
Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? - okket
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
======
n4r9
Here is the study mentioned in the second main paragraph:

[http://saveoursoils.com/userfiles/downloads/1351255687-Chang...](http://saveoursoils.com/userfiles/downloads/1351255687-Changes%20in%20USDA%20food%20composition%20data%20for%2043%20garden%20crops,%201950-1999.pdf)

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.

Worth noting there is no use of the phrase "soil depletion".

I take issue with the comment near the end:

> Also, foregoing pesticides and fertilizers in favor of organic growing
> methods is good for the soil, the produce and its consumers. Those who want
> to get the most nutritious fruits and vegetables should buy regularly from
> local organic farmers.

To my knowledge, organic farming employs just as much, if not more, pesticide
and fertilizer. But there are regulations determining which products are
allowed to be classed as "organic". Such regulations can be somewhat
arbitrary; for example, a lot of so-called organic produce is the product of
radiation-induced mutation [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding)

~~~
afpx
_To my knowledge, organic farming employs just as much, if not more, pesticide
and fertilizer._

If this is true, I would love to see your source.

I buy a lot of organic because I expect it to have less pesticide (and other
potentially 'bad' things). And, if that's not the case, I will change my
buying habits.

I do understand that there is a fraud issue in organics. I have seen examples
of farmers owning organic certified farms and then buying produce from the
distribution market to resell as organic. Also, I have seen examples of people
doing similar things at farmers markets.

~~~
chiph
There's "FDA Organic" which meets the government standards (which are somewhat
weak) and then "Real Organic" from farmers who hold themselves to the original
meaning of being pesticide and GMO-free. The problem is that as a shopper, you
can't tell the difference, unless you sign up with a CSA and get to know your
food supplier personally.

~~~
jakob223
Does "organic" include GMO-free? I thought it just meant pesticide-free, and I
don't take any issue with GMO foods.

~~~
bostonpete
Yes, even the USDA standards, which I think is what the GP was referring to,
seem to prohibit GMO...

[https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2013/05/17/organic-101-can-g...](https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2013/05/17/organic-101-can-
gmos-be-used-organic-products)

~~~
guelo
GMO is basically equivalent with spraying of glyphosate. The whole point of
most GMO is to make the plants resistant to glyphosate. If you don't want to
eat glyphosate you avoid GMO foods.

~~~
rflrob
There are different kinds of GMO—in addition to RoundupReady (glyphosate
resistant) crops, there are Bt crops (mainly corn, as far as I know) that
react in an insect’s alkaline gut to form incecticidal protein fragments. The
bacterial source of the genes is also used as an organic incecticide, and has
no plausible mechanism for causing harm in humans that I am aware of.

------
JackFr
The quality of Scientific American has dropped off significantly in the past
20 years, but this article is astonishingly bad:

* Vegetables _are_ lower in nutrients than in the 1950's.

* Here is some serious academic research that shows that.

* It indicates that the cause is the breeding and cultivation of varieties which are lower in nutritional content by farmers.

* But I will assert absent any evidence, soil depletion.

WTF, Scientific American?

~~~
ars
I noticed the same thing.

It would be easy enough to test - there's plenty of pristine, hardly used,
soil around.

You can also test different cultivars in different soils and see what the real
cause is.

~~~
Juggerbot
>there's plenty of pristine, hardly used, soil around.

Gonna need a [citation needed] on that one.

~~~
sfotm
Drive through the flyover states and you can see it all for yourself. If
you're not on the interstate, you can drive at 80mph without seeing another
car for some time.

It's actually really beautiful how untouched some parts of the US are.
Hopefully they can stay that way for some time.

~~~
dragonwriter
The Midwest may have a low density of cars, but the arable land is largely
farmed; it isn't pristine, untouched wilderness.

~~~
sfotm
I was born on a farm in rural Ohio, so I can appreciate the difference. I'm
thinking more of Wyoming.

~~~
scott_s
But that land is probably not suitable for farming - because if it was,
someone would probably have a farm on it. So then you're comparing soil-not-
great-for-farming from then and now, which is something, but it's not what we
really care about (soil-used-for-farming).

