases the presence of agrochemicals
in crops, allowing soil degradation and water pollution. They also deplore human health, increasing susceptibility to diseases that damage the immune
system. Is compulsory to call for new, sustainable, and environmentally respectful livestock and agricultural systems, that will also result in a healthier
diet.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Opportunity, Animal Production, Agriculture
Introduction ture and livestock farming [3]. These subjects should be prioritized since
What are the sectors that, in terms of reinvestment, should be prioritized 70% of the chronic-degenerative diseases that have caused deaths by
after the COVID-19 pandemic? We start from a historical premise: to COVID-19 were consequences of a junk food-heavy carbohydrates diet
know where we are going, we must know where we came from. Education which is also the cause for the obesity and overweight present in 75% of
must serve the people, but today it mainly serves the Financial Capital Ex- the Mexican population. This precarious state of health in the Mexican
ecutives. Education is no stranger to economic, social nor political inter- population, is the main reason for the unfortunate number of deaths by
ests. Today, we face an unprecedented global crisis due to the COVID-19 COVID-19, placing the country on the 4th position in world deaths, de-
pandemic. Soon, the reopening will begin, and the priorities must firstly spite the great efforts to fight it (graph 4). Data from the National Health
be health and secondly, education. Reviewing the future after COVID-19, Survey 2019 and worldometer, 2020, with 110,874 deaths, United States
some key concepts appear environmental education; education in agricul- is first with 293,739; followed by Brazil, 178,184; India 141,668 and then
ture; education in politics and no less important, education in economics Mexico [4,5,6].
[1]. Is fundamental to know a little history on each of these important
areas, to be able to lead them into new directions after the pandemic [2]. New Priorities in Agriculture and Food for Health
Education in agriculture after COVID-19 should be presented from a new
What are the priority sectors in terms of reinvestment? There are three overview. The concept of profit transformed agriculture, and it was a result
main areas in need of reinvestment after the pandemic. First, the health of the green revolution and of some key concepts that were born from
sector, its reconstruction is of first importance. Secondly, education is nec- university students for several generations. We were trained in the use of
essary to make a historical remembrance of educational development in improved seeds, irrigation, fertilizers, and herbicides that polluted rivers
the world and specifically in Mexico. Thirdly, research, always asking the and seas. For livestock production, especially for ruminants, we learned
question, for whom and for what? Under these premises, there must be to use maize and soybeans, replacing other sources of food that, after cen-
research conducted on climate change and on certain types of agricul- turies of evolution, used vegetable cell walls, which man could not digest
Experimental Food Science & Nutrition, 2021 Volume 2 | Issue 1 | 32such as cellulose and hemicellulose. Afterwards, these concentrated foods Figure 2. Causes of death in Hospitals in México 2020
could also be used by humans. This new form of feeding transformed the
animals into methane –one of the most polluting gases for the ozone layer,
production machines; while the increase on their growth and milk pro-
duction rates, was not improved overall, neither for the environment nor
for the consumer. Parallel to this quantitative increase, accompanied by a
decrease in the quality of the products, the population began to consume
“junk food”, rich in starches and sugars that produced an epidemiological
change. For example, in the 1930s, diabetes in Mexico did not amount to
1% of the population, today it exceeds 16% and this has caused overweight
or obesity in 70% of the population; cardiovascular conditions and oth-
er chronic- degenerative diseases, which explain the high mortality rates
from COVID-19 [7,8].
Recent studies show that in the United States 32% of the population is
overweight and 40% is obese, due to the excessive consumption of junk
foods: the population eat more sugar, more fat and more meat. Since 1993,
with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), the import of corn syrup was allowed into Mexico, increasing Source: National Epidemiological Survey 2020
its presence in many junk foods by 1200% and entirely modifying the epi- As you can observe, cancer, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases
demiological map. Our country holds the number one position worldwide were not significant in the 1930s. Mexicans died from parasitic diseases,
in the consumption of soft drinks. The companies selling them advertise due to poverty and unhealthy environments, and surely due to other dis-
that exercise fights obesity and that that the consumption of their products eases or violence [10].
does not alter obesity or overweight. With the new TECMEC, which was
signed in 2020, this will surely not change much, Mexico will continue Last year, this tremendous change was demonstrated with the epidemiolo-
to receive basically “junk” manufactured food and we will, in reciprocity, gy of deaths among Mexicans. Diseases causally related to food consump-
send them more fruits, legumes, tomatoes and avocados [9]. tion increased dramatically. Just as an example, diabetes increased from
0.5% to 16% in 2020, 3% higher than on the graph made with data from
The following two graphs show epidemiological maps in 1930 and in 2019, 2019 [11,12].
showing a significant change in the existing diseases which resulted main-
ly from a change in eating habits (figure 1 and figure 2). It would be crucial to take advantage of the fact that the pandemic has
had a global effect, to come up with new objectives in education, health,
Figure 1. Causes of death recorded in Hospitals in Mexico in 1930 agriculture, and the food production sector. We must use this crisis to
modify production systems. It is of paramount importance for the survival
of humanity, to stop polluting everyone’s house, the world, and to stop
consuming foods rich in starches and sugars. Corn syrup today is full of
carbohydrates (in the form of fructose) and is present in every food as
preservative. This is a medical crime. The proliferation of food engineers
which, in addition to the population’s ignorance, resulted in an exponen-
tial increase in Mexico of type 2 diabetes. Objectives must be changed in
medicine, in food engineering, in veterinary medicine and in zootechnics.
