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Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#52

On a related note - "High CO2 Makes Crops Less Nutritious" https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/5/140507-crops-...

If you want to grow crops in a low CO2 environment, just grow them in a greenhouse with near zero ventilation. The CO2 levels in the greenhouse will drop rapidly, and the plants will grow much slower. Don't add mulch or fresh topsoil, because that gives off a lot of carbon, especially when disturbed.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#54
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain that a vast majority of people have never tasted a "real" tomato. Here in the UK (though I'm sure this applies globally), tomatoes sold in supermarkets taste like plastic. Reason being is that they are picked when they are green and they "ripen" by the time they get to the store shelf. This is done because tomatoes are almost impossible to transfer safely in large quantities, because when they are ripe t…

Can confirm. Does this also apply to canned Tomatos or are those allowed to ripe on soil, because damage didn’t matter? I think they taste better and I’ve Heard- than many top chefs prefer them over “fresh” tomatoes for cooking.

I tried a few canned tomatoes I don't think they are good. Maybe it will be good if it is produced in the farm. I believe most of them are produced in a factory, then you still need to transport tomatoes from the farm to a factory safely.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#55
There’s a cognitive bias where if you tell a certain kind of person a negative story about an environmental issue they will believe it, regardless of its content.

If you read the article, none of the quoted sources say anything about depleted soil. It says it in the title, that’s it. Bait.

What it actually says is plant breeding and other agricultural practices caused the nutritional decline. You breed plants for storage, transport, and yield, this is what you get. Large woody or watery plants that don’t taste as good and are diluted. Fruits picked unripe and enormous vegetables that stay fresh for weeks means less value.

It doesn’t seem to have much at all to do with the soil quality going down over decades and more to do with industrial food distribution.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#56
> Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?

The essence of the article is garbage. But that's SciFi American I guess. It's pretty incoherent.

The reason IQs are rising across the world, including recently in the West, is in part better nutrients in young people and mothers.

Your grandparents could only buy things in season, it cost money for usual vegetables other than potato and carrots, frozen foods are of course great and fortification was ok back then, but it's better these days.

Who cares if carrots and potatoes had some better nutrients, if it's all you ever eat, that's not good.

I'd also like to test some old canned foods compared to today's foods. I don't fully trust old data being accurate especially retold in biased stories like this.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#57

Well, colour me shocked!! Modern farming doesn't produce as nutritious fruit and vegetables as that of the past. (Where everything was organic, and the land was managed sensibly.) Maybe we need to 'fortify' our veg, by adding calcium (chalk), and iron (fine iron filings) to it!

> Where everything was organic, and the land was managed sensibly

my father, and everyone else in my home town, had his vegetable garden. It was not "organic growth", not even in the insane legal sense where giving bordeaux mixture[0] is considered organic farming.

His stuff still tasted great, because it's not "inorganic" that make things tasteless, it's specific industrial production and distribution processes.

[0] some toxic pollutant heavy metal compounds are 100% acceptable in organic farming, because they have been used for so long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordeaux_mixture

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#58
post #5

Blueberries that taste the same but are transparent in the middle. Tomatoes that tase water. Cucumber that look great and almost tasteless. You don't know what you are missing if you have never tasted the "real" deal.

> Blueberries that taste the same but are transparent in the middle.

These are simply different species: The European blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) has dark meat, the North American blueberry (Vaccinium cyanococcus) has whiteish meat.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#59
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawberries in the USA are huge. Sometimes they remind me of an Apple. Go to Denmark--they're small but packed full of flavor. I would much rather have the smaller ones. I wonder if the large, crisp, apple-esc strawberries really sell better. They're certainly bigger.

I feel the same about hydroponically grown tomatoes. They're just bigs bags of barely flavoured water.

AFAIU that depends on the nutrients added to the water. You could have good tasting hydroponically grown tomatoes, but nobody cares.

Re: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? (2011)

#60
That's why I take supplements on daily basis. Once a year I do health check and add supplements till their level is correct.

Besides there is problem with GMO and pesticides. Later on we all have to pay for that with our health.

Ideally would be to have own food from own farm where you decide and control how to treat vegetables.

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