Vegetables are losing their nutrients. Can the decline be reversed?

[Coventina]

n 2004, Donald Davis and fellow scientists at the University of Texas made an alarming discovery: 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients between the mid and late 20th century.

According to that research, the calcium in green beans dropped from 65 to 37mg. Vitamin A levels plummeted by almost half in asparagus. Broccoli stalks had less iron.

Nutrient loss has continued since that study. More recent research has documented the declining nutrient value in some staple crops due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels; a 2018 study that tested rice found that higher CO2 levels reduced its protein, iron and zinc content.

The climate crisis has only accelerated concerns about crops’ nutritional value. That’s prompted the emergence of a process called biofortification, a strategy to replenish lost nutrients or those that foods never had in the first place.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/28/vegetables-losing-nutrients-biofortification

***********************************************************************************************************

Yikes! I had not heard about this!!!

[barbaraann]

1. So, are chocolate chip cookies gaining nutrients???

Oh, please! Oh, please!

[NewHendoLib]

2. it would be interesting to look at the new hybrid varieties vs the old heirloom types re nutritional content

[Elessar Zappa]

9. Seems like it's related to the climate more than anything.

So even heirloom veggies may not be as nutritious as they were in the past.

[MadameButterfly]

15. It also has to do with big ag vs small farms and the different methods they use

In the Guardian article linked here, Ben Cohen says as much: Biofortification is trying to increase nutrients in foods that wouldn't have a deficiency in the first place with small farm models. It can only increase a couple of nutrients per crop, whereas the improved farming methods increase the whole spectrum of nutrients.

Look up Real Organic, which supports farmers working with regenerative soil practices with aims to produce more nutritious and chemical-free food. If farmers put the nutrients back into the soil rather than stripping the nutrients, we get more nutrition. It also eliminates the need for pesticides and the artificial fertilizers which are unsustainable and pollute our waters.

Read the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
to understand the big picture. For 14,000 years agriculture has been stripping soil of nutrients causing whole civilizations to move on to other lands to seek fertile soil. We've been accelerating the process with the introduction of synthetic pesticides into agriculture in the 1940s, and now with global warming.

[CrispyQ]

25. Can small farm models feed 8 billion people?

IDK, maybe they can, but the real crux of all our problems is how many of us there are. Oh well. We won't be 8 billion in 100 years. Probably even sooner.

[Random Boomer]

29. Yup, this is a self-correcting problem

But that self-correction is gonna be one of the most painful events in human history.

[MadameButterfly]

38. Yes! if government wakes up and understands that soil erosion is destroying

our ability to grow food and it takes a long time to create soil, not so long to lose it.

Big ag (which causes soil erosion and pollution) is a recent development and the US government actively promoted it. It wasn't just free market conditions putting small family farms went out of business in droves from the '40s on, and especially in the '80s. Small and organic farming can be cost effective but making the change is expensive, and it needs to be supported like we support oil production, chips production, military weapons production, infrastructure, endangered species protection...

Leaving transition to sustainable soil to the free market while funding non-sustainable practices won't work.
No soil, no food.

[Lonestarblue]

32. Some group did that a few years ago and found that the heirloom varieties are superior in nutrients.

I don’t remember all the crops they compared, but wheat, corn, and tomatoes were three of them. The heirloom varieties are also usually grown organically, and we do not know how much the chemicals used by the majority of farmers change nutrient density. Chemical companies and factory agriculture are slowly destroying the nutrient value of our food.

[LeftInTX]

3. Makes my brain hurt. I'm thinking rising CO2 rapid growth? Reduced storage of nutrients?

I don't think nutrients in plant cells compete with CO2.

[Bettie]

6. Hybrids where they select

for durability and lasting longer (so they can be shipped long distances to processing plants and then to final sale points).

[LeftInTX]

8. Yes, that seems more likely. The article mentions climate change and CO2.

I do know that rapid growth changes the taste, sugar content etc.

[elleng]

4. So our/my thinking 'it doesn't taste as good as it used to'

is 'common,' and rational!

[CrispyQ]

5. I know I read about this many, many years ago.

The article listed specific veggies like spinach & how much less of certain vitamins & minerals they have now compared to sometime in the early 20th century. It could only have gotten worse.

This is why we take a multiple vitamin every day.

[Canoe52]

22. I remember an similar article back in the early 70's saying the soil's minerals

in farmers fields were starting to become depleted and this would lead to less minerals and vitamins in the plants.

[mucifer]

7. VERY subjective and no science here. But, I can tell.

[MadameButterfly]

16. Grow your own tomatoes and you'll never buy one in a store again

It's not just the climate, it's big ag

[CrispyQ]

27. So true. They're just icky.

Gorgeous skins & so perfectly round, but pale insides full of white, pithy stuff that by the time you cut it out you hardly have any tomato left.

