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Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

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Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#61
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* people are eating worse food, but they are choosing to do so, not being forced. * Really? Try finding a Coke with real sugar, and try getting a week worth of food without any corn syrup in them. My understanding is that the corn industry is basically forcing their products down our throats by lobbying the hell out of Washington.

Which products contain corn syrup? I didn't know that it existed until now, but I can't think of anything I eat that could contain corn syrup.

Anything that could be sweetened. It's just a replacement for sugar that used in the US because it's cheaper.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#62
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try finding a Coke with real sugar, and try getting a week worth of food without any corn syrup in them. This is easy enough. Red Bull makes a cola with real sugar (expensive, but pretty tasty). It's easy to avoid corn syrup when you don't buy processed foods. Go to your local organic market, and you'll find a whole store that contains no corn syrup what so ever. (A little bird told me that you can cook your own food…

Every story I read mentions that real sugar is cheaper to produce, but corn syrup comes from corn which is subsidized by taxpayers. Secondly, it is likely that much of real food (as you call it) would be cheaper than it is now, if it were not considered a premium product. Third, HFCS, more than corn, is the problem. It is put in many products, even hot dogs. Avoiding products with HFCS might be a good strategy to get…

I don't think the problem is the HFCS itself. If you used sugar in place of HFCS in all of those products, it wouldn't be any better for you. Simply, too much sugar of any kind isn't good for you.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#63

Nutritionists have been saying this for years. This is why the very high end multi vitamins ($50-100 per month!) include such a wide variety of ingredients, and the does is somewhere between 9-12 capsules PER DAY. Examples: Life Extension Foundation: http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item01335/Life-Exten... NSI: http://www.vitacost.com/NSI-Synergy-Supreme-Multi-Vitamin-Ve...

See this short series of posts from a week ago about whether or not vitamins actually help: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=507501

Short version: I post a link to a NYT piece on the lack of medical evidence, someone eventually posts a link to a study which might show benefit. In the meantime, I think we don't know either way yet.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#64

I'm not clear on the importance of this claim, even if it were to pan out. We aren't seeing vitamin deficiencies in this country beyond those people who don't actually eat vegetables.

When you hear people talk about food being bad for you, they aren't talking about vitamin deficiencies, they're talking about moral deficiencies. The difference is that moral deficiencies happen whether there is any externally visible impact at all.

Boo boo on Big Ag, rah rah organic. But put a crate full of cheap Big Ag tomatoes in a room with a handful of people suffering from scurvy and, bam, no more scurvy.

Scurvy. You know, that vitamin C deficiency that you've only heard of in pirate movies. Americans routinely suffered from it as recently as the 1950s -- infants, especially, since all-natural healthy mother's milk from a mother with insufficient vitamin C in her diet means you're on a one-way ticket to scurvyville. That bad, unnatural, killing-you-softy bottled formula has vitamin C added to it. The green revolution, improved transportation/refrigeration/processing of tomatoes in cheap pasta sauces and ketchup, and whatnot largely eliminated borderline vitamin C deficiency in mothers. Wham, infantile scurvy essentially vanishes from the US.

Scurvy is still quite common in the Third World and epidemic in refugee populations but, hey, at least they're not being given Evil Unnatural Frankenfood tomatoes which were probably poisoned by Monsanto.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vlad, that's an un-sourced argument from authority. (And particularly unconvincing authorities, in the case of athletes and body-builders, who have been known to jump on a lot of wild and often harmful nutritional fads.)

That was the point--your arguments are unsourced. :)

You can't source an absence of evidence.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#66
post #64

I'm not clear on the importance of this claim, even if it were to pan out. We aren't seeing vitamin deficiencies in this country beyond those people who don't actually eat vegetables.

When you hear people talk about food being bad for you, they aren't talking about vitamin deficiencies, they're talking about moral deficiencies. The difference is that moral deficiencies happen whether there is any externally visible impact at all. Boo boo on Big Ag, rah rah organic. But put a crate full of cheap Big Ag tomatoes in a room with a handful of people suffering from scurvy and, bam, no more scurvy. Scurv…

Can you point to some papers/sources on the scurvy issue? I'd be interested to read as I have heard the opposite.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#67

This does not come as a surprise if you've followed prior evidence suggesting that processed stuff contains less nutrition than natural foods(whole grains, grass-fed, organic, etc).

