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

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1880145,00.html

by crocus • 17 years ago

56 83 17 years ago

triplefox• 17 years ago

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).

jwilliams• 17 years ago

+ 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.

anamax• 17 years ago

> 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.

rjurney9• 17 years ago

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 minerals.

But if we intend to continue to increase our agricultural output and continue to feed the earth's population then there's no going back, and you can't feed everyone on earth with organic methods. Its hard enough using every trick in the book. Borlaug ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug ) is an amazing guy and anyone who enjoyed this article will enjoy reading about the bio-hacker that fed a billion people and ended mass starvation in India and China by breeding kick-ass wheat and rice that raised agricultural output by seven times since the 1940s!

The solution for Americans: grow your own vegetables! Use plenty of compost, use organic heirloom seeds suitable for your area and spray weekly with dilute dish soap and you'll have minerals a plenty in your veggies and no pesticides. And they'll taste better than anything you've ever had! It doesn't take much land to grow a significant amount of food.

colins_pride• 17 years ago

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 is labor intensive. Although it can be emotionally rewarding, specialization is more rational economically. Better to just go down to the Trader Joes / Whole Foods / Local Organic Farmers Market and part with a bit of coin to pick up some of the good stuff there.

old-gregg2• 17 years ago

* 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.

old-gregg2• 17 years ago

Great comment! I like your attitude and thanks for the links. BTW we have tried your suggestion (growing our own) and after several attempts we're giving up: self-grown veggies have almost the same lack of taste as the manufactured ones from a supermarket: I suspect that's because the seeds themselves have been genetically ruined. Same with farmers markets: their vegetables are not only tasteless, but they're also ugly and more expensive.

We've asked my parents in Russia to send me their seeds of tomatoes and cucumbers but they won't grow here due to climate/soil differences. So we're stuck with "plastic" ones from the store. Many 1st gen. immigrants I know, particularly from southern Europe, share my disdain for American agricultural products. Strawberries are my favorite example: they're 2-3 times bigger than normal, have different texture and are completely devoid of taste. They're basically enlarged 3D prints of strawberries made of eatable synthetic substance. And don't get me started on various deserts with "strawberry" flavors: if the periodic elements table had a smell, that would be it - a US-made strawberry milk shake.

rjurney9• 17 years ago

You're not stuck! You just need heirloom seeds, and tons of compost and you can raise great tasting vegetables. Personally, I get my seeds from http://www.harrisseeds.com (no affiliation) but if you google, you can find many heirloom seed providers - just make sure to talk to them before you buy to make sure they will grow ok in your climate zone - heirlooms are less tolerant of climate ranges than the modern breeds.

As to the strawberries - you're not stuck there either! While personally I can't imagine anyone not preferring gigantor strawberries, to each his own. There is a different breed of species in Europe, you can get them here, they will grow here. I don't remember the exact species/breed, but an heirloom seed supplier will know. You can see the different species on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria

chiffonade3• 17 years ago

> I suspect that's because the seeds themselves have been genetically ruined. Same with farmers markets: their vegetables are not only tasteless, but they're also ugly and more expensive.

WTF? Here in California (both nor and so) all our home grown veggies and farmers markets and CSA's produce excellent veggies and fruits.

The stuff you buy at mainstream supermarket is all plastic though.

rudyfink• 17 years ago

> It doesn't take much land to grow a significant amount of food.

That made me think of this quote:

"When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. "

"The Food Issue", NY Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html )

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Which reminds me of the Atlanta Community Food Bank 'Plant a Row Campaign' to feed the hungry - http://www.acfb.org/projects/community_garden/plant_a_row/

bmj5• 17 years ago

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.

donw• 17 years ago

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.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

Couldn't I just eat 30% more vegetables? Or vitamin fortified wheat products?

HeyLaughingBoy2• 17 years ago

It doesn't take much land to grow a significant amount of food

This is very true!!! Although I live on ten acres, I only have a relatively small garden (about 20x40') and it is still capable of producing much more than my family can consume unless I preserve a lot of it. A single pumpkin seed for example, can result in almost 100 lbs of pumpkins even if you don't take care of them. They just grow like weeds! Tomatoes, potatoes, squash: plant a few seeds and you're up to your neck in veggies in a few months.

And about the strawberry comment: everyone who loves strawberries should do themselves a favor and grow some, even if it's just in a small pot on the windowsill. Home grown strawberries are vastly superior to the ones in the supermarket in every aspect except shipping ability.

rjurney9• 17 years ago

I have 18 strawberry plants ready to go into a new patch, nice and big, so they'll propagate outward into twice as many... :D

I just moved to a house on 7 acres, so I tilled, manured and fenced off 25' * 25' for vegetables, but... found myself wanting more room for corn, so I tilled 25' * 50' more, plus the strawberry patch.

