15 ms·
Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be
- kderbyma 4y agoIs Soil the new Carbon? seems very prevalent in news, forums, and everywhere since the Rogan episode.
- jaequery 4y agoYes and it’s less tasty too. GMO ruined it.
- eutectic 4y agoThe vast majority of changes in plant genetics are from selective breeding, nothing to do with GMO.
- IncRnd 4y agoSelective breeding is a form of genetic modification which doesn't involve the addition of foreign DNA.
- colechristensen 4y ago"GMO" refers exclusively to organisms that have had genes added, edited, or removed directly, it has nothing to do with plant breeding.
- tristor 4y agoMy understanding is actually that it was ruined by artificial fertilizer and monoculture, because those nutrients are drawn from the soil, and we only "feed" plants the nutrients required to grow and no other trace minerals. Eventually the soil becomes depleted and this causes them to be less nutritious. Taste is affected similarly because we essentially chemically treat plants to make them take on more water and water them heavily to grow larger in size. Nearly every fruit and vegetable in the store is larger than it would be if left to grow wild, but they are more watery and less concentrated in flavor as well.
- KarlKemp 4y agoWhy don't you enhance your understanding by, for example, reading the article? Soil depletion is mentioned, among other things. But it isn't so much a deficiency of nutrients as a disruption of the uptake of those nutrients. Water is only mentioned in the context of less water being drawn into the plants. It's left to the reader to guess what you mean by "chemically treat plants[...]" but FWIW the main culprit is selective breeding, not any chemical intervention.
- culi 4y agoYup this is exactly it. I don't think the issue is that our fruit is larger, but just that the soil is much more degraded. 90-95% of all plant species get the MAJORITY of their nutrients from mycorrhizal associations and some, like many orchids, are even obligate. Plant roots are generally primarily meant for communication and connection with fungi, not to extract nutrients from soil. But when practicing monoculture, the #1 threat is pests and so we do everything we can to fight them. This includes using sterilized soils, an overreliance on pesticides, and the usage of artificial fertilizers. The artificial fertilizers are a particularly big problem when it comes to phosphorous because for most plants they rely on the depletion of locally available phosphorus before they start the complex chemical dance necessary to make the association with fungi The really sad thing is that soil inoculated with fungi can hold 50-100x more water than sterilized soil. Without it water tends to drain and we use much more of it. Combine that with the fact that most of the phosphorus in artificial fertilizers is not actually accessible so we end up using more water which carries this leftover fertilizer which causes massive cyanobacterial/algal blooms that have already led to the extinction of many fish species. It's a race to the bottom all to maintain the practice of monoculture. The research on mycorrhizae is relatively recent (mostly in the past 3 decades), but at this point the existing evidence is astoundingly clear. Plants with mycorrhizal associations better resist drought, frost, soil pathogens, produce more nutritious fruit, and can even produce more fruit mass (depending on the species, some will end up producing more leaves instead but this can be inverted with some manual labor)
- natmaka 4y agoIf I understand correctly this is why aquaponics delivers more nutritious and better tasting veggies, along with less fighting against pests(?)
- colechristensen 4y agoVery few foods are genetically modified and those modifications have nothing to do with taste or nutrition, but pest and pest control resistance. Foods have been bred for shelf stability and size which leads to less flavor and nutrition.
- MorrisMinor 4y agoTraditional breeding may have reduced the nutritional content of plants, but GM can be used to produce plants that are nutritious and high yielding. One study took wild tomatoes and used GM to increase yield: "Compared with the wild parent, our engineered lines have a threefold increase in fruit size and a tenfold increase in fruit number. Notably, fruit lycopene accumulation is improved by 500% compared with the widely cultivated S. lycopersicum." https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4272 https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4272
- colechristensen 4y agoSuch things are not in the food supply. No doubt it is possible, and there has been research, but there are exactly 0 available GMO tomatoes available to buy as food in the US.