------
will_brown
Since the question was specifically about carrots, it is interesting to note
wild carrots were originally white, then once domesticated white, yellow and
purple. The Dutch cultivated orange carrots in the 17th century.

There are no shortage of articles about the difference between modern and
medieval fruits/vegetables, but if you haven’t seen one take a second:
[https://amp.businessinsider.com/foods-before-genetic-
modific...](https://amp.businessinsider.com/foods-before-genetic-
modification-2015-8)

~~~
microcolonel
One of the major benefits of new vegetables is that people don't hate eating
them. Many modern, heavily modified vegetables are plenty good; I've seen too
many people give this as an excuse for not bothering.

Added:

Perhaps somebody could market some varieties specifically for nutritional
content, I would not be against that. The biggest problem there is that we
still don't really know what "nutritious" even means.

~~~
dv_dt
I have doubts about people not hating modern vegtables - the modern ag
industry has bred almost all the flavor out of tomatoes for example in a quest
for ever better transportability.

------
fortythirteen
A greater issue than soil depletion is the loss of phytonutrients through
selective breeding for taste and early picking of produce for ease of
transportation. A fantastic book on this subject, with advice for how to find
produce with higher phytonutrient content, is _Eating on the Wild Side_ [0].

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Wild-Side-Missing-
Optimum/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Wild-Side-Missing-
Optimum/dp/0316227935)

------
crazygringo
Here's a real question -- even if they're less nutritious individually, are we
still able to get more nutrition than ever before?

The variety of fruits and vegetables I'm able to eat during the winter is
frankly astounding. Heck, even the variety during the _summer_ is a cornucopia
compared to 30 years ago (the local supermarket certainly didn't carry kale or
swiss chard back then).

If I'm more easily to get whole different sets of nutrients than before, is it
a net win?

~~~
fasteo
This is undeniably true, but I understand that the micro-nutrient density is
now lower than before, so that to get a given amount of a micro-nutrient you
need to eat more calories. It is speculated that this is one of the reasons
behind the obesity epidemic of the Western World.

~~~
lucozade
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the obesity epidemic is
not because folk are stuffing more kale down their gullets.

5+ years ago it was very noticeable to me, going from the UK to the US, that
almost all shop bought food was bigger and sweeter. From breakfast cereal to
drinks to bread.

I've also noticed that this trend is fairy pervasive here too. You have to go
out of your way to find a burger that's not in a brioche bun, for example. I
can't comment on whether we've caught up with the States as I now can't eat
most breakfast cereals or drink most soft drinks (including mass market beers)
because they're too sweet.

~~~
fasteo
>>>I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the obesity epidemic is
not because folk are stuffing more kale down their gullets.

Of course you are right. I did not meant this. I was referring that, in
general, your brain will seek more food as the nutrient density is now lower
than before. This applies to all the food you eat, not only veggie and fruits.

On top of this we have high-calorie, high-palatable, low micro-nutrient foods
that make all this much worse.

------
rymohr
As an organic farmer I'm disturbed by how few commenters here understand what
organic produce is.

"Certified organic" (aka USDA organic) means the farmer complied with a very
strict list of regulations spelled out in the National Organic Program's Final
Rule [1] and audited by an accredited certifying agent. See [2] for the TLDR
version of the final rule.

"Organic" produce (aka non-certified organic) doesn't mean shit. The farmer
may be following organic practices or may not be. YOU are the auditor in this
case. Visit the farm and observe their practices with your own eyes before
spending extra on this "organic" produce.

Bottom line: If you're concerned about synthetic fertilizers, GMOs, and/or
sustainable agricultural practices in general, make sure you're buying USDA
certified organic produce. Or grow the stuff yourself.

[1]: [https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?c=ecfr&sid=3f34f4c22f9...](https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?c=ecfr&sid=3f34f4c22f9aa8e6d9864cc2683cea02&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title07/7cfr205_main_02.tpl)

[2]:
[https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Organic%2...](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Organic%20Practices%20Factsheet.pdf)

~~~
darkstar999
People also seem to conflate "organic" with "healthy". I had past coworkers
who thought it was absurd that an energy drink was labeled as organic.

