4 ms·

That's the point of much of this research. The elevated levels of CO2 enable the plants to grow faster, but absorbing the same nutrition, and then we absorb the

That's the point of much of this research. The elevated levels of CO2 enable the plants to grow faster, but absorbing the same nutrition, and then we absorb the same amount of calories, with a lower nutrition level, so we become malnourished.

radford-neal 7y ago
The increased yield should lower the price. Poor people might then have enough surplus income to buy more nutritious foods. (And perhaps less rice - which may be what's called a "Giffen good".)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  Not necessarily. For one, increased yield doesn't always result in lower prices, because the free market generally isn't that free (most of our agriculture is heavily subsidized by the government). Another problem is that access to nutritious food is extremely limited for poor people, for a variety of reasons. Overhead and supply chain economics influence whether local businesses can survive. Marketing/advertising and industry pressure on politics increases the likelihood that cheap, non-nutritious, shelf-stable foods will be more prevalent in stores. And then there's the general self-medicating-through-salt-sugar-and-fat cyclical effect, and overall lack of education on healthy eating and cooking. Even when you can find it and afford it, poor people have less free time to cook. Rice is a food that is shelf-stable, cheap, and (when enriched) provides a bare minimum of nutrition. Reducing the already-bare-minimum nutritional level, or increasing the heavy metals already found in many varieties, will have a significant effect on already vulnerable populations.
  - radford-neal 7y ago
    For subsistence farmers, prices and markets are irrelevant. The effect of higher yield would be that less of their land needs to be devoted to growing rice, leaving some free land for growing other foods. In anything approaching a free market, it is hard to imagine that lower production costs won't reduce the price of a heavily-traded commodity with millions of producers. In a communist system of collective farms, or a fascist system of government-mandated prices with monopolistic distribution networks, it is anyone's guess what political decisions will be made. Such systems regularly produce politically-motivated famines, so slightly lower nutrient levels will be the least of their worries.
mrfusion 7y ago
We could always just eat more of it. No one is at risk of getting too many calories from plants. Or produce extracts.
- xbdobd 7y ago
  Are you aware that sugar comes from plants?
08-15 7y ago
This perspective is invalid in large parts of the world. The most important macro nutrients are sugar and fat, the very thing americans (and only americans) call "empty calories". In most places, more calories is good. Meeting the requirement of about 2000-2500 kcal/d is frequently more difficult than providing a few dozen grams of protein and a few mg of various micronutrients per day. Only the US (and its sphere of influence) has the opposite problem, because people there insist on drinking fizzy sugar water. It's not even that the maize the sugar is made from is low in micronutrients, it's that those aren't used to manufacture HFCS.
- cwingrav 7y ago
  No. There are programs to teach people how to change crops from traditional crops to more nutrient rich crops, just to avoid what you are talking about. While true in areas where people are starving, any calories are good, but still in most parts of the world, people need nutrition to grow and be healthy. Our bodies can balloon up with fat and still be under nourished, and nutrient poor foods do this.

radford-neal 7y ago

The increased yield should lower the price. Poor people might then have enough surplus income to buy more nutritious foods. (And perhaps less rice - which may be what's called a "Giffen good".)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
peterwwillis 7y ago
Not necessarily. For one, increased yield doesn't always result in lower prices, because the free market generally isn't that free (most of our agriculture is heavily subsidized by the government). Another problem is that access to nutritious food is extremely limited for poor people, for a variety of reasons. Overhead and supply chain economics influence whether local businesses can survive. Marketing/advertising and industry pressure on politics increases the likelihood that cheap, non-nutritious, shelf-stable foods will be more prevalent in stores. And then there's the general self-medicating-through-salt-sugar-and-fat cyclical effect, and overall lack of education on healthy eating and cooking. Even when you can find it and afford it, poor people have less free time to cook. Rice is a food that is shelf-stable, cheap, and (when enriched) provides a bare minimum of nutrition. Reducing the already-bare-minimum nutritional level, or increasing the heavy metals already found in many varieties, will have a significant effect on already vulnerable populations.
- radford-neal 7y ago
  For subsistence farmers, prices and markets are irrelevant. The effect of higher yield would be that less of their land needs to be devoted to growing rice, leaving some free land for growing other foods. In anything approaching a free market, it is hard to imagine that lower production costs won't reduce the price of a heavily-traded commodity with millions of producers. In a communist system of collective farms, or a fascist system of government-mandated prices with monopolistic distribution networks, it is anyone's guess what political decisions will be made. Such systems regularly produce politically-motivated famines, so slightly lower nutrient levels will be the least of their worries.

mrfusion 7y ago

We could always just eat more of it. No one is at risk of getting too many calories from plants. Or produce extracts.

xbdobd 7y ago
Are you aware that sugar comes from plants?

08-15 7y ago

This perspective is invalid in large parts of the world. The most important macro nutrients are sugar and fat, the very thing americans (and only americans) call "empty calories". In most places, more calories is good. Meeting the requirement of about 2000-2500 kcal/d is frequently more difficult than providing a few dozen grams of protein and a few mg of various micronutrients per day. Only the US (and its sphere of influence) has the opposite problem, because people there insist on drinking fizzy sugar water. It's not even that the maize the sugar is made from is low in micronutrients, it's that those aren't used to manufacture HFCS.

cwingrav 7y ago
No. There are programs to teach people how to change crops from traditional crops to more nutrient rich crops, just to avoid what you are talking about. While true in areas where people are starving, any calories are good, but still in most parts of the world, people need nutrition to grow and be healthy. Our bodies can balloon up with fat and still be under nourished, and nutrient poor foods do this.