- MorrisMinor 4y agoPerhaps it's just a matter of time. Here's a good overview of the technology: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211207-the-tomatoes-at-the-forefront-of-a-food-revolution https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211207-the-tomatoes-at-...
- colechristensen 4y agoI would be quite fine if it were. But a certain kind of person (such as the first commenter in this thread I was responding to) believes most of their food if it doesn't have an adjective ("organic" maybe?) is a genetically modified organism, and everything bad about food is attributed to genetic engineering, this is quite false and a result of people who don't know much sharing disinformation with each other.
- frogpelt 4y agoWebsites are harder to read than they used to be.
- ricardonunez 4y agoBad websites have always been harder to read although I agree that I’m finding them more annoying
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoHoly shit, I had to surf without an ad blocker for a day, and it was like taking a trip into a dystopian future. I'm not looking forward to the time when the pihole ad-blocking methods are no longer effective.
- technothrasher 4y agoNational Geographic is much less nutritious than it used to be as well.
- foofoo4u 4y agoThis sparks an interest of mine. I want to grow my own garden of fruits and vegetables. I can grab seeds from my local hardware store. But are these genetically the best I can buy? Is there not a genetic strain of seeds that I can buy somewhere else, perhaps online, that produce both the most nutritious and delicious?
- colechristensen 4y agoI don’t know about “genetically best” but you can check out heirloom seeds from houses like the seed savers exchange (And many others) https://www.seedsavers.org/ https://www.seedsavers.org/
- foofoo4u 4y agoThank you. I think this gets me in the right direction. "heirloom seeds" seems to be what I am looking for. Some online testify that they find heirlooms taste better. I'll have to do some more research and try them myself to see if its true.
- jacquesm 4y agoThey will taste better, but be prepared for much smaller sizes than you are used to. And there is nothing wrong with that, it's just that most vegetables are as large as they are because they absorb a lot of water and effectively their larger size in the most literal sense dilutes the bits that give the vegetables their taste. That's why for instance smaller tomatoes taste so much better than the larger ones.
- dehrmann 4y agoThey won't necessarily taste better. One of the things we've been breeding for is better flavor. Also yield and shelf life, so some will definitely taste better.
- RhodesianHunter 4y agoThe issue at the heart of this is soil quality, not the genes of the crops. Anything you grow in your garden will likely be better out the gate. Doubly so if you compost.
- vlark 4y ago[flagged]
- refurb 4y agoNational Geographic has really gone to crap. ”One of the largest scientific studies to draw attention to this issue was published in the December 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.” And what did that paper conclude? “Conclusion: We suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content.” Nothing about “loss of mother earth’s soil nutrients”. But that wouldn’t sell ads would it?
- andbberger 4y agonot like they had to reach for straws to write that story anyway - there is an interesting, nuanced narrative to be told on the haber-bosch processes influence on food prices and the practices of industrial agriculture, particularly tilling. we used to grow food in soil, now we grow it in dirt.
- pessimizer 4y agoThat was the first study mentioned, solely for the purpose of confirming nutrition loss and not for the authors' speculations about causes. The next study was the Australian one cited to confirm protein loss. If you want to know where they drew the statements about causes from, you might check the next three studies which, like the first two, are directly cited and linked within the text of the article. But that probably wouldn't make a good comment, though.
- refurb 4y ago"and not for the authors' speculations about causes" I'm sorry? You're taking NatGeo's word over the people who did the research because, "the authors were just speculating?" That's not how research works. That's not how any of this works.
- cat_plus_plus 4y agoThey are also more abundant than they used to be and that's a valid tradeoff to consider. Would it be worth it to only have access to seasonal produce local to your region for that produce testing better? Make do with pickles and potatoes instead of fresh fruit and vegetables in late fall through early spring? If not, shelf life, productivity and greenhouse feasibility are relevant metrics in addition to taste and vitamins. Old ways of gardening are still available, but most people will end up using these as a supplement rather than replacement to supermarket food that is at least always there in sufficient amounts.
