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

241–250 of 315 posts

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

#241

Post by ssijak »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #156
buckthundaz wrote: post #62

Wait until everyone learns about bioavailability of nutrients with respect to type of food -- ie. Animal-based nutrition is more bioavailable than plant-based nutrients. [1] [1] - https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/633S/4690005#1098...

I think it's important to consider the inputs. Carnivorism is just herbivorism with more overhead. Perhaps I do need to eat ~3 times the non-heme iron to get the same level of absorption, but plant crops usually win out over cattle when it comes to scalability. Is plant iron more bioavailable to cattle animals than humans? That might tip things slightly in favor of carnivorism, however cattle does a lot more than jus…

Heme iron is implicated with some cancers, main reason being bioavailability where our body cant regulate it as easy as non heme iron

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

#242

Post by dmix »

chimi wrote: post #223
tmp190914pn2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both parent and grandparent are saying something important here. Mineral availability from the microbiome via root interactions is critical. But throw nitrogen at a plant and it will rapidly grow utilizing CO2, O2 and water, leaving a mineral deficient plant. And that is true in any soil. Also, modern plants have been selected to be large and tender, which tends to be inversely coorelated to mineral density. So it's…

That's right! They throw on Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, but they do not add the other 14 elements, which yes, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen come from CO2 and H2O. But they also need iron, cobalt, selenium and others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_nutrition

Are nutritional supplements a sufficient solution for the full 17(?) in the meantime?

I've heard many people say they get their nutrients from eating enough vegetables where the don't need any pills or vitamins. I'm curious how true this is as the internet doesn't offer much clarity.

Not to mention the always vague scientific literature about multivitamins and other supplementations. Or the extremes like Ray Kurizwel who take hundreds of supplements "just in case".

If agriculture doesn't provide us with any realistic solutions in the near term this may still be a worthy area for future innovation to deliver legitimately useful supplementation, minus the snake oil. But I fear that is too optimistic of a goal vs the current state of things, where there's already an over supply of people offering 'solutions' merely exploiting the never ending pool of shame hyped up over mass consumption, not only in western culture but even more so in the new eastern entrants to middle classdom.

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

#243

Post by ssijak »

elmar wrote: post #128
tempguy9999 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some that say who?

For example people following the Carnivore diet.

And that must make it true than lol People following the latest diet fad must have all the knowledge in the world that hundreds of millions of people before them missed.

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

#244

Post by markdown »

fiblye wrote: post #168
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.

Where I live, I can buy tiny fruits and vegetables from local farmers, or I can buy imported ones that are 3x as large and get twice as much for half the price. The difference in fruit flavor is unbelievable. Tiny strawberries grown on a couple acres of land versus mega farm strawberries aren’t even in the same flavor category. The tiny ones taste almost identical to strawberry candies, but large ones that draw peopl…

> but large ones that draw people in with the wow factor are like firm lumps of sour water.

Sounds like they were grown hydroponically. I can't stand hydroponically grown tomatoes for the same reason. Just bags of water.

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

#245

Post by shan224 »

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...…

It's a misconception that bananas are high in potassium. E.g potatoes have higher potassium content on avg

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

#246

Post by bad_user »

mbell wrote: post #231
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…

> Soil fertility can be returned to historical levels by changing farming practices to make living soil. Seems easier to just add the missing minerals/chemicals to the soil.

Isn't that kind of thinking what got us here in the first place?

We may not even know the full range of micro-nutrients that the soil has been depleted of.

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

#247

Post by bureaucrat »

hackerbabz wrote: post #209
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.

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.

From my experience they are. They gain a ton of weight, loses muscles, hair, skin softness, become weak, emotionally unstable and underproductive.

Almost all women experience menopause, and some lost their ability to reproduce.

Becoming a vegan and getting nutrients you need is especially hard and almost all vegans fail on that.

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

#248

Post by lotsofpulp »

Trav5 wrote: post #200
philipov wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what Chinese strawberries are like, but I always figured that American strawberries are watery and sour because they're not only big, but they're also grown too quickly for flavor to develop. I think they're engineered to artificially mature early and are basically still unripe.

I have had amazing and bland Strawberries from Safeway in the US. Not sure how to pick the good ones. Time of year?

Yes, local in season fruit is always tastier. I suspect because out of season fruit has to come from further away, meaning it has to be picked before it normally would be if it didn’t have to travel so far.

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

#249

Post by _xnmw »

I’ve been living in Ukraine for the past few months, trying to figure out why the food here, especially the vegetables, simply taste so good. The very same dishes (e.g. steak and veggies) from popular mid-range restaurants are far more enjoyable to me over here in Kiev than I ever ate in Canada. When I went back to Canada for a brief visit, my body was craving Ukrainian food. Now this study on vegetable mineral content may explain why. I’m very keen to see a comparison study on Eastern European agriculture and produce versus North American. Ukraine was once the “breadbasket” of the Soviet Union, so there must be an explanation. Ukrainians who migrate to other countries are often said to complain about a loss in food taste - previously I assumed that was just some form of homesickness, but this study lends some potential scientific ground to their complaints.

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

#250

Post by lotsofpulp »

mythrwy wrote: post #114
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…

I think it also happens because of synthetic fertilizers (and possibly modern genetics). It's a race to grow as big a product in as short of time as possible which causes the mineral ratios to be different. A tomato which takes months to grow and ripens on the vine has more time to assimilate minerals than a tomato that is "pushed" with synthetic fertilizers, then snatched off the vine unripened and ripened with ethy…

Must be one hell of a tomato if it takes multiple months to grow. I’ve only grown ones that take a few weeks.
Post reply on HN