I have seen it reported in sundry locations that most commercially-grown produce these days is nearly devoid of essential minerals that we need for nourishment and thriving purposes, the primary reason being that the soil in which they are grown has been stripped & depleted of same by poor agricultural methods. (i.e., no crop rotation and etc.)
What I want to know is, where did all the minerals go? Nothing ever leaves the ecosystem, right, it only gets converted? So if they’re not in the fruits & veggies, and they’re consequently not in us, where are they?
Are they tied up in enbalmed corpses which are not decomposing & therefore not giving back? Are they in urns on mantlepieces throughout the world? Or, as I have long suspected, are they trapped in the exotic alloys which make up our modern superconductors?
Not buying it. For better or for worse, modern produce has all of the necessary minerals and nutrients that they ever had. If grown in soil that lacks the usual complement of minerals and nutrients, they simply grow smaller but just as nutritious as before. Taste is another matter; modern fruits and vegetables are often bred more for appearance and shelf life than taste. This is part of the reason nice restaurants sometimes seem to have better tasting stuff: because they do have better tasting stuff. They don’t buy for appearance and shelf life, they buy for taste. Plus, they know what they’re doing, and wholesalers know better than to foist off stuff that looks good but tastes like cardboard.
As has already been implied, this is complete bullshit. Much commercial produce in the US is grown with large amounts of fertilizer, and will contain as much or more minerals as any other kind of produce. I doubt very much that you will find much commercial produce in the US that is grown in depleted soils, without any fertilizer being used.
The subject matter of the book “The Omnivores Dilemma” by Michael Pollan keeps coming up in various threads. He discusses the visual difference in soils of a mass producing farmer vs. a more natural method. A dull grey vs. a rich brown.
Yes fertilizers are used extensively in mass farming. The nutrients are no longer in the soil because they are not going back into the earth. More traditional farming methods rotates crops, composts, plows the spent crop back into the earth. You had to take care of your soil because your soil took care of you.
Just like water affects the taste of bread (see New York Bagels/Pizza) so does the soil affect the taste of the plant grown in it. Just because they are fertilizing the land it doesn’t mean they are giving the plants everything they need or would normally get. We get cows fat and ready for slaughter, but all the crap we put in them to get them there is frightening. We keep learning more and more about micronutrients/trace elements that are found to be more important than we thought.
I can’t recall the last time I had a decent peach. But I know when I buy produce from the farmer up near our mountain house that is field is right there and my god, his peas are the most delicious things you ever put in your mouth.
Developing things for transit and storage, picking them early, forcing them to mature faster/bigger, limited crop rotation, pesticides, hormones, et al. all affect the food we eat, rarely is the concern nutrition. Don’t think going organic will be that different, big organic is its own ball of wax.
I wonder when we will stop eating fresh peaches altogether and the only ones we know are the “canned in heavy syrup” variety?
Do you know that there is an orchard somewhere where a man is tending to dozens of different kinds of apple trees because the few we actually produce for market are very, very vulnerable to attacks? Apples don’t grow true, so every apple you have ever bought commercially is a clone of the first apple tree of that type?
There is a lot of really interesting information about the foods we eat that aren’t so far out in left OR right field and yet fascinating. Michael Pollan also wrote a book called “Botany of Desire” that goes into how our desires have shaped the success of certain plants and that we are an evolutionary force to many plants?
I’ve been rambling, but this sort of subject is interjecting itself into my life in many ways. Here, at work, with friends, in relation to my child, etc. Food is Fascinating.
Taking the OP at face value (I do not particularly wish to argue the facts of soil depletion at this moment), we generally do not use human sewage as a fertiliser for crops, so there at least is one method by which compounds could leave the soil and not find their way back to the fields particularly rapidly.
Well first off WTF does “a more natural method” of farming even mean? All farming is inherently unnatural. You can’t have a more natural method of farming.
Secondly while it is true that “organic” farm soils will often be depleted and a dull grey colour that does not need to be the case. With care organic farming can be almost as conservative of soil structure as normal farming practice.
What exactly does that mean? And can you provide references?
Bollocks. Traditional farming is slash and burn, the stubble is burned and the nutrients lost as smoke or dispersed as ash. Traditional farming rotates crops only in the sense of leaving swiddens fallow for a few decades between burning events.
Oh, what, you didn’t meant that type of traditional farming? The pray tell precisely which farming tradition you are referring to?
What, you mean like the people in Palestine 3000 years ago did? Or the people in England 2000 years ago? Or the people in New Zealand 500 years ago? Or the people in the USA 100 years ago?
Once more you seem to be talking about some mythical golden age that simply never existed in reality.
Well, no, nothing guarantees that. But don’t; you think a scientifically formulated chemical supplement of trace elements and macronutrients is somewhat more likely to meet those needs than a random helping of compost?
Clearly almost everybody in the world disagree with you.
