The Nutrients of Light - What if Light came with Nutritional Facts Labels?

Since the advent of the first industrial revolution our lives have shifted from hunter gatherers, to farmers to professional consumers and our consumer lives have brought about an ultra-processed existence. Our ultra-processed existence is not limited to our pre-packaged foods, the way we get from A to B is ultra-processed too in my opinion, and I believe it extends as far as pre-packaged and ultra-processed light.

When Thomas Alva Edison's patent for the electric lamp (U.S. Patent 223,898) was filed on October 14, 1879, and then granted on January 27, 1880, he introduced a practical and commercially viable design for a long-lasting electric light source, he revolutionised the way we illuminate our surroundings. At the same time he had essentially given us a pre-packed and processed light source.

The filament lamp whilst being a processed light source, still had an aspect of goodness to it. It did deliver a small amount of Ultraviolet (UV) light and a comparatively large amount of Infrared (IR) light. Both UV and IR have a positive impact on our health and wellbeing in the right amounts.

Today the food industry is regulated in such a way that they need to provide clear and simple nutritional facts labels, there are a number of reasons for this -

Health and Well-being: Nutritional facts labels provide vital information about the nutrient content of foods, helping us to make informed choices about our diets. They provide information on calories, macronutrients (such as fats, carbohydrates, and proteins), micronutrients (such as vitamins and minerals), and other components like added sugars and sodium. Understanding the nutritional content of foods can assist us in managing our calorie intake, achieving balanced nutrition, and meeting specific dietary needs or restrictions.

Dietary Planning: Nutritional facts labels allow us to plan our meals and diets based on their nutritional requirements. By knowing the nutrient content of foods, we can better balance our intake of essential nutrients, limit or avoid certain components (e.g., saturated fats or sodium), or identify foods that align with specific dietary goals (e.g., low-carb, high-fibre).

Allergies and Intolerances: Nutritional facts labels help us with food allergies or intolerances, identify potential allergens or problematic ingredients. Manufacturers are often required to disclose common allergens (e.g., peanuts, milk, wheat) on food labels, enabling us to avoid foods that may cause adverse reactions.

Comparisons and Choices: Nutritional facts labels facilitate comparisons between different food products, enabling us to make healthier and more informed choices. By examining the nutrient profiles of different options, we can select foods that align with our health goals, dietary preferences, or nutritional needs.

Transparency and Consumer Rights: Nutritional facts labels promote transparency in the food industry, ensuring that we have access to information about the products we purchase. It helps us exercise our right to know what we are consuming and make educated decisions about the foods we buy and consume.

Overall, nutritional facts labels play a crucial role in promoting public health, assisting with dietary planning, enabling informed food choices, and providing necessary information for those of us with specific dietary needs or restrictions.

Food labelling looks like this -

Light on the other hand does not have anything near this level of scrutiny, yet it plays an equally important role in nourishing us. Sadly unlike the detailed nutritional labelling we see coming from the regulation of the food and beverage industry the UV Index seems to be the limit of a consumers exposure to information relating to quality of light, and it is limited to natural light. When we look at our smart devices we have access to weather information which gives us information covering air quality in the form of pollen count and pollution. We also get an indication of the UV Index as an overview as well as hour by hour.

Surely this is not enough? Surely for something so powerful and so connected to our overall health and wellbeing we should expect more?

Light is magical, it's invisible, and we only perceive it when it reaches a surface, a material, an element, a particle. We see light as the source, we see the sun, we see a lit filament, we see a lit LED, but we do not see light as it travels through space to a surface. Maybe it is for this reason that we take it for granted, the sun comes up and it goes down, it's happened every day for millennia, from the creation of our universe.

