"Vegetables half as nutritious as they were in the 1960s"
Body:
"The study found that many crops had lost 20pc to 50pc of several key nutrients."
---------
So, vegetables are possibly 80% as nutritious as they were in the 60's if these key nutrients capture the complete nutritional value of vegetables, which they don't. Regardless, that's some pretty sloppy linkbait garbage.
Article is pure bullshit (i.e. doesn't care about truth, just wants to sell you something). You can point any competent AI at it and see how selective it is being (or just know it is BS by being informed, e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915751...). That this gets upvoted on HN is concerning and suggests a serious bot problem, this trash should never persist on the front page.
EDIT: Also being worried about nutrient deficiency on a modern balanced Western diet is also basically deranged and wildly out of touch with the evidence. There are some interesting exceptions for women and iron, to some degree vitamin C (easily solved), and then some serious B12 issues in vegans, but, otherwise, vitamin deficiency is basically a non-problem in the developed world.
> - We choose fruits and vegetables increasingly for their taste
People choose from what they have to choose from. And even then, taste seems to be competing with other factors.
Pre Honeycrisp, peoples' choice of apples wasn't great. And among that disappointing selection, the flavorless, mushy, dismally awful stand out - Red Delicious - sold well.
There is more of a new vitamin in veggies and fruit and that is vitamin S; S for sugar. I noticed lately that little grape tomatoes taste more like grape than tomato! Other offenders are corn and green peas; corn that is so sweet that it doesn't taste like corn. Oranges that are too sweet. Grape fruits that have lost tartness. Even lemon is sweeter. I read that even soya bean has changed to be sweeter and it has less protein. Probably it is the same for most pulses; they have modified them to cook faster so they have more starch and less protein.
Headline:
"Vegetables half as nutritious as they were in the 1960s"
Body:
"The study found that many crops had lost 20pc to 50pc of several key nutrients."
---------
So, vegetables are possibly 80% as nutritious as they were in the 60's if these key nutrients capture the complete nutritional value of vegetables, which they don't. Regardless, that's some pretty sloppy linkbait garbage.
Article is pure bullshit (i.e. doesn't care about truth, just wants to sell you something). You can point any competent AI at it and see how selective it is being (or just know it is BS by being informed, e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915751...). That this gets upvoted on HN is concerning and suggests a serious bot problem, this trash should never persist on the front page.
The study in question was by "Deep Science Ventures" - a venture capital firm specializing in bio-technologies.
People have been trying to spin stories about soil degradation since... ironically, the 1960s.
While these might be true, the actual answers are usually much more mundane:
- We choose fruits and vegetables increasingly for their taste
- The rise of hydroponics and salad vegetables in general
- Quicker harvests with less time to absorb nutrients
Our diets are much more diverse and fortified compared to the pre-war period - nutritional deficits are not nearly the concern they used to be.
The concerns about meaningful decline are also essentially fake / bullshit https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915751....
EDIT: Also being worried about nutrient deficiency on a modern balanced Western diet is also basically deranged and wildly out of touch with the evidence. There are some interesting exceptions for women and iron, to some degree vitamin C (easily solved), and then some serious B12 issues in vegans, but, otherwise, vitamin deficiency is basically a non-problem in the developed world.
> - We choose fruits and vegetables increasingly for their taste
People choose from what they have to choose from. And even then, taste seems to be competing with other factors.
Pre Honeycrisp, peoples' choice of apples wasn't great. And among that disappointing selection, the flavorless, mushy, dismally awful stand out - Red Delicious - sold well.
https://archive.li/CCky5
Sigh, more sensationalist, low-quality coverage, and, as always, proper scientific studies refute these claims: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915751....
Also Deep Science Ventures / Hollow Harvests is a biased startup that simply cannot be seen to be objective on these matters.
There is more of a new vitamin in veggies and fruit and that is vitamin S; S for sugar. I noticed lately that little grape tomatoes taste more like grape than tomato! Other offenders are corn and green peas; corn that is so sweet that it doesn't taste like corn. Oranges that are too sweet. Grape fruits that have lost tartness. Even lemon is sweeter. I read that even soya bean has changed to be sweeter and it has less protein. Probably it is the same for most pulses; they have modified them to cook faster so they have more starch and less protein.
Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect: https://m.xkcd.com/2241/
Yup for sure. Celery too. I recall some pleasant bitterness in cooked celery when I was a kid; no longer.
Non-mobile link: https://xkcd.com/2241