Why we're all deficient in nutrients

[Living Food]

The nutritional value of our food has declined dramatically due to soil depletion. A report presented at the 1992 Earth Summit showed that the average US farm soil had lost 85% of the nutrients it had 100 years ago, and it's far worse now. And it shows in the declining nutritional value of our produce:

Eighty - Year Decline in Mineral Content of Medium Apple (PDF)

Average Mineral Content in Selected Vegetables, 1914-1997 (PDF)

Many other studies also show the decrease in nutrients from our foods over the last few decades.

The impact on trace minerals and other phytonutrients is even worse. The solution? Drink lots of weed juice, eat lots of freshwater algae and seaweed, and drink lots of sprout + grass juice.

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If food is grown in truly healthy soil, no disease or insect will touch it and it will last much longer then most produce today because it will dehydrate but not rot. This is all dependent on the brix rating of the food, which is a wonderful tool to measure how nutritious your produce is.

 

[Living Food]

If food is grown in truly healthy soil, no disease or insect will touch it

A lot of people I've talked to (mainly gardeners or farmers) seem unable to believe this, probably because they think that their soil is very good yet their produce still falls prey to bugs + diseases. They don't want to believe that their soil is actually far from ideal, but numerous doctors, scientists and farmers have done the tests that prove it. If you're used to gardening in so-so soil (even if you think it is good soil), you will be absolutely amazed at the yield + flavor of crops grown on truly fertile soil.

 

[Living Food]

Another very important thing to keep in mind is that today people need more nutrients then ever before due to massive amounts of stress + pollution. So even if you only eat fresh produce straight from the garden/farm, you'll still be deficient in nutrients. But how many people do that? Even if you eat lots of unadulterated produce, it was likely picked days, weeks or even months ago, when it was unripe, and shipped hundreds of miles to your store. By the time you put it in your shopping cart the majority of the few nutrients it had in the first place will be gone. And then if you go home and cook it...well...what nutrients? Cooking does increase the availability of some nutrients such as lycopene, but overall it is far more harmful then beneficial.

 

[Living Food]

* You would have to eat 53 peaches in 1991 to get the same amount of vitamin A as you could have gotten from 2 peaches in 1951! Undoubtedly even worse now. (Christian J. Charts: Nutrient changes in vegetables and fruits, 1951 to 1999)
* Green beans refrigerated after harvest lost more than 90% ascorbic acid following 16 days of refrigeration; broccoli lost about 50% of both ascorbic acid and beta-carotene
following 5 days of storage. (Howard LA, Wong AD, Perry AK, et al. B-carotene and ascorbic acid retention in fresh and processed vegetables. J Food Sci. 1999;64(5):929-936)
* Following cold storage for 8 days in the light, spinach lost 22% lutein; in 8 days of dark cold, spinach lost 18% beta- carotene (Kopas-Lane LM, Warthesen JJ. Carotenoid photostability in raw spinach and carrots during cold storage. J Food Sci. 1995;60(4):773-776)
* Storage of whole heads of lettuce or endive in the cold dark for 7 days resulted in total flavanol glycoside losses from 7-46% (DuPont MS, Mondin Z, Williamson G, et al. Effect of variety, processing, and storage on the flavonoid glycoside content and composition of lettuce and endive. J Agric Food Chem. 2000;48(9):3957-3964).

Etc.

 

[ChrisCarlton67]

Very interesting.

Even more, back in the day, more people simply ate food that was more fresh. Pre-distribution era (i.e.department stores), when people had to get their food from the butcher and farmer, food was mostly fresh.

It will only be generations from now where we will see the true effects of processed food.

I am reminded of the movie, idiocracy... such a bad movie, but it's base point for a plot is scary because of how true it can become.... are we all getting dumber as a result of our diet?

 

[ChrisCarlton67]

btw - you're pics in the first post aren't showing up for me.

 

[Living Food]

It will only be generations from now where we will see the true effects of processed food.

We're seeing horrible effects now (bad diet is one of the main causes of most modern diseases), but yes, it will get much worse if we continue to eat like this.

are we all getting dumber as a result of our diet?