[FreeState]

20. Yep - point it out and get attacked though

This is no better than Dr. Oz show sensationalism.

[HighFired49]

24. Same here

I can taste the difference between all the old (20 yrs ago) and today's fresh and canned vegetables. Most of the ones today have little taste, or some weird aftertaste.

[Random Boomer]

30. Here's the science for you

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5550704/#:~:text=Elevated%20%5BCO2%5D%20increases%20the,reserves%20and%20increased%20auxin%20biosynthesis.

At elevated [CO2], some plants allocate greater amounts of sugars to roots where they are likely to act on gene regulation and therefore modify nutrient uptake and transport.

[HAB911]

10. Well, we do now have "Balance of Nature" caps

[MadameButterfly]

17. Even the nutrients in the pills have to come from somewhere

and if it's natural as they claim, someone has to grow it.

(Yes I know you're being sarcastic, but some posters are suggesting supplementation is the solution. I'm not saying they are wrong, given the produce we have available, but the cause of the problem still must be addressed)

[HAB911]

18. lol, obviously-the source is the same

unless they are growing in a super secret manner and location!

[dalton99a]

11. So the values in textbooks are outdated

[CrispyQ]

28. So probably the nutrition labels, too. -nt

[pandr32]

12. Climate related, but also vegetables lose nutrients during storage.

Many vegetables and fruits are picked early, stored and then shipped over large distances and stored some more. We need to bring back local farms and farm to table models.
From the moment produce is picked it loses nutrients as it undergoes the process of breaking down.

[LeftInTX]

13. True

[mopinko]

14. soil depletion.

rebuilding soil isnt even hard. things like no-till r gaining adherents. that will help.
but just letting it fallow, and running animals on it will fix a lot of that. a little green sand or other mineral amendment shd fix the problem. affordable if u arent shelling out for chemicals.

[MadameButterfly]

21. Regenerative agriculture as described above

If you don't garden, buy organic, preferably from your local farmer's market. Seek out farms with the Real Organic label since the USDA hasn't been properly monitoring the Organic label for a while. For example, organic tomatoes in supermarkets, are almost exclusively hydroponic, grown without soil and fed with water and "nutrients" in plastic containers. The original Organic label required that farmers use and replenish soil, but USDA doesn't enforce that. Hydroponic then outcompetes farmers who grow in soil. Same with the berry business. Almost all berries in supermarkets are hydroponic, putting soil based growers out of business. I buy my blueberries from King's Grove Farm (Real Organic member) shipped from Florida in the spring, then my garden blueberries kick in for the summer. Like tomatoes, hard to go back to store bought blueberries.

[Kid Berwyn]

19. If elevated CO2 levels are impacting vegetables...

...imagine what they are doing to animals.

[NickB79]

23. Funny you should say that. IQ does indeed drop as CO2 rises

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-carbon-dioxide-intelligence-greenhouse-gas-more-stupid-ucl-study-a8674706.html

Rising carbon dioxide emissions could cause a decline in the brainpower of workers around the world, according to new research.

A new study by academics at University College London (UCL) found that higher amounts of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere could affect our memory, concentration and decision-making abilities.

Raised CO2 in workplaces lacking proper ventilation is known to make employees more sluggish and less able to successfully complete tasks.

[slightlv]

26. I'm not an agriculturist, don't even play one on TV...!

I am willing to bow to experts regarding the effect of climate change. Why not? CO2 effects so much negatively. But some of this, IMO, also has to be laid at the farmers' and especially corporate farmers' practices. We've lost the knowledge hard learned after the dust bowl days. Mono crop farming and not letting fields lay fallow, for example. A few years ago, I was working in a city 60+ minutes from the gym where I had a long-time membership. I kept it up for quite a while until the commute got to me. But there was one stretch where, when the wind was blowing, it was a blackout from the wall of dirt coming off the fields. I thought back to what I could remember of my dad teaching me about the dust bowl and great depression days. Thought this must have been a taste of what that looked like... especially to a kid like my dad at the time.

[appleannie1]

31. Is that about the time they started genetically modifying crops in order to spray them with Roundup?

[appleannie1]

33. About 35 to 40 years ago. Around 1987

Add to that, pollution has cut the amount of sunlight crops get now. And just as low light in the winter causes vitamin D deficiancy in humans, I imagine it can impact plants as well.

[elocs]

34. Wow! It's a good thing I don't eat vegetables. n/t

[Chainfire]

35. That is why I supplement my diet with soylent green.

It is delicious and nutritious!

[vanlassie]

36. B-B-But.....

"Soylent Green is people!"

[Chainfire]

37. Protein, just protein.