- 0x262d 4y agoThis comment is perfectly alienated from nature. Yes, significant seasonal and regional variation in diet is a worthwhile tradeoff for eating much more nutritious, tastier, cheaper, and more environmentally sustainable food than we have now. No, it does not mean we would have to eat like feudal peasants.
- Retric 4y agoIt’s not just old vs new styles of gardening, increased CO2 levels are apparently having an impact as well which is much harder to control at scale. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/climate-change-nutrition/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/climate-chan... As to seasonality, I personally remember canned fruit being very tasty though that also had negative impacts on nutrition.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoWho says this is a zero sum game? Why not work towards abundant food that is as nutritious as possible? EDIT: And climate and environment friendly, to boot. Via regenerative agriculture.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Why not work towards abundant food that is as nutritious as possible? Because we don't have a silver bullet. We have suggestions. But the world is increasing separating into cheap, low-nutrition food and expensive, nutritious food.
- gregwebs 4y agoThis article mentions that regenerative agriculture as the solution. There is a lot of concern now about the potential for a global food shortage at the end of this year because of rising fertilizer prices (leading to less planting). Regenerative agriculture can help solve this as well by focusing on restoring the biome of the soil, thereby harnessing nitrogen from the air and minerals from the soil.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI agree and if anyone is curious I am part of a project to bring open source farming robots for regenerative agriculture to everyone. We’re working on building a monthly crowd funding following to sustainably fund the project while staying completely open source. We have a good prototype vehicle now and are working on a good solid kit design we can ship in the next year or two, and will work with our user community to design tools for soil prep, planting seeds and transplants, weeding, and harvesting all in a regenerative organic process. And anyone can start a business selling their own variant of the design. We believe this will drive down costs in the same way that 3D printers dropped in price by 100x when patents expired and an open community formed around the many new designs. More details in our latest update here: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simulation-brakes-funding-and-navigation-improvements/202 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...
- lil_dispaches 4y agoWhy are fertilizer prices rising? Could it be that fertilizer is the same stuff as gunpowder?
- nyokodo 4y ago> Why are fertilizer prices rising? Supply chain issues, logistics problems, and high demand lead to rising prices which lead the largest exporter of phosphate fertilizer, China, to halt exports to protect domestic supply. Russia is the biggest exporter of potassium fertilizer.
- butlerm 4y agoFertilizer prices are rising in part because ammonia production is a rather energy intensive process and the price of natural gas used to produce ammonia is way up due to war time shortages. Ammonia, of course, is the primary source material for nitrogen based fertilizers.
- dehrmann 4y agoConsidering the US has an obesity epidemic and scurvy and rickets aren't common, is this a problem?
- ars 4y agoMaybe it's the cause of it? Calories aren't everything, there are other nutrients, and presumably we need to eat more to get them.
- mrpopo 4y agoFruits are lacking vitamins and minerals, not sugar. In fact, the carbohydrate content in fruits is increasing with increased CO2 concentrations (explained in the article). Anyway, the reason why this is a problem is explained in the article. “As many as three billion people around the planet, most of them in low- and middle-income countries, cannot regularly afford a healthy diet, and at least two billion are suffering from so-called hidden hunger, missing key micronutrients in their diets,” Sova says. “These people cannot afford additional nutrient declines in plant-based foods.” Nutrient deprivation isn't just scurvy and rickets, it is also linked to many behavioural and long-term health problems.
- Meandering 4y agoI can't remember the technical terms for these issues (hypercaloric, nutrient deficient diets or something) but I watch a documentary covering malnutrition. They showed people eating cheap food with low nutrient dense foods because they were ignorant and/or poor. Another documentary, Vitamania (great watch), showed that we only need a small portion of nutrients compared to the volume of food we eat. So, I imagine it's more about health education and financial status than people "eating right" while over estimating their nutrient intake.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoIt's interesting because we're at a point where we might consider how to fix this. If solutions in how to use less water as well as increasing nutrient uptake are interesting to you, check out aeroponics!
