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Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#21

Post by Retric »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #15

They are also more abundant than they used to be and that's a valid tradeoff to consider. Would it be worth it to only have access to seasonal produce local to your region for that produce testing better? Make do with pickles and potatoes instead of fresh fruit and vegetables in late fall through early spring? If not, shelf life, productivity and greenhouse feasibility are relevant metrics in addition to taste and vi…

It’s not just old vs new styles of gardening, increased CO2 levels are apparently having an impact as well which is much harder to control at scale. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/climate-chan...

As to seasonality, I personally remember canned fruit being very tasty though that also had negative impacts on nutrition.

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#22

Post by MorrisMinor »

colechristensen wrote: post #11
jaequery wrote: post #2

Yes and it’s less tasty too. GMO ruined it.

Very few foods are genetically modified and those modifications have nothing to do with taste or nutrition, but pest and pest control resistance. Foods have been bred for shelf stability and size which leads to less flavor and nutrition.

Traditional breeding may have reduced the nutritional content of plants, but GM can be used to produce plants that are nutritious and high yielding.

One study took wild tomatoes and used GM to increase yield:

"Compared with the wild parent, our engineered lines have a threefold increase in fruit size and a tenfold increase in fruit number. Notably, fruit lycopene accumulation is improved by 500% compared with the widely cultivated S. lycopersicum."

https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4272

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#23

Post by TaylorAlexander »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #15

They are also more abundant than they used to be and that's a valid tradeoff to consider. Would it be worth it to only have access to seasonal produce local to your region for that produce testing better? Make do with pickles and potatoes instead of fresh fruit and vegetables in late fall through early spring? If not, shelf life, productivity and greenhouse feasibility are relevant metrics in addition to taste and vi…

Who says this is a zero sum game? Why not work towards abundant food that is as nutritious as possible?

EDIT: And climate and environment friendly, to boot. Via regenerative agriculture.

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#24

Post by jacquesm »

foofoo4u wrote: post #13
colechristensen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about “genetically best” but you can check out heirloom seeds from houses like the seed savers exchange (And many others) https://www.seedsavers.org/

Thank you. I think this gets me in the right direction. "heirloom seeds" seems to be what I am looking for. Some online testify that they find heirlooms taste better. I'll have to do some more research and try them myself to see if its true.

They will taste better, but be prepared for much smaller sizes than you are used to. And there is nothing wrong with that, it's just that most vegetables are as large as they are because they absorb a lot of water and effectively their larger size in the most literal sense dilutes the bits that give the vegetables their taste. That's why for instance smaller tomatoes taste so much better than the larger ones.

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#25

Post by TaylorAlexander »

gregwebs wrote: post #17

This article mentions that regenerative agriculture as the solution. There is a lot of concern now about the potential for a global food shortage at the end of this year because of rising fertilizer prices (leading to less planting). Regenerative agriculture can help solve this as well by focusing on restoring the biome of the soil, thereby harnessing nitrogen from the air and minerals from the soil.

I agree and if anyone is curious I am part of a project to bring open source farming robots for regenerative agriculture to everyone. We’re working on building a monthly crowd funding following to sustainably fund the project while staying completely open source. We have a good prototype vehicle now and are working on a good solid kit design we can ship in the next year or two, and will work with our user community to design tools for soil prep, planting seeds and transplants, weeding, and harvesting all in a regenerative organic process. And anyone can start a business selling their own variant of the design. We believe this will drive down costs in the same way that 3D printers dropped in price by 100x when patents expired and an open community formed around the many new designs. More details in our latest update here:

https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#26

Post by saurik »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #15

They are also more abundant than they used to be and that's a valid tradeoff to consider. Would it be worth it to only have access to seasonal produce local to your region for that produce testing better? Make do with pickles and potatoes instead of fresh fruit and vegetables in late fall through early spring? If not, shelf life, productivity and greenhouse feasibility are relevant metrics in addition to taste and vi…

If my food isn't nutritious I either wither away or am forced to eat more food, which comes with more calories. So, no: it seems like it is better to make do with seasonal foods than to live in a world where I can technically experience a tomato but... is it really a tomato if it just tastes like a tomato but otherwise confers none of the value of a tomato? (If you are saying the alternative is NO food, then sure; but I think the problem is that it is difficult to even get reasonable fruits and vegetables that are in season even if you live in a place where they can be grown as no one bothers to grow them anymore.)

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#27

Post by colechristensen »

MorrisMinor wrote: post #22
colechristensen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few foods are genetically modified and those modifications have nothing to do with taste or nutrition, but pest and pest control resistance. Foods have been bred for shelf stability and size which leads to less flavor and nutrition.

Traditional breeding may have reduced the nutritional content of plants, but GM can be used to produce plants that are nutritious and high yielding. One study took wild tomatoes and used GM to increase yield: "Compared with the wild parent, our engineered lines have a threefold increase in fruit size and a tenfold increase in fruit number. Notably, fruit lycopene accumulation is improved by 500% compared with the wid…

Such things are not in the food supply. No doubt it is possible, and there has been research, but there are exactly 0 available GMO tomatoes available to buy as food in the US.

Re: Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be

#28

Post by dehrmann »

jacquesm wrote: post #24
foofoo4u wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I think this gets me in the right direction. "heirloom seeds" seems to be what I am looking for. Some online testify that they find heirlooms taste better. I'll have to do some more research and try them myself to see if its true.

They will taste better, but be prepared for much smaller sizes than you are used to. And there is nothing wrong with that, it's just that most vegetables are as large as they are because they absorb a lot of water and effectively their larger size in the most literal sense dilutes the bits that give the vegetables their taste. That's why for instance smaller tomatoes taste so much better than the larger ones.

They won't necessarily taste better. One of the things we've been breeding for is better flavor. Also yield and shelf life, so some will definitely taste better.
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