+ supermarkets tend to value longevity, ability to store, hardiness, appearance... This has led to gradual section of (say) tomatoes that can survive transport the best, but don't necessarily have the best flavour or nutrition. My parents have a property and grow a lot of their own food - and the taste difference just blows me away sometimes.

> supermarkets tend to value longevity, ability to store, hardiness, appearance

Supermarkets value what is profitable. You know, the difference between what people will pay for something and what it costs to provide said something.

People pay more for appearance. In store shelf-life reduces costs and post-purchase shelf-life increases buying and reduces angry customers and returns. etc.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#68
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try finding a Coke with real sugar, and try getting a week worth of food without any corn syrup in them. This is easy enough. Red Bull makes a cola with real sugar (expensive, but pretty tasty). It's easy to avoid corn syrup when you don't buy processed foods. Go to your local organic market, and you'll find a whole store that contains no corn syrup what so ever. (A little bird told me that you can cook your own food…

Every story I read mentions that real sugar is cheaper to produce, but corn syrup comes from corn which is subsidized by taxpayers. Secondly, it is likely that much of real food (as you call it) would be cheaper than it is now, if it were not considered a premium product. Third, HFCS, more than corn, is the problem. It is put in many products, even hot dogs. Avoiding products with HFCS might be a good strategy to get…

> "But a biological reason is that the human body is not designed for processing fructose."

Actually that's false, it's perfectly designed for processing fructose. HFCS wouldn't be a problem if you didn't process the fructose but it still tasted sweet. The problem is we're biologically designed so that fructose doesn't trigger the same processes as regular sugar.

The reason for this? Well primates formed a symbiosis with trees, they gave us fruits with lots of energy in the form of fructose, and in turn we killed the species that threatened our trees.

The most interesting thing I learnt was on the whole question if humans would have evolved if dinosaurs had been around, and the answer was yes. It's yes, because we didn't evolve by chance, we evolved because the trees 'chose' us to. The response to large herbivores that strip-feed was primates, because we protected large areas of land and specifically the trees we fed from. The prime example of this is that when fig trees are ripening, it can be dangerous for camera crews because a 150lb chimp is likely more dangerous than a 150lb man.

So essentially the key problem with HFCS is that we're designed not to respond to fructose. We simply store all that sugar as fat, which again is the problem all humans face. Society is trying to fight biology, and it sure as hell isn't an easy battle.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#69
post #41
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For me, it's far more important to buy locally Why? Certain plants grow better in different places. It makes no sense to grow a plant locally if it would grow better elsewhere. It usually costs extra energy to do so as well. If you are not sure which one is better for the environment check the price - the cheaper one is better (pesticides not included).

That's why I do my best to buy produce suited to my locale. Cheap energy has spoiled us--we can eat blueberries in the dead of winter. I'm not sure that's a Good Thing. If you are not sure which one is better for the environment check the price - the cheaper one is better (pesticides not included). I'm no sure what you mean? Cheap food is better for the environment? Feedlots, which generate much of the meat you find…

You are right about pollution - price doesn't tell you anything about that.

Price mainly tells you about energy usage (carbon emissions). And resource usage (like mining).

But you were talking about local, not about feedlots. And the reason people buy local is energy. And for that, price is an excellent way of detecting which product used less energy in it's making.

So if frozen blueberries from Brazil cost less than the blueberries from the farm up the road, then, despite not being local, they used less energy in the growing.

Personally I think that pollution is important, not just CO2, so I buy organic when I can, and I don't care in the slightest about local.

Re: Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago

#70
post #4

Its not surprising that 60 years after the green revolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution ) that we would have washed trace minerals from the soil of our most productive farmland, which produces most of our vegetables, resulting in them having lower mineral content. Its also not surprising that nitrogen fed fruits and vegetables bred for size and weight would be larger and so contain diluted mineral…

Borlaug was mentioned on Penn & Teller's show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvNopv9Pa8

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