Absolutely, and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. Excitatory neurotoxins (excitotoxins for short) cause devastating brain damage and many other health problems, and fluoridated water does dumb you down. But even if you ignore all of the chemicals in processed food that are making us dumber (far far too many to list here), just the lack of nutrition leads to dumber and weaker people in every way. Omega-3 fatty acids are well known, but did you know that the DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid) in your brain is replaced every 2 weeks and that if there isn't any available at that time your brain structure + functions actually alter because it is missing an essential building block? it isn't as dramatic with other nutrients, but many dozens of nutrients are essential for proper brain function, and most people today are deficient in most if not all of them. Selenium, for example (formerly thought to have nothing to do with the brain), has now been found to be very important for proper brain function. Selenium deficiency can cause depression and confusion From the study: "The lower the level of selenium in the diet the more reports of anxiety, depression, and tiredness, decreased following 5 weeks of selenium therapy."

Even just refined sugar makes you dumber because of the massive amounts of free radical damage it causes in your brain, as well as the glycation of proteins.

Faulty diet doesn't just lead to a decrease in intelligence, either, but can cause violent mood swings, most neurological diseases, and just being imbalanced mentally. People with good nutrition are seldom angry, depressed, or upset in general, but rather happy most of the time and very friendly to everyone.

 

[ChrisCarlton67]

I can certainly believe it.

I think it is when we started to learn to hunt properly and gain the massive amounts of protein that we, as humans, started to evolve larger brains. I am no expert but my point is our diet is what helped us evolve into smart, tool-using mammals.

And it will be our diet, that will cause us to de-volve (my own word) into dangerously stupid creatures that can't control their own population.

Perhaps some of us will wake up when the average life span is reported as being shorter. I believe this will happen in my life time.

 

[Living Food]

Fascinating experiments on diet + behavior:


* Oklahoma Children's Center did a study where they removed the high-fat, high-sugar junk food from the children's diet. There was a 43% reduction in serious crime among those on the modified diet.

* A study was done on the prison systems in 5 different states, looking for various nutritional deficiencies among the prisoners such as magnesium, zinc, folate, vitamin b6 and others. The results: violent offenders (in all 5 states) had the most deficiencies of all the prisoners - 5 to 9 [and of course many more that they didn't think to check, but 5 to 9 deficiencies vs societal norms - with the entire society already very nutritionally deficient - is particularly bad]. THE MORE VIOLENT, THE MORE DEFICIENCIES.

* The Alabama prison system did a study where they changed the diet of some of the prisoners for the better, and kept the rest on the standard prison diet.
- There was a 42% reduction in criminal events when they changed these prisoners diets
- After one year there was a 61% reduction in "antisocial behavior".

Barbara Reed Stitt, while a probation officer in Ohio, noticed profound changes when she changed the diets of those on probation, replacing junk food with whole food.

* 56% of those on bad diets broke their probation by committing an "antisocial act" like robbery, violence, etc.

* if changed to a healthy diet, only 8% of them broke their probation.

* 47% still eating a high-sugar junk food diet continued to use narcotics while on probation

* only 13% on the better diet violated probation by using narcotics.

* Also dramatic reduction in suicides for those switched to the better diet.

 

[Living Food]

Perhaps some of us will wake up when the average life span is reported as being shorter. I believe this will happen in my life time.

The average life span is already shorter - the only reason it doesn't seem like it is because there are far less infant deaths now then there used to be, but for those who live to be adults the life span now is shorter then it was decades ago.

 

[ChrisCarlton67]

Hi

have a link for the above statistics? Not that I'm doubting them (I trust the people here more than my own doctor!), I just want to read further.

Thanks

 

[Living Food]

Barbarra Stitt's info comes from her book Food & Behavior: A Natural Connection, and is also mentioned in the below lecture. For the prison and school info, look into Stephen J. Schoenthaler. This article talks about most of the studies, without the scientific mumbo-jumbo Also read the links at the bottom.
It's also referenced in a very good lecture by Dr. Russell Blaylock, Nutrition and Behavior.