------
saosebastiao
We know that picking produce before peak ripeness results in lower nutrient
densities. And from a logistics point of view, higher yields almost inevitably
mean earlier picks, to compensate for the more intense logistics of serving
geographically larger markets from the same source. It makes me wonder how
much of the nutrient decline is due to sampling baseline changes.

I'd be interested to see if there are significant differences in nutrient
density for canned produce, which should significantly cut down on this
potential error. Canned produce is almost universally canned and sealed within
24 hours of pick, and as such they almost always pick right in the window of
peak ripeness, as opposed to several weeks before like most "fresh" produce.

~~~
kaitai
This is why I have found a favorite brand of canned tomatoes and only cook
with them unless I can pick my own tomatoes or find them at the farmer's
market. Supermarket tomatoes often taste terrible!

------
mdtancsa
back in 89, I worked as a farm hand for a season which was a fascinating
experience for many reasons. But I remember the farmer complaining about the
tomatoes grown for export were tasteless and devoid of nutrition and he hated
them with a passion... But they packed well due to uniform growing shape,
looked good - perfectly round, had consistent color, and lasted longer without
spoiling.... And supposedly this is what the consumer wanted. When people go
through the produce section, its almost all looks and price that the majority
of people judge fruit on. Although now, people do seem to be thinking of and
talking more about how their food is made. But I am not sure how much of that
really is a general trend and how much of that is the company I keep or the
country I live in.

~~~
Reedx
Unfortunately true. Farms have a lot of trouble selling "ugly fruit" and a lot
of it gets thrown away. Fruit & vegetables have to meet a cosmetic standard to
get into the grocery store.

Some companies are starting to appear to capitalize on this though:
[https://www.imperfectproduce.com/](https://www.imperfectproduce.com/)

------
Stranger43
The problem comes down to our demand for out of season fresh vegetable(of a
very limited selection) with an extended shelf life.

The fact that we do not want to eat frozen and canned vegetables is forcing
the cultivation industry to select against healthy variants in order to
provide the health conscious consumer with the illusion of healthy food all
year round.

------
Confiks
(this was posted as a subcomment, but deserves to be a top-level comment)

Another explanation/hypothesis which is rarely talked about is rising CO₂
levels: [https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-
nutrie...](https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-
carbon-dioxide-000511)

This even goes so far as harvesting CO₂ from the atmosphere and
indiscriminately feeding it to greenhouse crops, while we know that many plant
varieties will respond by having far less available nutrients for human
consumption.

------
maxerickson
It'd be interesting to see a study that tried to tease apart the extent
depleted soil contributes to the problem and the extent that faster growth
(and faster harvest) just results in less nutrients.

Many vitamins contain only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and there are even more
if you add nitrogen and phosphorus, both of which are in "basic" fertilizer.
So none of those are particularly going to be soil limited.

~~~
gerbilly
Yes but some say the soil may be getting deficient in _minerals_ : zinc,
selenium, magnesium etc...

~~~
maxerickson
Those can be fertilized, but that is only going to happen if they are limiting
plant growth.

Fertilizing for calcium and magnesium availability is pretty common.

------
sbenitoj
Even though the debate about the amount of nutrition in organic/non-organic is
unsettled, I think it’s still worth buying organic to reduce pesticide
exposure.

Here is a good article summarizing studies on soaking fruits and veggies (both
organic and conventional) in baking soda to strip away pesticides.

Here’s a key quote from the article:

“Even with bicarbonate, buying organic may still be worth it!

One thing this article should not be abused is as evidence in an argument
against buying organic. Yes, you can reduce the pesticide load on the peel of
your favorite produce to almost zero and yes, even the latest (highly pro-
organic) review of the literature highlights that pesticides are where the
major differences are, but you're (a) still left with the pesticides beneath
the skin and will (b) not benefit from the other potential benefits Tiziano
Gomiero highlights in his latest paper in Applied Soil Ecology (see Figure
4).”

