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The quality of Scientific American has dropped off significantly in the past 20 years, but this article is astonishingly bad: * Vegetables are lower in nutrien
by JackFr 9y ago
The quality of Scientific American has dropped off significantly in the past 20 years, but this article is astonishingly bad:
* Vegetables are lower in nutrients than in the 1950's.
* Here is some serious academic research that shows that.
* It indicates that the cause is the breeding and cultivation of varieties which are lower in nutritional content by farmers.
* But I will assert absent any evidence, soil depletion.
WTF, Scientific American?
- ars 9y agoI noticed the same thing. It would be easy enough to test - there's plenty of pristine, hardly used, soil around. You can also test different cultivars in different soils and see what the real cause is.
- Juggerbot 9y ago>there's plenty of pristine, hardly used, soil around. Gonna need a [citation needed] on that one.
- sfotm 9y agoDrive through the flyover states and you can see it all for yourself. If you're not on the interstate, you can drive at 80mph without seeing another car for some time. It's actually really beautiful how untouched some parts of the US are. Hopefully they can stay that way for some time.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThe Midwest may have a low density of cars, but the arable land is largely farmed; it isn't pristine, untouched wilderness.
- sfotm 9y agoI was born on a farm in rural Ohio, so I can appreciate the difference. I'm thinking more of Wyoming.
- scott_s 9y agoBut that land is probably not suitable for farming - because if it was, someone would probably have a farm on it. So then you're comparing soil-not-great-for-farming from then and now, which is something, but it's not what we really care about (soil-used-for-farming).
- ars 9y agoFind an old growth forest and dig a little. Or the side of a mountain/valley where it's hard to farm, but plants grow just fine.