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

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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

#201

Post by ianai »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #186
ianai wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Like where may I find such food? Or what did you do?

I was diagnosed with a specific medical condition that gave me a lot of information about where things had gone wrong. I did a lot of research into what kinds of nutrients I was likely short on. I started with supplements because they are far easier to deal with. This comment by me might cast a little light on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20714419 Some things I found useful: Celtic sea salt is the singl…

Wow thank you so much for your reply! I hadn’t thought that medications could make me deficient in nutrients, but it makes sense in hindsight.

What makes Celtic sea salt the best?

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

#202

Post by geomark »

powersnail wrote: post #175
philipov wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I noticed the striking difference between strawberries grown in Thailand (yes, it's true, during the cool season in the mountainous regions) which are small, non-uniform in shape and intensely flavored, compared to the huge, beautiful and watery tasteless hothouse grown strawberries imported from Korea.

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

#203

Post by colinmegill »

I worked on a bio-intensive organic farm in Washington State via https://wwoofinternational.org/. This was one of the articles that got passed around:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129629...

Volunteering there was the first time I realized strawberries were red all the way through and incredibly dense with flavor, since they were allowed to ripen naturally and benefit from richly amended soil full of microbes.

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

#204

Post by mumblemumble »

chimi wrote: post #86
wil421 wrote: post #2

The link got that actual paper is much better than a sentence or two on LinkedIn. The paper’s title isn’t as catchy to put in nicely. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/ From my link: >It is important to note that the USDA mineral content of vegetables and fruits has not been updated since 2000, and perhaps even longer, given that the data for 1992 was not able to be definitively confirmed for this…

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…

The USDA National Organic Program used to put it quite nicely on an older version of their home page:

  Our regulations do not address food safety or nutrition.
( https://web.archive.org/web/20190103075936/https://www.ams.u... )

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

#205

Post by geomark »

01100011 wrote: post #113
tastyfreeze wrote: post #82

This happened due to extermination of soil life through modern farming practices of heavy tilling, fertilizing and monoculture crops. Dead soil is more susceptible to erosion and requires ever increasing amounts of synthetic fertilizer to grow anything. More soil has been lost from the US than the amount of food that has been produced. Soil fertility can be returned to historical levels by changing farming practices…

Not exactly disagreeing with you, but it seems like increasing yields and inadequate fertilization focusing on macronutrients would also explain the drop. If I grow crops that preferentially absorb certain minerals and then take away most of the vegetable matter from the plot, the soil content of the absorbed minerals is going to drop without something to replenish it. Now, I'm not saying soil bacteria and mychorrhiz…

When you want to " pull minerals from the underlying bedrock and transport it to the top layer", trees do that. Composting with tree leaves would seem to be beneficial, although perhaps a rather slow process. And of course you need lots of trees around. Incompatible with large scale monoculture farming.

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

#206

Post by dghughes »

Derek from Vertasium on YouTbe has a nice explanation. Even showing how the nutrient levels in weed specimens are also falling. The weeds were collected by researchers over the last 100 or more years. The weeds were vital because it showed it wasn't limited to farming practices it's all plants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl_K2Ata6XY

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

#207

Post by triceratops »

chrisco255 wrote: post #191
lucb1e wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't all vegetarians or vegans fall ill sooner or later then? It seems like a weird statement given how many people do it successfully. Of course, as a vegan/vegetarian you have to look at replacements for what you are missing, but saying that "don't forget that you need your meat!" in this modern world with no source or mention of any specific nutrient is a little weird.

Vitamins B12, K2, DHA based Omega-3 (the kind your brain runs on) are all animal-based nutrients not found in plants. Furthermore, some plants like Spinach for example, have oxalates that bind to nutrients and prevent your body from absorbing them. It binds to calcium and prevents your body from absorbing it. Animal foods have a lot of calcium. Plants not so much, and you couple that with the antinutrient effect of s…

> Animal foods have a lot of calcium. Plants not so much

Broccoli has plenty of calcium.[1] B12 is easily supplemented and also present in dairy (which vegetarians consume) and eggs (which also many vegetarians consume). I'd never heard of vitamin K2 but it also is apparently present in eggs, butter, cheese and natto (fermented soy).[2] I love meat but let's not state with complete confidence that eating animals is mandatory for good health. India has more lacto-ovo vegetarians than the rest of the world put together and they're doing fine.

1. https://www.iofbonehealth.org/osteoporosis-musculoskeletal-d...

2. https://kresserinstitute.com/vitamin-k2-consuming-enough/

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

#208

Post by giardini »

NickM wrote: post #55

Something that has puzzled me recently: how is anyone supposed to get the daily recommended amount of potassium? If you look at foods like bananas that are supposed to be good sources of it, you still need to eat something like eleven bananas a day to get enough (according to US recommended daily intakes, anyway). At least with the minerals mentioned in this posting, you can fall back on supplements if you need to...…

> the max dosage you can get over the counter is 99mg

Most people get enough potassium from their diet. It's easily available in larger quantities but safety is the main concern:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1364/can-salt-subst...

Nu-Salt salt substitute is 100% potassium chloride in a 3-oz container. Morton Lite Salt is a 50-50% mix of potassium and sodium salt. Both are available in grocery stores. But use with caution and usually with the advice of a physician.

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

#209

Post by hackerbabz »

lucb1e wrote: post #145
chrisco255 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget meat has absolutely tons of essential nutrients and vitamins, some of which can't be found in fruits and vegetables.

Shouldn't all vegetarians or vegans fall ill sooner or later then? It seems like a weird statement given how many people do it successfully. Of course, as a vegan/vegetarian you have to look at replacements for what you are missing, but saying that "don't forget that you need your meat!" in this modern world with no source or mention of any specific nutrient is a little weird.

I too don't understand this attitude. Vegans exist and are not all ill. Clearly animal products are not required for good health. It's certainly possible that meat makes getting all necessary vitamins easier and it takes great diligence as a vegan.

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

#210

Post by DoreenMichele »

ianai wrote: post #201
DoreenMichele wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was diagnosed with a specific medical condition that gave me a lot of information about where things had gone wrong. I did a lot of research into what kinds of nutrients I was likely short on. I started with supplements because they are far easier to deal with. This comment by me might cast a little light on that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20714419 Some things I found useful: Celtic sea salt is the singl…

Wow thank you so much for your reply! I hadn’t thought that medications could make me deficient in nutrients, but it makes sense in hindsight. What makes Celtic sea salt the best?

It's something like 84% sodium chloride (aka salt) and 16% minerals and micronutrients found naturally in sea water.
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