breeding for nutrition (in a deteriorating atmosphere)

[mskrieger]

I knew most garden truck grown today was less nutritious than the stuff in the 1950s, but I didn't realize how bad things had gotten: www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

I wonder if our breeding projects here, in which taste is often a major criterion, will produce more nutritious fruit as a side benefit (assuming the general rule that good taste is an indicator of nutrition?)

[raymondo]

I think I might become a climate change denier ... too depressing otherwise!

[steev]

To quote Pogo Possum,"We have met the enemy, and he is us".

[diane]

I think we have generally moved away from bitter towards sweet.

[steev]

Granted, and reasonably so, but sweeter and more transportable appears not to be always the most nutritious; I realize that is not the real point of that report, which is that EVERYTHING is becoming less nutritious; people will quibble, but I accept that it's our own damned fault.

The environment isn't a closed system; it's all of a part; we fuck things up one place and there are consequences elsewhere, with which we will be forced to deal.

The problem isn't that this is obscure, but that the data isn't available to immediately refute people who want to blow it off for their own generally financial interests.

I understand how developers can screw an urban environment, building stuff that makes them a pot of money so they can live elsewhere, but where do these dick-heads think they're moving, Mars?

[reed]

I think growing things with genetics for more nutrition for example like what goes along with purple coloration might help. Also maybe not encouraging rapid growth and optimal production with fertilizer and perfectly timed quantities of water. Still the advantage would only be by comparison.

The bigger question is how much longer will we be able to grow it at all?

[richardw]

I read about this this morning which got me thinking if growing in hothouses with a modified atmosphere imput, would reducing the CO2 to pre-industrial levels produce more nutritious food than we have today?, no doubt that would be off set by slower growth rates.

[philagardener]

FArmers need to select for the right qualities to meet their needs and growing conditions. Faster growth is not necessarily better food. Big Agro-Industry hasn't shown the least bit of interest in nutrition. Take white bread . . .

[prairiegardens]

It would be interesting to know where they took samples and if healthier soils would counter the effects somewhat. Certainly a major issue has been that depleted soils cannot produce the same product as healthy soils, the resources aren't there for the plants to use. Sort of the same as kids growing up on junk food will tend to be fatter and sicker as adults than kids growing up on organic food grown in biologically active, healthy soils. It would be interesting to see a comparison between for example the same veggies grown in biodynamic soil and those grown in mono cropped bare soil 'cided to the nth degree. I'd lay money there'd be more nutrition in the first, no matter how much carbon there is in the air. I'd say organic but that doesn't seem to mean much anymore, biodynamic seems harder to shanghai as a definition.

its also true, or so research says, that glyphosate is ubiquitous across the planet now in air and water as well as crops and it's a chelator. That's what led to all the deaths in San Salvador and other places. Since it's in the soil air and water it's possible/ probable (?) that could also be affecting these findings. It's a tendency for scientists to think of things in isolation, or so it seems to me, and nothing much actually works that way. 

[richardw]

Problem is we cant test the foods of 20-50 100 years ago for nutrient density, has it dropped off with foods grown in biologically active healthy soils?, i dont think anyone has the answer to that really.

[jocelyn]

We do have some test results from tests run in the 50's, 60's and 70's.
Assuming we stay with what was tested in that time frame, we can compare stuff.
It's not good.

I did see a CBC Market Place segment on eggs, and free range pastured eggs are MUCH better than even fortified diet indoor hens' eggs. The differences were in omega 3's versus omega 6 type fatty acid ratios, and vitamins...much better when the hens can get grass and bugs.

One other indicator is that men's sperm count is about half what it was in the 50's and 60's. This is in the industrialized countries only....so Europe, North America, Australia and New Sealand...but NOT in Asian counties, or African ones or Latin American ones. Since there has been a lot of immigration one can check for location effects in the same genetic groups.....and it's NOT genetics.

Since we are mammals, one would expect male fertility to be a sign of environmental stressors...including diet.

The female fertility was not noted in the study I read, but looking around the houses close to us, women are not having the big families they used to have...some of which is because of women working in the paid labour force and childcare being too expensive to allow many children.
I suspect, but have not a way of knowing, that industrial foods are huring us, as the less industrialized areas are doing better. Mind you, it could be exposures to man made chemicals too, in addition to foods being poorer.

Plant a bigger garden, grin.

[walt]

Some years back, about 20 years, some friends decidedd to move to Wichita, and gave me their chickens.  I built a big chicken tractor so they could get plenty of fresh greens and insects.  The stress of moving put them off laying for a week or more.  But when they did start laying, their eggs were delishous.  I have never cared for plain boiled eggs.  They were just something to put mayonaise or something on.  But these I liked plain.
I do carer some about nutrition, but I think I get plenty from my garden.  But when they flavor is missing, and I didn't even know at the age of 40+ that eggs were suposed to have flavor, that's sad.  And my grandmother had about 1,000 white leghorns and sold eggs.  They were fed grain raised of that farm, and leftover veggies from her huge garden.
By the way, when the chickens were in the chicken tractor, they learned that there would be fresh pasture when I moved it morning and evening.  
They would get extremely excited.  But when they were used to the place, I  would let them out days and the woud eat such greens as a native prairie would provide, and all the grasshoppers they could hold.  It was a bad grasshopper year.
Then in the evening, I'd lock them in the chicken tractor for the night to protect them from preditors.  I learned that if I moved the chicken tractor, the chickens would all run in, to get that nice fresh pasture.  This after being out on the nice fresh pasture all day.

[richardw]

Talking of eggs, we add to our hens food dried seaweed, not only are the hens getting superior nutrition but the eggs we get are healthy. The hens get to spend half the day to roaming about in the cow paddock so they get there greens and insects.

[templeton]

I suspect, with out any real evidence, that we might find in coming years that there are subtleties in human nutrition that will reveal the importance of naturally grown food. The recent developments in human/gut microbial flora and fauna is a case in point. We live and participate in extraordinarily complex ecosystems that have evolved over millennia to have complex and subtle interactions and feedback loops. it beggars belief that we already know everything about them. Mind you, changing CO2 levels has been part of those systems, and while cli mate change may be concerning, I suspect there may be more troubling issues in the future around the introduction of novel chemistry and biota. We will see. Or at least future generations will.
T

[richardw]

Good point you make about human/gut microbial flora and fauna, in resent times we've largely unset that balance with the elimination of internal parasites which they now know played an important role in maintaining our immune systems, autoimmune diseases are thought to be the result of the disappearance of internal parasites.