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The Real Truth about Your Food

Have you ever wondered why the food you buy just doesn't seem the same as it used to be years ago.

Whatever happened to the nutritional power we used to get from Fruit and Vegetables?

Is it just over farming, soil depletion, commercial fertilizer and genetic modifications that are slashing the nutrients found in your fruits and vegetables or is there something more?

One thing we know is that in terms of nutritional value you need to consume much more of a particular food to gain the same benefits as you got from years ago.

Who says?...

Researchers from the University of Texas in a recent study just published.

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They suggest that you'd have to eat 10 servings of spinach to get the same level of minerals from just one serving about 50 years ago.

So what's happened?...

The problem it would seem is that many food producers create "hybrid" forms of your fruits and vegetables - not for their ability to store nutrients - but for their colour, weight, and shelve life. They might look nice and pretty when they sit under the fluorescent lights of your supermarket, but nutritious? We think not, they contain little more than indigestible cellulose, sugar, and water.

Your Food Supply has Changed

You're Eating Fruit with Few Vitamins… Vegetables with Few Minerals…

So what can you about it?...

Well let's trace the beginnings of this problem and it goes way back to 1936 when a group of doctors introduced Document No. 264 to the floor of the United States Senate. It was a dire warning that the mineral content of the soil was eroding. Vegetables were losing their power and people were at risk. A little like our own the British Parliament, they filed the report under pending. I've looked for similar data in the UK and strangely there is none.

The following is a table of today's nutritional values compared to 1975 from the US Department of Agriculture.

Loss of Vitamins and Minerals Since 1975

Apples

Vitamin A, Down 41%

Sweet Peppers

Vitamin C, Down 31%

Watercress

Iron, Down 88%

Broccoli

Calcium, Down 50%

Vitamin A, Down 50%

Cauliflower

Vitamin C, Down 45%

Vitamin B1, Down 48%

Vitamin B2, Down 47%

Collard Greens

Vitamin A, Down 45%

Potassium, Down 60%

Magnesium, Down 85%

So it would seem that vitamin and mineral content has dramatically plummeted in just 30 years!

Of particular concern are minerals like iron and magnesium which have dropped by more than 80 percent. That's from commercial farming technology and powerful fertilizers that practically sterilize the soil - leaving it with little to no mineral content.

If the soil doesn't have minerals, there's no way for vegetables to absorb them.

And that's bad news for your health… Magnesium regulates over 300 body functions - every day! Magnesium is so critical; experts suggest that low levels in your blood can lead to diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, and high blood pressure.

More data is now emerging and a report from the University of Texas in Austin, has recently reviewed the decline of nutrients in produce. Their findings reported to American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis showed that there were significant drops in a wide range of produce across the board, including a 20 percent decline in vitamin C and a 38 percent plunge in vitamin B2.

Hybrid Products

The Hybrid products are of particular concern, where growers are focused on the look of the product rather than its nutritional content. Lord knows what the genetically modified brigade have in store for us.

These new versions of most of the popular fruits and vegetables have more water, more sugar, more pith (The indigestible support tissue like the white fibrous netting around an orange section) and less of everything else.

They even have a name for this "the dilution effect". In their view, more water and more pith helps their produce ship well, look good and weigh a lot. But it virtually wipes out their vitamin and mineral content.

The plunge in nutrients in your produce over the last 30 to 50 years is bad enough, but it's rapidly getting much worse; these genetic hybrids are pushing nutrient values even lower.

We understand that a popular hybrid variant of broccoli called "Marathon" is a particularly alarming example. According to the report levels of calcium and magnesium in the Marathon hybrid are 35 percent lower than other hybrids. The hybrids themselves are 50 percent lower in calcium and magnesium than "normal" broccoli. And the "normal" broccoli has less than half the calcium and magnesium than broccoli did in 1975!

We weren't sure if this problem was just related to US markets but having completed a Google search it would appear that Marathon Broccoli is well and truly available in the UK.

http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/vegc-calabrese.htm

http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/?PAGEID=20671&ctl_cat_Code=M28925

http://www.ifr.ac.uk/Public/FoodInfoSheets/brassicas.html

In less than 50 years, the mineral, vitamin, and antioxidant value native to fruits and vegetables has been virtually "destroyed" - robbing you of the natural vital nutrients you need every day

To view as a web page.

http://www.1stvitality.com/acatalog/index.htm