When we return to the universities, our task must be to inform of the dan-
gers entailed in maintaining the current food production and consump-
tion systems [13,14].
Surely worldwide we are aware of the importance of the SARS-Cov-2 pan-
demic but, to illustrate its severity, we developed three graphs with data
from December 8TH, 2020 (Figure 3). We could not develop more graph-
ics due to the deadline for the present paper, but it is certain that the pan-
Source: National Epidemiological Survey 2019 demic is not over and although the vaccine is close, the cases continue to
increase [4].
Experimental Food Science & Nutrition, 2021 Volume 2 | Issue 1 | 33Figure 3. COVID-19 Positive cases in the first 25 countries, December 9th Figure 3. Frequency of comorbidities in deaths and confirmed positive
2020 COVID-19
Taken from: WordoMeter (2020)
Countries such as Peru and Belgium have comparatively less population,
We selected the ten most affected countries and a few others to contrast but the importance of SARS-CoV-2 is due to its worldwide presence [17,4].
their management of the disease. Just in the United States there 15.6 mil-
lion recorded positive cases; 6.6 million in Brazil and increasing. Now, Agricultural Education in Mexico
India d Europe and South America seems to be the highest point of In Mexico and other countries, historically, yield per hectare has been giv-
spread; India 9.7; Russia 2.5; France 2.3; Italy 1.4; UK, 1.7; Spain 1.7; Ar- en a higher priority. This was a result of the green revolution, which started
gentina, 1.4; Colombia 1.3; Germany 1.2 and Mexico 1.1 million positive with the return of the first agricultural science fellows, educated in rich
COVID-19 survey [4,15]. countries such as the United States, England, and France. In Mexico, some
special agricultural schools such as «Chapingo University » and others,
In figure 4, we included deaths causally related to SARS-CoV-2. This graph taught the use of new irrigation and fertilization techniques; the use of
illustrates which countries have the highest death counts [16]. herbicides; introduced the utilization of improved seeds and agrochemi-
cals to increase crop production, particularly export crops such as tomato,
Figure 4. SARS-CoV-2 deaths in the world December 8, 2020 avocado, and strawberries [18,19]. At the same time, the first generations
of Zootechnics and Agronomists were trained, and this promoted the
idea of genetic improvement, basing it on the import of pure, European
livestock or Zebus, which spread hybrid offspring. The first generation of
purebred with native genetic material gave good results, superior in pro-
duction to its parents, but it needed greater resources. Therefore, modifica-
tions in their food were made and the use of concentrated feed introduced.
The question comes up regarding the second generation, the F2, was that
the end of the “improvement”? [20]. Every year there is always money for
genetic improvement programs, breeding animals became a lucrative busi-
ness and stallions were bred under ideal conditions, with massive use of
concentrates [21].
These systems polluted our rivers, seas, lagoons, and streams; they eroded
our land; and wiped out our forests. It has been dramatically proven to-
day, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that massively produced food is an
Taken from: WordoMeter (2020) adjuvant for the virus death rate. Most COVID-19 deaths are of patients
who also have cancer, arteriosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, respiratory failure
It certainly is difficult to compare the effect of the pandemic in such differ- caused by cigarettes, hypertension, immunosuppression conditions: in
ent demographics. Perhaps the indicator of deaths by one million inhab- short, chronic-degenerative diseases. 70% of these are consequences from
itants shows more clearly the impact of the virus on each society (Figure junk food consumption that, in turn, comes from increased production. A
5,6). universal law in agriculture is “the more that occurs per hectare or per an-
imal, the less the quality of the food” [22]. Coronavirus deaths are mainly
Figure 5. Deaths by one million habitants until December 8, 2020 of elderly men and women. The nearly 200,000 deaths in the United States
is explained by the data: 70% of their population is obese or overweight
and they also present other diseases. This is also the case for Mexico [23].
The new agricultural education, as universities reopen after lockdown,
must consider the molecules that make up the product. For example, the
color in nature is given by carotenoids and flavonoids, which are present
on plant walls to defend its tissues from ultraviolet rays. These molecules
also have high-level antioxidants which are also present in herb and seed
tissues. Each of these molecules colored plants, milk, or honey different-
Taken from: WordoMeter (2020) ly. In general, the darker the plant or product, the higher the content of
carotenoids or flavonoids. Therefore, the quality of any product is the re-
sult of its chemical composition. Today, more than ever, education must
emphasize on these substances since they are the most important factor
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Cite
* this article: Miguel Ángel Galina Hidalgo, Rosa Isabel Higuera Piedrahita and Jorge Luis Olmos (2021) SARS-CoV-2 A New Era of Opportu-
nity. Experimental Food Science & Nutrition 2: 32-36.
*Copyright: ©2021 Miguel Ángel Galina Hidalgo. This is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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