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A study found that there is a significant decline of the nutrient content in 43 different crops between 1950 and 1999 (web.archive.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Here is the problem with crop quality:

Most of the purchase decision is what is observable at the store.
- Does it look good.
- What is the price.
- How is the smell, texture, weight...
Some happens at home, and you might remember for next time.
- How does it taste.
- How long does it last.
- Does it make you feel satisfied.
It is basically impossible to know how good food was for you.
- You eat a lot of food and the response is delayed.
- Even if you have a response you probably don't properly understand your body.
- In the end most of the "health" of food is just your believes and marketing.

So there is basically no business pressure to have crops be nutritious.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (9 children)

the communist in me yearns to blame capitalism for everything, and its sort of their fault but not directly, the actual reason that nutritional content is going down is because plants are growing faster and bigger while taking a similar amount of nutrients because there is more co2 in the air, its not really about business pressures or anything to do with specific decisions being made by corporations or farmers and the difference is irrelevant anyways (for now).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure it's not mostly a matter of soil depletion and synthetic fertilizers giving only what's necessary to grow fast?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

not as far as i know i could be mistaken, im no biologist of botanists but i did some research a while ago cuz its interesting and more co2 seems to be the agreed upon cause, plants in greenhouses with more co2 also have this "problem".

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