Nutrients is a very broad term. This article seems to be focused on just three. Is there a good reason to restrict analysis to just three “minerals”?
Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
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Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#12> That means it had been a year since the apples he bought were actually picked I've been saying for a while that instead of focusing on "best by" dates, food suppliers should be forced to put on the harvest or manufactured date. "Fresh" Apples being sold after a year is nothing compared to how old some of the food you by in the freezer, or boxed section. Manufacturers and store owners are the ones that benefit the m…
Frozen vegetables are often blanched and flash frozen at the peak of freshness. In many cases they are “fresher” than what you find in the produce section
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#13I thought it was a little weird that they start off talking about "calcium, magnesium, and iron" and then immediately switch to talking about how vitamin C degrades over time in produce. OK sure, vitamin C can enhance iron absorption, but it doesn't do that for calcium or magnesium and, being atomic elements, they assuredly do not disappear from food in storage. When an article conflates things like this without call…
It's an odd article all around. Look at the first graph. It's an average mineral content of calcium, magnesium, and iron in 4 different vegetables, but only represented by a single line. Why isn't it broken out for each category (ex. iron in tomatoes over time)?
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#14[dead]
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#15I thought it was a little weird that they start off talking about "calcium, magnesium, and iron" and then immediately switch to talking about how vitamin C degrades over time in produce. OK sure, vitamin C can enhance iron absorption, but it doesn't do that for calcium or magnesium and, being atomic elements, they assuredly do not disappear from food in storage. When an article conflates things like this without call…
I had a similar reaction to the discussion of farmer's markets. Technically yes, I've been to markets where it's obvious some vendors are not selling local produce but in the vast majority of the markets around me it's equally obvious that they are (I actually think most of them have rules that the produce has to originate within a certain radius). And selling "5 different types of produce" all grown locally at the same time is hardly difficult to do. Different produce does in fact ripen around the same time.
It made me wonder about the rest of it.
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#16This article seems to lack common sense. Yes, the amount of Vitamin C will reduce the longer you store a vegetable or fruit in a fridge, but the amount of calcium and iron does not change. Nor does the the density of other minerals.
Why is the author nominating Walmart as the winner based just on their speed to market? What about the other factors like soil degradation etc., which reflect the amount of iron and other minerals?
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does mention those reasons and others, however all those reasons directly contradict the article's next point "If all you care about is nutrient content, SPEED is the only factor that matters". Seems like all these other factors should matter too! Surely not every farm is equal in these respects...
> It does mention those reasons whoops you're right, I somehow skipped that part. I guess it is kind of weird article with contradicting points of view and the author could have communicated that improving soil quality and pairing it with speed to consumption is the best combination.
My read is that the author is taking the view of consumers. Not regulators and producers.
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#18I thought it was a little weird that they start off talking about "calcium, magnesium, and iron" and then immediately switch to talking about how vitamin C degrades over time in produce. OK sure, vitamin C can enhance iron absorption, but it doesn't do that for calcium or magnesium and, being atomic elements, they assuredly do not disappear from food in storage. When an article conflates things like this without call…
You’re sort of mixing ideas I believe. The nutrient density (minerals etc) is declining because of the soil quality it is grown in, not because it is sitting on shelf.
The vitamin C thing was about nutrient loss due to blanching (a processing step) I believe
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article doesn't say those minerals degrade, however it also fails to reiterate the linked paper's reason: > The high rate of magnesium deficiency now postulated [5–8] can be attributed in part to a steady decline in general magnesium content in cultivated fruits and vegetables, a reflection of the observed depletion of magnesium in soil over the past 100 years > Increasing demand for food has caused modern farmin…
It does mention those reasons and others, however all those reasons directly contradict the article's next point "If all you care about is nutrient content, SPEED is the only factor that matters". Seems like all these other factors should matter too! Surely not every farm is equal in these respects...
> Seems like all these other factors should matter too!
The way I read it was that there are some minerals that are no longer there to begin with because they're simply not in the soil. For nutrients (like vitamin C) created as part of the growing process, speed is the only factor that matters.
So yes, it does matter but unless you have a way of knowing which farm(s) the produce came from and what their soil mineral content is, that's not something you can factor into your purchasing decision.
Re: Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article doesn't say those minerals degrade, however it also fails to reiterate the linked paper's reason: > The high rate of magnesium deficiency now postulated [5–8] can be attributed in part to a steady decline in general magnesium content in cultivated fruits and vegetables, a reflection of the observed depletion of magnesium in soil over the past 100 years > Increasing demand for food has caused modern farmin…
Well that quote appears to contradict the article's claim that speed to market is the most important factor. Now I don't know what to think..
Here is a way to look at it.
You read the article, and by the end you have actionable items, that you can execute today, literally.
Many piece published on the topic go on and on about how agricultural methods should do this and that. Sure, and in the meantime what do we do?