If we spent as much time as we do on our lawns on vegetables, every house would easily be self sustaining for fruits and veggies!

tokipin• 17 years ago

Borlaug was mentioned on Penn & Teller's show:

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

dangoldin• 17 years ago

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.

numair• 17 years ago

Well, the whole point of a farmer's market is to build a strong social relationship with the people who grow your food... So why not ask them while you're buying from them?

rjurney9• 17 years ago

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.

bmj5• 17 years ago

For me, it's far more important to buy locally than it is to buy organic (though it's also easy, at least where I am, to do both). The food industry has caught on to the organic trend and there are now organic factory farms which are only slightly better than non-organic factory farms. And organic guidelines don't prohibit the use of some pesticides. Granted, what they might use isn't as bad, but it is pesticide nonetheless.

Semiapies12• 17 years ago

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.

rjurney9• 17 years ago

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 :)

patio11• 17 years ago

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.

trapper• 17 years ago

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

chiffonade3• 17 years ago

Vitamins aren't the only reason I eat fruits and vegetables. They aren't pills or medicine.

lutorm3• 17 years ago

"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.

knome• 17 years ago

Your mention of natural versus artificial flavours reminded me of this post :

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369249

The article makes for a good read.

ewiethoff2• 17 years ago

Perfumes and food flavors are concocted in the same factories in New Jersey by the same chemists. In other words, food flavors are food perfumes. Factory processing of mediocre quality farm products can create a food which is not particularly appetizing. Adding "natural flavors" or "artificial flavors" makes this brand-name food smell yummy. And adding some colors makes it look yummy.

"Natural flavors" are made from plants or animals using old-fashioned processes. "Artificial flavors" are made from 1) plants or animals using newfangled processes or 2) icky substances such as petroleum or coal tar. "Natural strawberry flavor" is made from a tree (birch? willow? can't remember), not from strawberries.

I'm pretty sure I learned these factoids around ten years ago from a book called Mauve, about the history of fabric dyes, of all things. Or some of this might be found in Fast Food Nation.

BTW, my aroma memory tells me that if you slap on some Polo cologne, the scent that remains after a few hours is "blueberry flavor" from Betty Crocker muffin mix.

ochiba• 17 years ago

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)

hs• 17 years ago

there's "do-nothing" technique from masanobu fukuoka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka

he claimed his yield is the best in japan -- by weight

he could win the most nutritious award too if such category existed

nraynaud• 17 years ago

As far as I know, in countries fighting against obesity like ours, and with no real vitamin deficit, it's not really a big problem having lesser energetic food.

my 2c.

rjurney9• 17 years ago

Its not less energetic, it has more carbs and less vitamins. Possibly. 5-40% is an absurd range.

rarrrrrr4• 17 years ago

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...

scott_s5• 17 years ago

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.

rarrrrrr4• 17 years ago

Like many things in mainstream media, this doesn't show the full picture. Nutritionist and serious athletes and athletic trainers will tell you differently.

Here are some factors:

- Several studies have used no vitamins at all! (only surveys about "Do you take a vitamin?") They don't take account the frequency/consistency, quality, etc.

- Vitamin studies often focus on single vitamins in isolation. Nutrition doesn't work like that. You need the full range.

- Most studies involve really low end or even average vitamins, and I'm specifically suggesting very high end vitamins.

- There are plenty of studies that show the real benefits of high quality supplementation. LEF has cataloged and published many of these. So have countless others.

Nearly all vitamins sold in pharmacies, Walmart, etc. are poor quality. A Center for Nutritional Education study found that many low end child's vitamins are no healthier than candy.

You can always tell by reading the label. If B12 is packaged as "cyanocobalamin" it's an inferior vitamin. Look for B12 as hydrocobalamin instead (but you'll probably have to go to a health food store to find it.)

One time I saw a display of vitamins advertising heart-healthy Omega oils, however the vitamins also included hydrogenated oils (which promote heart disease.)

So, I don't doubt that average vitamins fewer benefits.

There's also the issue that too many people expect vitamins alone will solve their health problems, and disregard other important factors like having healthier meals, exercise, sufficient water and sunlight. Health involves the full package.

artaak• 17 years ago

There is an interesting documentary "Food matters" (http://foodmatters.tv/). The facts presented are astonishing. However, I do not necessarily advocate on taking their point of view, In my opinion it would be reasonable to withhold judgment and look on their facts. It might change your perspective.

"You are what you eat"

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

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