Some similar information, w/evidence:

* Significant relationship between eating refined sugar daily at 10 years old and violence at 34 years old (The British Journal of Psychiatry (2009) 195: 366-367 doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.108.061820)

* Relationship between consumption of omega-6 fatty acids and homicide across all 5 Western countries studied (Hibbeln JR, Nieminen LR, Lands WE. Lipids 2004; 39(12): 1207-1213)


* Relationship between cereal consumption (especially wheat) and schizophrenia (Dohan FC. Cereals and schizophrenia data and hypothesis. Acta Psych Scand. 1966;42:125–152. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1966.tb01920.x)


* Schizophrenics on a grain-free and milk-free diet improved considerably, when unknowingly given gluten they relapsed (Singh MM, Kay SR. Wheat gluten as a pathogenic factor in schizophrenia. Science. 1976 Jan 30;191(4225):401–402.). There are literally dozens of studies linking gluten consumption and schizophrenia (and other mental diseases).

Studies also show that most all inmates have mild hypoglycemia, which causes all sorts of mental + physical problems. One such study. Protein, fat, and chlorophyll all guard against hypoglycemia and keep blood levels steady, and one particularly good supplement is chlorella, a green algae that is very effective at stabilizing blood sugar. I've also seen that lots of green juices are very effective for this purpose. Study on nutritional supplementation improving inmate behaviour - also talks about inmates + hypoglycemia.

More studies on hypoglycemia: Monoamines, glucose metabolism, aggression towards self and others, Evidence for abnormal glucose test among violent offenders, Reactive hypoglycemic tendency among habitually violent offenders. A further study by means of the glucose tolerance test.

 

[Living Food]

More pretty pictures on declining nutrition in our food, courtesy of the USDA database between 1963 + 2000:

Collard greens took a big hit. You'd have to eat 5 times the collards to get the same magnesium as in 1963, and again it is even worse now (these statistics came from the year 2000).

 

[Solstice Goat]

A lot of people I've talked to (mainly gardeners or farmers) seem unable to believe this, probably because they think that their soil is very good yet their produce still falls prey to bugs + diseases. They don't want to believe that their soil is actually far from ideal, but numerous doctors, scientists and farmers have done the tests that prove it. If you're used to gardening in so-so soil (even if you think it is good soil), you will be absolutely amazed at the yield + flavor of crops grown on truly fertile soil.

I had a massive amount of parasites on my brassicas this year, and my soil is quite good; Lots of compost and worm castings. Cabbage fared well, save some nocturnal chomper, but the kale got hit the worst, second were the brussel sprouts. Rhubarb did real well, it has been growing in this location for several years.

I let the bugs run their course. I didn't grow any brassicas last year. I'm expecting a six-fold increase in hornets next year.

 

[Living Food]

How long have you been treating the soil w/compost and worm castings? It can take multiple years, and even the compost is sometimes deficient in certain nutrients. It's also a good idea to supplement with some sort of minerals from the sea, as you know you won't be missing out on anything if you do, mineral-wise at least. Kelp makes a great fertilizer too.

Rhubarb did real well, it has been growing in this location for several years.

Interesting. Personally I'm more of a crop rotation kind of guy (well, I was...now I mostly grow weeds), but I know there's a school of thought which says soil eventually adapts to a specific plant if it is grown in the same place year after year. And that does make sense when you consider that in the wild most plants do stay in e same soil year after year, even the annuals frequently crop up in the same place. It's not far fetched to imagine that when that happens the plants get into a symbiotic relationship with specific soil organisms.

 

[Solstice Goat]

How long have you been treating the soil w/compost and worm castings? It can take multiple years, and even the compost is sometimes deficient in certain nutrients. It's also a good idea to supplement with some sort of minerals from the sea, as you know you won't be missing out on anything if you do, mineral-wise at least. Kelp makes a great fertilizer too.



Interesting. Personally I'm more of a crop rotation kind of guy (well, I was...now I mostly grow weeds), but I know there's a school of thought which says soil eventually adapts to a specific plant if it is grown in the same place year after year. And that does make sense when you consider that in the wild most plants do stay in e same soil year after year, even the annuals frequently crop up in the same place. It's not far fetched to imagine that when that happens the plants get into a symbiotic relationship with specific soil organisms.

