Supermarket vegetables now 5-40% lower in nutrients than 50 years ago • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by xiaoma » Sun, Mar 15, 2009, 9:29 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #62

vlad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's pretty solid evidence that fructose is particularly damaging if you get it in large quantities without much fiber. Eating fruits is fine, but HFCS is dangerous.

"A high flux of fructose to the liver, the main organ capable of metabolizing this simple carbohydrate, perturbs glucose metabolism and glucose uptake pathways, and leads to a significantly enhanced rate of de novo lipogenesis and triglyceride (TG) synthesis, driven by the high flux of glycerol and acyl portions of TG molecules from fructose catabolism. These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models. Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome."

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/5

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

#82

Post by rarrrrrr » Sun, Mar 15, 2009, 9:34 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #80

rarrrrrr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the LEF site (the first link I posted) there's a description of the various specific and measurable benefits of various high quality supplements, as established by various studies and published in respected medical, nutritional, and biochemical research journals. That page has 182 separate citations. Click the "References" link to see all of them.

Those references are not enough for me to search for. I need article titles. (Edit: They also don't clearly mark which claims are associated with which reference.) That site looks like its primary purpose is to sell products, not dispense genuine medical advice. As such, I view it with extreme skepticism. In more blunt terms, that product looks like modern snake-oil. Also, "These statements have not been evaluated by…

Well, you've stumbled upon some of the deep problems with nutrition information dispersal in the US. Many regard the FDA/USDA to be largely corrupt in their handling of health information, due to the many conflicts of interest and ties to pharmaceutical companies and food industry.

Making it illegal for farmers to label their beef as mad-cow tested is one example of this. The way trans fats are labeled in the US compared to Canada/EU is another example. In fact, in most of EU trans fats are not acceptable food ingredients. In the US, they're acceptable ingredients for vitamins. A third example might be the silence regarding the importance of sunlight and vitamin D as a prevention for many forms of cancer.

Regarding "these statements have been evaluated by the FDA" -- it's actually illegal for supplement companies to make anything that resembles a health claim about their own products, even if it's demonstratively true.

In general, the big problem with health information in the US (as you've demonstrated) is that it's inaccessible. There's plenty of industry and financial interest in it remaining inaccessible. So, you'll have to do more than glance at a website for 30 seconds and drawing the fast and easy conclusions.

Finally, the Life Extension Foundation is a non-profit with a 30 year history, and one of the most respected health and wellness research organizations world wide. Googling around will demonstrate this.

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

#83

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Sun, Mar 15, 2009, 10:56 PM UTC

rarrrrrr wrote: post #82

scott_s wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those references are not enough for me to search for. I need article titles. (Edit: They also don't clearly mark which claims are associated with which reference.) That site looks like its primary purpose is to sell products, not dispense genuine medical advice. As such, I view it with extreme skepticism. In more blunt terms, that product looks like modern snake-oil. Also, "These statements have not been evaluated by…

Well, you've stumbled upon some of the deep problems with nutrition information dispersal in the US. Many regard the FDA/USDA to be largely corrupt in their handling of health information, due to the many conflicts of interest and ties to pharmaceutical companies and food industry. Making it illegal for farmers to label their beef as mad-cow tested is one example of this. The way trans fats are labeled in the US comp…

it's actually illegal for supplement companies to make anything that resembles a health claim about their own products, even if it's demonstratively true.

Absolutely false. It is completely legal to make the claim as long as you demonstrate that it's true to the FDA and they accept your data. If the benefit were actually present, they could file safety & efficacy data with the FDA and on approval legally make the claim. The fact that they don't tells me that there isn't any benefit worth noting.

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

#84

Post by donw » Sun, Mar 15, 2009, 11:42 PM UTC

bmj wrote: post #33

rjurney wrote: 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…

You are correct--soil damage has much to do with this. Wendell Berry (among others) has written much about this. Large scale farming tends not to view the soil and its cycles as important to the process of growing food.

I'd like to see some data regarding this, actually.

I've got a good friend that owns a tree farm in Oregon, and if you listen to the environmentalists, they make it sound like Richard is some sort of maniac clear-cutting idiot who is destroying a precious natural resource.

The opposite becomes apparent if you actually talk to him about the farm, and look at the money they put into both planning and tree-farming technology. Him, and his family, view their forest as a long-term asset, not to mention an effectively infinite stream of future revenue, and a great place to go hiking.

They go to incredible lengths to make sure that their forest is going to be around, and viably growing, a few hundred years from now.

It seems odd that any large company wouldn't look at their company-owned farms in the same fashion.

Of course, corporate owners can be greedy and stupid as well. So I'd like to know more about how large-scale farming causes soil damage.

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

#85

Post by ochiba » Mon, Mar 16, 2009, 9:29 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #25

"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…

The following books also contain some good coverage of the alarming state of unsustainable agriculture especially in the US (among a number of other topics regarding sustainability):

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins

The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken (to a lesser extent)