Ever since Thomas Alva Edison patented the first filament lamp, for those of us lucky enough to have been born into the 1st world, we have controlled light via a switch, 143 years of artificial light compared to millions of year of natural light, yet the end result is the same - a complacent, maybe entitled expectation that we deserve to have light when and where we want it without any real understanding of what it can and can't do for us. This was not always the case, there have been many ancient civilisations that have come before us who have worshipped the sun as a deity or held it in high regard as a symbol of power and divinity -

Ancient Egyptian Civilisation: The ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun god Ra (also known as Re), considering him the king of the gods and the giver of life. Ra was often depicted as a falcon-headed man or a falcon with the sun disk on his head. The sun was considered a powerful and central force in Egyptian mythology and religious beliefs.

Inca Civilisation: The Inca civilization of pre-Columbian America held the sun deity Inti in great reverence. The Inca emperor was believed to be the son of the sun, and Inti was considered the ancestral god of the Inca people. The sun played a significant role in Inca rituals, festivals, and agricultural practices.

Aztec Civilisation: The Aztecs worshipped the sun god Huitzilopochtli as one of their principal deities. Huitzilopochtli was associated with the sun, war, and human sacrifice. The Aztecs believed that the sun required regular offerings of blood to ensure its continued rise and set.

Ancient Greek Civilisation: The ancient Greeks associated the sun with the god Helios, who was often depicted as a charioteer driving the sun across the sky. Helios was considered one of the Titans and held a significant role in Greek mythology.

Ancient Norse Civilisation: The ancient Norse people worshipped the sun as a celestial body of great importance. While there is not a specific sun deity in Norse mythology, the sun was associated with the goddess Sol, who charioted the sun across the sky.

These are just a few examples of ancient civilisations that worshipped or revered the sun in their religious and mythological beliefs. The sun's powerful presence, life-giving properties, and celestial significance made it a common object of veneration across various cultures throughout history.

Light should never be taken for granted, and high quality light should be demanded, maybe mandated, it should never be devalued to the lowest common denominator.

I believe that light nourishes us and so maybe light, natural and artificial, should have its own 'Nutritional Facts' labels, and if so maybe these labels would look something like this -

Today it is reported that we spend 90% of our days indoors, it's worse for Americans who spend 93% of their time indoors, and now our primary and predominant artificial light source is LED. Lighting LEDs deliver minimal amounts of UV and IR by comparison to the amount delivered by the tungsten filament lamps that used to light our spaces and of course we allow natural light in through our windows to illuminate our spaces, however as our glazing has become more and more efficient we have lost the UV and IR content that would have come into our interior spaces before.

Not all LEDs are born equal, so if there was such a thing as a nutritional facts label for light and for LEDs in particular we'd most likely see some connection to the information we get from a spectrometer, this one shows the results from a relatively average quality LED (I don't believe average should ever make the cut) in the Visible Light section...

Or maybe it could be shown in the format of a Nutritional Label as the one below.

This may be a bit of a crazy concept? Would anyone benefit from having a better understanding of quality of light and the importance of natural light? And could it be that our indoor lifestyle has had an impact on our health and wellbeing as a consequence our a negative impact on our healthcare sectors?

The graph below shows the total healthcare expenditure in the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2021. The graph shows a 350% growth in spending -

Looking at population growth over the same period growth has been much slower from 58,886,100 to 67,027,300, an increase of just under 14%.

The data suggests that the cost of healthcare per capita in the UK has increased from ￡1,339.87 to ￡4,126.68 an increase of just over 300%, hopefully my assumption and my maths are not completely incorrect. Could this be due in part to how we consume light today, in particular our consumption of natural light, or more importantly the lack of it?

What impact is our indoor sedentary post industrial revolution life having on our health and wellbeing and should we consider light in the context of nourishment? If so what are the nutritional values of natural light?

On 28th October 1943 Winston Churchill said 'We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us', so can we shape our buildings differently so that they allow us to consume natural light in a different way and can our buildings in turn help us to shape our future health and wellbeing?

To learn more about how our consumption of light is critically important to our health and wellbeing and how architecture and design can have a profound impact on our ability to consume light register for our CPD – The Facts of Light -?https://www.atrium.ltd.uk/riba-cpd-the-facts-of-light/

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