Good point. I've been supplementing my soil with million-year-old seashells.


Rhubarb is a perennial in the PNW. the crowns I've been growing have been around since I was a child. Much to my chagrin, the dogs dig them up in the fall. I replant them with compost and worm castings. Perhaps the dogs are the better gardeners?

Really good book called 'Teaming With Microbes', written by a couple gardeners in Alaska. Outstanding electron microscope plates throughout the book. Ever see a fungus eat a nematode? Carnivorous bastards!!! Who knew? :lol:

 

[Living Food]

'Teaming With Microbes'

Thanks, I might have to read that...I'll just add it to my 4-foot stack of books to get started on

I've been supplementing my soil with million-year-old seashells

Lime is one of the more important minerals to supplement with, because it normally won't be present in sufficiently high amounts in plain compost.

You might enjoy the book, Weeds - Guardians of the Soil, which you can read online. Actually the entire website has lots of great information and the small farms library has dozens of valuable books. I've read quite a few of them.

Another great database on that subject is the Soil and Health Holistic Agriculture library, but the main website (soilandhealth.org) has good books on other topics too.

 

[Living Food]

Another factor causing produce to be deficient in minerals is the high yields being used today - more plants in the same space leads to each of them having less nutrients due to competition and stress caused by lack space. In addition, however, high-yield plants also seem to pick up less nutrients in the soil wether they are overcrowded or not; somehow the genetic manipulation that allows you to cram more plants in the same space leads to them picking up less nutrients even if plenty are available. Probably this is because one of the things that makes a high-yield cultivar have a high yield is because they require less nutrients. Maybe you could only grow 100 normal broccoli plants in your garden before, but you can grow 120 high-yield broccoli hybrids. That may be because they each use 1/5 less nutrients from the soil, freeing up those nutrients for the extra 20 plants. The result would be that the high-yield broccoli only has 80% of the nutrients of the normal broccoli!

So the question is...why would you choose to eat plants engineered to have less nutrients?????

One study on fourteen different cultivars of wheat showed that the zinc, iron, and selenium concentrations in wheat decreased as the yield increased, and also decreased based on when the cultivar was released - ie, the oldest varieties tended to have the greatest concentration of nutrients, whereas the newest varieties tended to have the least concentration of nutrients.

Another study showed that the levels of calcium and magnesium in broccoli heads had a negative correlation to the density + weight of the heads - in other words, the more the heads weighed, the less nutrients they had gram for gram. As the broccoli in the experiments was grown with the same number of plants per acre for all varieties, it is logical that the broccoli with higher head weight came from high-yield varieties.

This paper [Under "Green Revolution varieties of wheat, page 4 to page 5] discusses a study where it was shown that there was a correlation between yield and nutrient density of wheat. The yield of the cultivars increased by roughly 1% every year, with a corresponding decrease in the concentration of iron, zinc, and phosphorous of about .3% every year. It doesn't sound like much, but from 1950 to 1992 - the time the study was conducted - the wheat lost 5 ppm iron and zinc. Assuming that a similar or greater decrease in nutrients occurs in all high-yield produce, which it seems to, that could add up fast.

Most produce on the market has been selectively breed for higher yields for decades. Your best bet is to look for heirloom varieties whenever possible, and even better incorporate as many wild greens in your diet as you can - food as nature intended, never touched by man and his destructive practices.

 

[Arrowwind09]

thank you for this thread!

 

[Arrowwind09]

Fascinating experiments on diet + behavior:


* Oklahoma Children's Center did a study where they removed the high-fat, high-sugar junk food from the children's diet. There was a 43% reduction in serious crime among those on the modified diet.

* A study was done on the prison systems in 5 different states, looking for various nutritional deficiencies among the prisoners such as magnesium, zinc, folate, vitamin b6 and others. The results: violent offenders (in all 5 states) had the most deficiencies of all the prisoners - 5 to 9 [and of course many more that they didn't think to check, but 5 to 9 deficiencies vs societal norms - with the entire society already very nutritionally deficient - is particularly bad]. THE MORE VIOLENT, THE MORE DEFICIENCIES.

