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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

#31

Post by mrpopo »

dehrmann wrote: post #29

Considering the US has an obesity epidemic and scurvy and rickets aren't common, is this a problem?

Fruits are lacking vitamins and minerals, not sugar. In fact, the carbohydrate content in fruits is increasing with increased CO2 concentrations (explained in the article).

Anyway, the reason why this is a problem is explained in the article.

“As many as three billion people around the planet, most of them in low- and middle-income countries, cannot regularly afford a healthy diet, and at least two billion are suffering from so-called hidden hunger, missing key micronutrients in their diets,” Sova says. “These people cannot afford additional nutrient declines in plant-based foods.”

Nutrient deprivation isn't just scurvy and rickets, it is also linked to many behavioural and long-term health problems.

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

#32

Post by MorrisMinor »

colechristensen wrote: post #27
MorrisMinor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps it's just a matter of time.

Here's a good overview of the technology:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211207-the-tomatoes-at-...

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

#33

Post by Meandering »

dehrmann wrote: post #29

Considering the US has an obesity epidemic and scurvy and rickets aren't common, is this a problem?

I can't remember the technical terms for these issues (hypercaloric, nutrient deficient diets or something) but I watch a documentary covering malnutrition. They showed people eating cheap food with low nutrient dense foods because they were ignorant and/or poor. Another documentary, Vitamania (great watch), showed that we only need a small portion of nutrients compared to the volume of food we eat. So, I imagine it's more about health education and financial status than people "eating right" while over estimating their nutrient intake.

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

#35

Post by barathr »

foofoo4u wrote: post #8

This sparks an interest of mine. I want to grow my own garden of fruits and vegetables. I can grab seeds from my local hardware store. But are these genetically the best I can buy? Is there not a genetic strain of seeds that I can buy somewhere else, perhaps online, that produce both the most nutritious and delicious?

If you're in California, check out California Rare Fruit Growers. If elsewhere in North America, check out North American Fruit Explorers. Both focus on rare varieties that are really good to grow but are not commercially available. I imagine there are similar groups in other parts of the world.

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

#36

Post by _aavaa_ »

saurik wrote: post #26
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; bu…

I might even settle for tasting like a tomato. But what I usually get from a supermarket doesn’t even do that.

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

#37

Post by IncRnd »

eutectic wrote: post #3
jaequery wrote: post #2

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

The vast majority of changes in plant genetics are from selective breeding, nothing to do with GMO.

Selective breeding is a form of genetic modification which doesn't involve the addition of foreign DNA.

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

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #23
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.

> Why not work towards abundant food that is as nutritious as possible?

Because we don't have a silver bullet. We have suggestions. But the world is increasing separating into cheap, low-nutrition food and expensive, nutritious food.

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

#39

Post by BLKNSLVR »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #20
foofoo4u wrote: post #8

This sparks an interest of mine. I want to grow my own garden of fruits and vegetables. I can grab seeds from my local hardware store. But are these genetically the best I can buy? Is there not a genetic strain of seeds that I can buy somewhere else, perhaps online, that produce both the most nutritious and delicious?

The issue at the heart of this is soil quality, not the genes of the crops. Anything you grow in your garden will likely be better out the gate. Doubly so if you compost.

+1 for composting. There's something satisfying about putting down a deep, dark brown soil to grow some veges in. I don't grow a lot (peas and corn generally), but it's magnificent eating.

As a result of the composting, once my last winter crop of peas had died out, a bunch of mis-matched tomatoes began growing out of the same patch, so I left the trellis up and let the plants develop. Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes all growing haphazardly, totally unplanned. A most pleasant surprise that kept me in bruschetta for a few weeks :)

There's something soul satisfying about eating something from your own yard; must be a deep-seeded DNA/evolution thing, like the smell of a campfire.

Back to composting: it's amazing how small a volume of trash we throw out now that we're putting foodstuffs into compost.

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

#40

Post by BLKNSLVR »

frogpelt wrote: post #5

Websites are harder to read than they used to be.

Holy shit, I had to surf without an ad blocker for a day, and it was like taking a trip into a dystopian future. I'm not looking forward to the time when the pihole ad-blocking methods are no longer effective.
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