- pipeline_peak 4y agoWhat’s the point of posting articles only members and desktop browsing users can read?
- gnicholas 4y agoI'm on a desktop and couldn't read the article either. I was shocked not to see a non-paywalled link posted in the comments. How are others reading it? I certainly haven't used my monthly quota for this site, which I never visit...
- Bourget 4y agoI for one can read it just fine.
- pipeline_peak 4y agoHow are you able to?
- kebab 4y agoSomeone has posted an archive of it, but usually you can get past a paywall by pressing Ctrl-P to print before the paywall appears
- sicromoft 4y agohttps://archive.ph/OAU1U https://archive.ph/OAU1U (I also posted this at the top level just now)
- sicromoft 4y agohttps://archive.ph/OAU1U https://archive.ph/OAU1U
- pleb_nz 4y agoNot to mention more sugar. I have read zoos have started having to source fruit not raised for human consumption has the sugar levels are now getting too high. In some cases 30% more sugar content if I tember correct.
- gnicholas 4y agoI believe it. Some of these new apple varieties are delicious. But that's probably because they're bred to be sweeter, and presumably less healthy. Still better than eating processed junk food, but not as healthy as their less-tasty predecessors!
- bcrosby95 4y agoMy kids can't stand them. Too sweet even for them.
- InCityDreams 4y agoWhy would [bred to be] sweeter be 'presumably less healthy'?
- boringg 4y agoSugar even in the form of fructose isn't particularly healthy. Fruit counters through higher fiber for the most part. Ie grapes and watermelon have pretty high sugar content. Still compared to processed food fine but wouldnt want to eat them nonstop
- ogma 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- robinsoh 4y agoI think the latest research was showing that soil and mycorrhizae networks are very critical to the nutritional content of various plants. The sad thing is that same study (need to find it again) showed that applying conventional fertilizer actively reduced mycorrhizae and biological diversity in the soil. The scary thing is there's not much awareness of this in mainstream media. The only thing I've seen in mainstream media about this soil problem was from a hermit Indian guru type on a spotify podcast.
- mellavora 4y agoAlso that modern ag uses heavy equipment which compacts the soil, reducing its ability to breath. Basically suffocates it, and unless you run a plow to 3m depth this is unfixable in less than say 10K years.
- jillesvangurp 4y agoThere's a no-dig movement in organic farming that is based on the notion that tilling or otherwise disturbing soil is a bad thing because it disturbs the fungal ecosystem. Interesting if you are growing some stuff at home because practicing this actually means doing less work. Once established, a no-dig bed requires very little maintenance. You basically just leave it alone. You top it up with some compost once a year or so and you grow whatever you want. Even weeds stand less of a chance because those are what show up when you disturb the soil. So, if you don't do that, there are less weeds to deal with. Sadly, I only have a balcony and no back yard but I try to grow lots of herbs there. Very tasty addition to my food. I have lots of Cilantro growing right now and my rosemary bushes are waking up from the winter as well. And I've planted out some basil cuttings from a cheap super market plant that in a few months will turn into a nice little basil jungle.
- somenameforme 4y agoThis is the conclusion of the paper [1] that this article is based upon: "We suggest that any real declines are generally most easily explained by changes in cultivated varieties between 1950 and 1999, in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content." What National Geographic says scientists say, "Scientists say that the root of the problem lies in modern agricultural processes that increase crop yields but disturb soil health. These include irrigation, fertilization, and harvesting methods that also disrupt essential interactions between plants and soil fungi, which reduces absorption of nutrients from the soil. These issues are occurring against the backdrop of climate change and rising levels of carbon dioxide, which are also lowering the nutrient contents of fruits, vegetables, and grains." Modern media in a nutshell. [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15637215/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15637215/
- thawaya3113 4y agoBecause this article isn’t a review of a single paper? They’ve used a single paper to write a broader article. You can find other papers that justify the other claims that the article makes. Being a popular article as opposed to an article in a scientific journal means references are not also necessary, although I suspect if you reached out to the author they would provide you with a list of references they used. Also, the idea that the media used to be better is even more laughable. In fact, popular science media, with all its flaws, is better than its ever been. The reality is popular science is just hard to do.
