Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 315 posts

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#171

Post by cmroanirgo »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #104
dv_dt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthier soil may also capture carbon. There are many reasons to look at optimization of farming and food production for a whole range of concerns beyond profits. The question is how to broadly incentivize and fund those concerns - reinvigorating agricultural dept programs with a wider focus at a federal and state level is one way to do that; others would likely come up under a Green New Deal type framework too. htt…

Aside from a few farmers that are motivated by ideology, profit is the only motivation that will change practices. I have recently been researching biochar(biologically charged charcoal). Use of biochar is a form of carbon sequestration that reduces nutrient leaching and provides immense surface area for bacterial and fungal life to thrive in soil.

I met a potato farmer whose primary crop is for a large chain supermarket. He produces almost double his required yield, doesn't use fertilizer nor pesticides... and has been so for a decade. To use his words: he's a potato farmer, but spends most of his time preparing the soil for the next year. He's right into cover crops (ie not leaving the soil exposed), and several 'rotational' crops that assist in root and nutrient management, as well as pesticide control (yes, plants to control pests). These rotational crops are generally 'terminated' early by finely mulching them back into the earth while simultaneously seeding the next preparatory crop. His biggest expense, fuel, is reduced with a smaller tractor, which also assists in minimising soil compaction.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#172

Post by xenocyon »

fbonetti wrote: post #109
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #6

Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it. Whatever the consumer will buy and you can produce as cheaply as possible wins the day. Our tasteless vegetables are like cheap Bose (no highs, no lows, must be Bose) speakers or pressed paper furniture at Walmart. On the surface they look like a vegetable should look, but the taste,…

> Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it. This is not a bad thing. Food is so abundant that globally, more people are obese than underweight. This is pretty remarkable considering that for all of human history, up until recently, periods of mass starvation was the norm.

How does obesity prove your point? It's possible (and indeed common) to be overweight and malnourished at the same time. Also, the mass starvation events that I am aware of are actually human-created (results of egregious public policy or breakdown of normal sociopolitical conditions), not caused by traditional food technologies. This is why, for instance, we've seen so much famine in the last couple of centuries. See the case of British-Raj India, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#173

Post by aaron695 »

No one cares the graph has no labels, or is this the state of food science.... All the minerals went down at exactly the same rates huh?

FYI the * means unverified.

The original article is not g eat but does bring up an interesting point on magnesium.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#174

Post by Dylan16807 »

all_usernames wrote: post #42
jjoonathan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is actually a problem, I'd much rather someone figure out which minerals need to go into the fertilizer mix (plus some downstream monitoring) than to assume that putting poop on the vegetables makes them wholesome.

Ten thousand years of agriculture is an assumption?

People drank river water for ten thousand years, but most of that is very far from clean/good.

Manure works fine. That doesn't mean it's anywhere near optimal.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#175

Post by powersnail »

philipov wrote: post #163
Scoundreller wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even focusing on macronutrients. We’re just focussing in mass. I’m not looking forward to the end of tomato season and the inevitable disappointment when I buy them from the grocery store.

The worst is strawberries. The huge strawberries you can buy in the store have the same flavor content as the tiny ones you can grow in your yard, but it's completely diluted with water. They're disgusting.

Is it just because they are giant? I’ve had relatively big strawberries that are sweet and flavorful in China. But in the US, they taste like cucumber plus citrus, no sweetness, no aroma, just incredibly sour and watery.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#176

Post by ianai »

xenocyon wrote: post #172
fbonetti wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it. This is not a bad thing. Food is so abundant that globally, more people are obese than underweight. This is pretty remarkable considering that for all of human history, up until recently, periods of mass starvation was the norm.

How does obesity prove your point? It's possible (and indeed common) to be overweight and malnourished at the same time. Also, the mass starvation events that I am aware of are actually human-created (results of egregious public policy or breakdown of normal sociopolitical conditions), not caused by traditional food technologies. This is why, for instance, we've seen so much famine in the last couple of centuries. Se…

Malnutrition may be a contributing factor to obesity. We crave more food when we’re not getting what we need. If it’s not there to begin with, or at best a lesser amount, then ever more never satisfies.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#177

Post by ianai »

defterGoose wrote: post #143
fbonetti wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it. This is not a bad thing. Food is so abundant that globally, more people are obese than underweight. This is pretty remarkable considering that for all of human history, up until recently, periods of mass starvation was the norm.

It's not a bad thing if your only criteria is the immediate ability to fill one's belly. It's a bad thing in a lot of other ways, including many measures of "wellness". Don't get me wrong; I'm thankful that we possess this technology from the perspectives of advancement of knowledge and having more tools to avert food crises. But these technologies were all developed recently enough that while our understanding of th…

Imagine how much more food could be grown with just making sure the soil is healthy.

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#179

Post by DoreenMichele »

ianai wrote: post #176
xenocyon wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does obesity prove your point? It's possible (and indeed common) to be overweight and malnourished at the same time. Also, the mass starvation events that I am aware of are actually human-created (results of egregious public policy or breakdown of normal sociopolitical conditions), not caused by traditional food technologies. This is why, for instance, we've seen so much famine in the last couple of centuries. Se…

Malnutrition may be a contributing factor to obesity. We crave more food when we’re not getting what we need. If it’s not there to begin with, or at best a lesser amount, then ever more never satisfies.

This.

I lost multiple dress sizes while making zero effort to lose weight by working on improving my nutritional status.

Or at least while working on it.

(Insert some XKCD comic about cause and correlation.) ;)

Re: Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

#180

Post by nitrogen »

wil421 wrote: post #97
chimi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run an organic farm experimenting with hydroponics and I did a ton of research on this. What I found, organic does not mean healthier. In fact, a larger percentage of food related illnesses are reported for organic foods than foods without the organic label, which itself is controversial and misleading. This is largely due to the types of fertilizer used. Animal waste is used to fertilize organic foods. Yes…

Hydroponics can’t scale like industrial farming. Our farming practices need to improve to make industrial farming sustainable. My own foray into hydroponics has been lack luster. Lettuce didn’t taste as good and it’s much more maintenance. I can setup water timers and fertilize every x weeks in my garden. You have to constantly check hydro and put chemicals in it very often. Too labor intensive.

Eventually the timers and sensors will be able to apply the right inputs to hydroponics, too.
Post reply on HN