True, and one of the things that we keep learning is that the best way to get those micronutrients is to ensure that people have access to a variety of high fresh food. The one thing that will ensure nutrient deficiency is to make food expensive and seasonal through so-called ‘natural’ farming practices.
People today are healthier and better nourished than ever before in the history of our species. That is due almost entirely to the use of optimal agricultural practice and the abandonment of unproductive traditions based on superstition.
Yes and Ice Cream at the seaside always tastes better too.
Not a difficult question: when people are no longer willing to pay for them. It really is that simple.
Umm, what are these supposed to be cites of
The first link is noting but an unattributed exert from an anonymous speaker quoting from an unnamed source from a session of congress. It is totally meaningless. We don’t even know whether the speaker was criticising the claims made or agreeing with them.
The second link is a single paragraph dealing with the effects of acid rain on soils. Nothing whatsoever to do with “poor agricultural methods”. In fact it is specifically referring to non-agricultural environments: forests, lakes, and streams.
The third link is to some commercial organisation that is selling supplements to replace these supposedly depleted nutrients. It never provides any evidence that such depletion has ever occurred, simply that you should give them money counteract the effect. This is no different to a claim that your charkas are misaligned and that you should give me money to re-align them.
And I repeat: there is no evidence that they go anywhere. The whole claim is totally bogus. Soils, agricultural or otherwise, can become nutrient deficient through any number of mechanisms but the idea that agricultural soil in the US is nutrient deficient is bollocks.
Look, this is quite simple. If you want to ask how poor agriculture practices can lead to soil depletion then ask that question. I at least will happily answer you. But if you insist on promoting the ignorant nonsense that crops are devoid of essential minerals and soils are nutrient deficient the you will keep getting the same response: such claims are ignorant nonsense used to sell books and sugar pills to the gullible.
In threads past, I’ve had some serious differences with Blake on matters agricultural, but in this case, he’s spot-on in the above post.
This simply isn’t true. The biggest factor in soil color is the degree of oxidation in a given soil. Soils from wetlands tend towards grey, while the more oxidized upland soils tend more towards red. There are other factors, such as % organic matter and silica, but farming methods have little to do with soil color.
Only if you are frightened by people who aren’t telling you the truth.
That’s because the peas are vine-ripened, and your supermarket peach was probably picked green in order to last through shipping. Go to a peach farmer’s place and buy from his produce stand: The peaches will taste as good as they ever did.
Noble of him, but unnecessary. The USDA already maintains an extensive seed and germ plasm bank, so we can always go back to the old varieties if needed.
The art of cloning is a very recent development. Think about it: There’s no way that apples you ate 20 years ago came from a clone.
While the rest of your points are pretty good, you’re wrong here. Most fruit trees are obtained by grafting stock from the original plant onto a rootstock. So the new tree is genetically identically with the parent (as far as the fruiting part is concerned).
(requires registration and fees, I am sorry, my employer has done both, but I can only share a snippet))
Food Faddism, Cultism, and Quackery
W T Jarvis
"The basic fallacies of food faddism have … Faddists fear that
depleted soil produces cosmetically acceptable albeit health- deficient … "
Basicly- if the plant grows large and healthy, it is healthy. Plants possess minerals and vitamins for them to grow and produce seed to spread- they don’t throw stuff in there just for us animals to eat (usually, a few plants have evolved by making their seeds more attractive, of course).
“Myth Depleted Soil produces less nutritious fruits and vegetables. *Vitamins are not found loose in the soil waiting for plants to soak them up in their roots. Plants make vitamins from several building blocks in the soil. Minerals are taken up from the soil, but if there is a deficiency in a mineral needed for plant growth, it (the plant) will simply not produce a viable amount of that fruit or vegetable.” * (mine).
Taste is another matter- fruits picked and transported a long distance will have had to have several compromises to make them arrive looking fresh. One of those compromises often is fresh taste. Yes, some veggies at the gorcery store no longer have that “just picked” taste. OTOH, we can get more or less every fruit and vegetable year around at every store in the Indusrialized world. When I was a young kid, families (as a Californian) sent fresh oranges to their other state relatives as a special holiday treat.
**Malienation, Blake, John Carter of Mars ** & Colibri are all more or less spot on in their answers.
gazpacho is right, John Carter of Mars. A clone is a) asexually reproduced, and b) genetically identical to the original organism. Merriam-Webster says, in part:
“Main Entry: 1clone
Pronunciation: 'klOn
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek klOn twig, slip; akin to Greek klan to break – more at CLAST
1 a : the aggregate of genetically identical cells or organisms asexually produced by a single progenitor cell or organism b : an individual grown from a single somatic cell or cell nucleus and genetically identical to it c : a group of replicas of all or part of a macromolecule and especially DNA <clones of identical recombinant DNA sequences>”
The new method you were thinking about is recombinant engineering, or something. The tradition method is grafting. You can also clone by simply planting a cutting from the original plant. That doesn’t work for fruit trees, though. The desirable kinds of fruit often have weak roots, so you have to graft onto a stronger rootstock.