[http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/10/nahco3-aka-baking-
so...](http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2017/10/nahco3-aka-baking-soda-washes-
all.html?m=1)

------
justifier
i assume the article was most interested in discussing 'soil depletion' but
another unsettling variable in this is the 'nutrient collapse'

wherein elevated CO2 levels in the grow environment correlates negatively with
nutrient content of plants

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953470...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534702025879)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036122/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4036122/)

[https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-
nutrie...](https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-
carbon-dioxide-000511)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253127)

------
artursapek
Solution:

1\. buy some land

2\. grow your own food

3\. learn how to preserve it

[https://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Book-Self-Sufficiency-
Re...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Book-Self-Sufficiency-
Realists/dp/0751364428)

------
Dowwie
Maintaining a fruit and vegetable garden is more than just a hobby. My family
and in-laws have said for years how nutrient deficient produce from chain
grocers is. There's a huge difference between locally grown and foreign
imported produce. This has compelled us to grow and take gardening much more
seriously.

Garden culture for the win.

------
leekyle333
Has anyone seen any research looking at the nutritional content of something
that is picked fresh verse picked unripe and shipped? I'm really curious how
this might impact food quality. I know it's the only way to do it but I always
wonder if those expensive blueberries are really worth it.

------
wcchandler
Pretty soon we’re about to have a lot of rich farmers. And a lot of VCs
wondering why they didn’t get in on this market earlier.

Glad to see these pieces popping up on here as it helps bring into the
discussion that there’s outside factors at play that will be driving this
change in the industry.

------
randomerr
Here is a Christian biblical practice used for soil conversation in Kenya.
They line up with what the Scientific American was saying:

[http://www.arcworld.org/projects.asp?projectID=633](http://www.arcworld.org/projects.asp?projectID=633)

------
chiefalchemist
The veg version of: You are what you eat eats.

Makes me wonder how this has contributed to obesity, as well as other
illnesses (e.g., depression). That is, if you're not getting the nutrients
need there are going to be "side effects."

------
DoubleCribble
I don't know about the nutritional value, but I've heard that the mineral
composition of soil can directly affect the flavor of fermented grape juice.
This may require some personal research on the matter...

------
cptskippy
It was my understanding that nutrient absorption took time and the use of
fertilizers to rapidly grow multiple crops during a season was the primary
factor behind the decline in nutrient density in crops.

------
known
Hope
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borlaug](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borlaug)
is reborn

------
mchannon
This article (and most of this discussion) completely misses the elephant in
the room.

The reason food crops are less nutritious has nothing to do with their soil
and everything to do with their food: CO2.

It's widely held and widely accepted that if you give plants a higher
concentration of CO2, they will grow faster. They will take up more space in
less time.

We also know that the CO2 levels on Earth have been skyrocketing.

Thanks to CO2, these plants now spend substantially less time in the field
before they get harvested, so it stands to reason they'd spend less time
taking up minerals and vitamins, or forming them themselves.

~~~
sol_remmy
Are you going to cite a source that substantiates this? CO2 emissions are a
politically charged topic so there's an extra-strong reason to only believe a
reliable source

------
xfactor973
This is exactly why I signed up for a CSA ( know your farmer ) and planted a
food forest in my back yard. I know exactly what went into it.

------
kelukelugames
I hope it's not too late to change the title. A yes/no question is against HN
guidelines.

------
redsummer
The article mentions organic as possibly more nutritious. Are there any
studies which prove this, and give comparative organic / non-organic
nutritional values?

~~~
skjerns
Second this question. Most conclusions I heard so far were "Organic is not
healthier", which is contrary to what the author states.

------
stratigos
People need to wake up and realize: organic foods are not just about
decreasing one's exposure to pesticides - its about saving the soil so our
Earth can produce food! Pesticides and modern industrialized agriculture will
render the soil useless for food production.

~~~
ergothus
> People need to wake up and realize Clearly you have considered their
> arguments and respectfully disagree...

> organic foods are not just about decreasing one's exposure to pesticides -
> its about saving the soil so our Earth can produce food!

Great - I love eating! But do you have any evidence that "organic" as a label
actually supports saving the soil? I can find evidence that organic shoppers
desire that result, and I can find claims that "natural" fertilizers and
pesticides "are believed" to better for the soil, but not much evidence.

Like GMOs, the "organic" and "natural" labels are so broad as to be useless if
you are trying to talk about common truths.

I support sustainability. I oppose animal cruelty. I support consumers being
able to make informed buying decisions. I'm not convinced the labels we have
now actually promotes those goals.