- dustymcp 4y agoMy anecdote from my garden is that my smaller cucumbers have way more taste, my smaller red bellpebbers are way more pebbery, potatoes have a richer taste, if this is just freshnes i dont know, but there for sure is a huge difference.
- amelius 4y agoIt was always the case that smaller vegetables are stronger in taste. I'm guessing that the larger ones took up more water, which diluted the taste, but without a difference of total nutrients.
- collaborative 4y agoThe way things are going we'll all end up taking vitamin pills and calling it a day Eating fruit and veg is becoming increasingly pointless. No taste, no nutrients, lots of chems. May as well drink water
- mdp2021 4y ago> taking vitamin pills Except that it is not the same, it's not a solution...
- l33t2328 4y agoIn what sense is it not the same?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hansel_der 4y agoin the sense that the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. it will not be whole again if you just consume the broken down parts.
- mdp2021 4y agoI am not sure that "vitamins in tablets" are as healthy as the natural intake. For sure, that is not what the warnings on some packages recommend.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- biggu 4y agoThe savesoil.org movement could be a possible solution. Incentivise farmers to plant cover crops when it's not season. This increases organic content in the soil, which over time increases the nutritional value in the fruits and vegetables.
- lambdaba 4y agoThis plays a big part in the unhealthfulness of modern diets IMO, the reduction in magnesium content especially. Magnesium is extremely important and involved in so many enzymatic reactions, and so easily leeched out by high-sugar diets (and other stressors), that replenishing it (via supplementation) makes it look like a panacea.
- bjcy 4y agoWhen gluten-free diets began to become popular, I had a similar question as to why a food that had been a staple of multiple civilisations for hundreds of years had suddenly become "bad for you". Dan Barber has a book on this called The Third Plate, which served as a great introduction for me on nutrition, but from a culinary perspective. He's also one of the chefs profiled in the first season of Netflix's Chef's Table.
- raspberry1337 4y agoWithout reading the book, did you ever reach an answer? In my understanding, wheats and carbs were never optimal for us but if you are a starving medieval peasant on a bread or rice diet, you have worse things to worry about.
- davebranton 4y agoThe answer to this question is that we don't make bread like we used to. There's a wonderful documentary on Netflix about this, called "Cooked" (the episode entitled "Air" is about bread). Short answer: bread used to be fermented, and consisted of three ingredients. Today's regular supermarket bread is bad for you, unless you take the time to go to your local bakery and buy their sourdough. My wife couldn't eat bread without falling asleep on the couch a couple of hours afterwards. But she can eat sourdough - which costs about the same as the gluten-free variety we used to buy. Also, it's beyond delicious.
- gruez 4y ago>Short answer: bread used to be fermented, and consisted of three ingredients. Today's regular supermarket bread is bad for you, unless you take the time to go to your local bakery and buy their sourdough Can you outline how the additional ingredients in "Today's regular supermarket bread" make them "bad for you"?
- chopin 4y agoHere in Germany even local bakeries put stuff in their bread which doesn't belong there. A good chunk of population (including me) has switched to make their own bread. With a bit of routine (and patience) it's pretty easy (I am not talking about these machines which make your bread). I just finished two loaves where I even didn't add any yeast besides what's contained in the sourdough. We have some high-end bakeries who sell real bread but you have to know them. Sourcing proper food in Germany is pretty difficult if you don't live in a big city.