* The Alabama prison system did a study where they changed the diet of some of the prisoners for the better, and kept the rest on the standard prison diet.
- There was a 42% reduction in criminal events when they changed these prisoners diets
- After one year there was a 61% reduction in "antisocial behavior".

Barbara Reed Stitt, while a probation officer in Ohio, noticed profound changes when she changed the diets of those on probation, replacing junk food with whole food.

* 56% of those on bad diets broke their probation by committing an "antisocial act" like robbery, violence, etc.

* if changed to a healthy diet, only 8% of them broke their probation.

* 47% still eating a high-sugar junk food diet continued to use narcotics while on probation

* only 13% on the better diet violated probation by using narcotics.

* Also dramatic reduction in suicides for those switched to the better diet.

Do you have a reference link for this?

I wonder if any studies have been done comparing the nutritive value of a hybrid plant vs an heirloom plant when both are grown in organic well nourished soils under proper conditions.

 

[Living Food]

Do you have a reference link for this?

Someone already asked me that on the first page: "Barbarra Stitt's info comes from her book Food & Behavior: A Natural Connection, and is also mentioned in the below lecture. For the prison and school info, look into Stephen J. Schoenthaler. This article talks about most of the studies, without the scientific mumbo-jumbo Also read the links at the bottom.
It's also referenced in a very good lecture by Dr. Russell Blaylock, Nutrition and Behavior."

This link has some of the above studies and some other ones as well. Lots of great info in this link.

There's actually been a lot more, similar studies, but I haven't had the time to post them.

I wonder if any studies have been done comparing the nutritive value of a hybrid plant vs an heirloom plant when both are grown in organic well nourished soils under proper conditions.

Not to my knowledge, although I'll look into it when I have the time. I do know that hybrid plants tend to have a wide variation when it comes to mineral levels, whereas non-hybrids had a much more stable, similar level. The mineral concentration in the hybrid broccoli in the second study I mentioned right before your post varied by 2x - which means one day you could buy broccoli that has 4 mg of calcium per serving, another day the broccoli you buy might only have 2 milligrams. Even if it comes from the exact same field grown right next to each other. Eating hybrids is like playing nutritional Russian roulette.

 

[Living Food]

When I have the time I'll post some more studies.

 

[saved1986]

10 or 11 yrs ago I met a chiropractor who specialized in nutrition. He told me to take an occasional copper supplement because the soil was depleted in copper.

 

[Living Food]

The soil is depleted in just about every nutrient, but supplementation is much less effective them getting your nutrients from real food, and lots of synthetic nutrients are harmful.

Most people are deficient in zinc, so you might want to be wary about those copper supplements because too much copper aggravates zinc deficiency dramatically. That's the other problem with supplements - most use isolated nutrients, but nutrients are synergistic so you can't supplement with just one nutrient if you want good results, you need to supplement with half a dozen or more. We don't even know all of the cofactors for most nutrients today, so there's no way they could be in a nutritional supplement unless it's a wholefood supplement. Isolated, synthetic nutrients are a waste of time, money, and potentially quite harmful.

Grow your own food in fertile soil or get it from someone who does, and eat all the wild food you can. Most supplements are a waste of time but there are some very good wholefood supplements I recommend, mainly spirulina, broken-cell-wall chlorella, AFA, and the various seaweeds. Growing your own wheatgrass and other microgreens to juice, in conjunction with the above guidelines, will ensure you get a wide array of trace minerals that would otherwise be missing from your diet, as well as very potent phytonutrients.

 

[pinballdoctor]

The soil is depleted of nutrients because the only nutrients put back into the soil are phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium. (PNK)

Farmers don't add magnesium, or copper, or selenium, or any of the other 57 essential minerals, all of which work in unison. That is why vegetables of today look good, but are nearly depleted of minerals.

The only real solution is to either grow your own veggies in soil that has either wood ashes or volcanic ash, or supplementing with all 60 essential minerals in colloidal form.

On a final note, chemicals such as roundup have sterilized the soil, basically killing it.