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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

#21

Post by Semiapies »

jrockway wrote: post #14
old-gregg wrote: post #11

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.

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…

You can also find sugared Coke if you live near the Mexican or Canadian borders in the US. Or if you look for the bottles of Coke sold around Passover. [Correcting my earlier misnomer - Coke with corn syrup is perfectly "kosher", just not appropriate for Passover.]

(I don't actually like either type. Weirdly, I only like the taste of Diet Coke, and not even Coke Zero.)

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

#22

Post by rjurney »

dangoldin wrote: post #5

This doesn't really address how to solve the issue. Would going to farmer's markets/growing your own be the only way to address this on an individual scale? Or would the farmers be doing the same thing.

It depends. I think most organic growers use modern, disease tolerant breeds that produce as much as possible - just like commercial farmers, they just lack certain Monsanto genetic improvements. So you will see dilution of minerals in larger fruits in greater numbers per plant, if that is the primary cause of the decrease in minerals.

On the other hand if the cause is primarily due to poor soil that relies entirely on inorganic fertilizer and hasn't been properly amended with organic material - compost - then the organic produce will indeed have more vitamins and minerals.

The other benefit of organic produce is that if you buy from a farmers market - inorganic or not, you are often buying from a local farmer and your produce will have more nutrients because it is fresher. It is said that frozen vegetables are actually healthier because they are flash frozen near the field, and decompose less than vegetables in the 'fresh' section of the supermarket that have crossed the country, decomposing the whole way.

And of course organic vegetables don't have traces of pesticides.

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

#23

Post by lutorm »

old-gregg wrote: post #11
colins_pride wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is that typical vegetables in your average supermarket have lower nutritional value than they did a generation ago, even though almost everything else in this society is getting better. A related issue is that processed foods are essentially a combination of corn, soybeans & sugar. Bottom line: people are eating worse food, but they are choosing to do so, not being forced. Growing your own vegetables i…

* 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.

Sodas in Europe, including Coke, are made with sugar. Europe doesn't have the massive supply of cheap HFCS that the US does.

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

#24

Post by lutorm »

rjurney wrote: post #12
old-gregg wrote: post #11

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.

Its actually not hard to avoid corn syrup - if you cook :)

You are correct, if you cook exclusively from raw ingredients. As soon as you get something that's somehow processed, it's likely HFCS has snuck its way in there.

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

#25

Post by lutorm »

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" is a great book about this.

One thing I learned there is that if you buy a strawberry flavored something that lists "natural flavorings" on it, that doesn't mean it has any strawberry in it. "Natural" just means the material originates in nature, not that the actual molecules are natural. Material from corn chemically processed into something that tastes (barely) remininscent of strawberry is a "natural flavor" according to the system.

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

#26

Post by rjurney »

Semiapies wrote: post #8

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.

This is a good point. We probably have bigger vegetables now. So if a fruit is 40% bigger but has diluted minerals... so what?

Just eat your fruits and veggies and be happy :)

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

#27

Post by Semiapies »

lutorm wrote: post #23
old-gregg wrote: post #11

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.

Sodas in Europe, including Coke, are made with sugar. Europe doesn't have the massive supply of cheap HFCS that the US does.

This is true in most of the world; HFCS's popularity in the US is due to federal subsidies making it cheaper than sugar.

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

#30

Post by bmj »

jules wrote: post #17
old-gregg wrote: post #11

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.

I would recommend Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. He traces corn from the farm to its varied outputs.
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