- alecco 4y agoThis article is mostly nonsense. The biggest problem is we want supermarkets to provide us with the same crops year-round at inexpensive prices. The apples you buy from overseas had to be taken when still green to survive months of storage. If you want nutritious buy seasonal ripe greens and fruits from local organic farms. Don't expect to have red apples year-round. And expect to pay 50% more.
- beebeepka 4y agoDoes NG provide anything but cheap, shallow propaganda? I think not. The shiny fruits and vegetables are useless, even bad for you. The small ones that look beaten and/or eaten are almost always better tasting. So yeah, thanks for posting garbage
- RicoElectrico 4y agoObligatory mention of RED Gardens, a channel with lots of horticulture insights and analysis. https://www.youtube.com/c/REDGardens https://www.youtube.com/c/REDGardens
- unglaublich 4y agoIntensive agriculture has been focusing too much on short-term yields, and too little on long-term soil performance. Plants need nutrients which they normally retrieve from the soil. Natural soil is rich in organic matter and minerals, a product of microorganisms consuming biomass and excrement. Note that it forms a cycle! Nutritious soil -> Growth -> Death -> Decomposition -> Soil enhancement. Plants are just the visible part of the cycle. The other part consists of microorganisms. The use of pesticides, monocultures, and an absence of organic waste material and natural decomposition, effectively kills the microorganisms in the soil. This is what intensive agriculture does. Now, the soil is devoid of nutrients that plants need to grow. So farmers have to use fertilizer to substitute the required organic building blocks. The problem with this, is that fertilizer just provides the most common organic building blocks. This is enough to grow, but not in the most healthy and fruitful way possible. It's comparable to humans living on a diet of water and rice. They'll survive, but their health will suffer from a lack of nutrients. Now that intensive agriculture has literally killed the soil, there is no easy way back, and we are dependent on fertilizer to produce food of inferior quality. Luckily, alternative ways of agriculture are picking up popularity. See for example, biodynamic farming: https://www.biodynamics.com/ https://www.biodynamics.com/
- giantg2 4y ago"Intensive agriculture has been focusing too much on short-term yields, and too little on long-term soil performance." I think a lot of this pressure is from there being too many people. I have seen the estimates of how many people earth can support, yet I have never seen numbers for how many people the earth can sustainably support, especially in our modern lifestyle of excess.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago> I think a lot of this pressure is from there being too many people. Would this still be a problem if we didn’t use most of our agricultural land to grow crops to feed to the animals we eat? It’s very inefficient to feed plants to cows and then eat the cow.
- drdd 4y agoLess nutritious = lower costs for production = increased sales
- dghughes 4y agoVertasium has a video about this the shocking part was even weeds plants you'd never eat had fewer "nutrients" (if you call it that). Even comparing saved weed samples from 100 years ago the difference was evident.
- andrew_ 4y agoI'm trying to find the source, however I read a while back that arugula (rocket) and green onion (chives/scallions) are two examples of plants that have not been selected for traits and are essentially the same as they were 1000 years ago. I recall the article (or maybe it was Nova?) going on to say that there were many more varieties of food plants in the same category, as an exception to so many which have been.
- l5870uoo9y 4y agoI wonder if this necessitates taking multivitamins regularly?
- udfalkso 4y agoI recently read a great book that dug into this issue, explaining a lot of the history behind it and exploring potential future solutions. The Dorito Effect. Would recommend.
- nomilk 4y agoThey also look better but taste blander.
- ldiracdelta 4y agoAt least for apples, that's due to the feedback loop from the super market. 1. New variety ( red delicious, gala, fuji, honey crisp) 2. Customer says, "I really like it! Could you make it redder?" 3. Farmer/nursery selects for apple strain that is redder, implicitly deselecting all other characteristics. 4. Customer selects red'est version of variety in the super market and passes up less-red variety. 5. Non-red variety taken out or grafted over in orchards to super-red variety. 6. Customer says, "I don't know why, but I don't like the taste of galas anymore!" 7. goto 1