Health is available in Texas: the nutrient content of crops has decreased in recent years
If you've been told by their elders that "food not only tastes at once", you may want to hear. According to recent reports, thirteen of the major nutrients in fruits and vegetables, six have declined significantly, some up to 38%. Preliminary studies on cereal crops show similar results.
Donald Davis, a biochemist at the University of Texas Austin, analyzed the data published by the ITS Department of Agriculture and reported the lowest levels of protein, calcium, vitamin C, phosphorus, iron and riboflavin, compared with crops in previous decades. What this might mean in terms of agriculture to the states like Texas, with its long growing season, could be significant. What could that mean for everyone – from individual consumers to local farmers, your insurance company – is also important. If consumers are dissatisfied, consumers are not buying.
This does not mean that people just stop buying food. It's more than when we bought could change, particularly for residents of large cities like Austin, Dallas and Houston, with a wider selection of contracts.
Jeff Cronin of the Center for Science In The Public Interest, supported the comments of Davis. The expansion of agriculture big business has made the increase in production, he said, and yields are often achieved more by finding ways to cultivate the land more quickly. Nutrients are absorbed by the sun and soil, however, if the plants have less time to mature, less time also the development of these vitamins and minerals. The quantities may be growing food, that food is less nutritious. In terms of nutrition per calorie content, consumers can actually lose money with lower prices and improve performance.
Other factors affecting nutrient levels in fruits and vegetables include inappropriate land care (eg, depleting soil nutrients), lack of proper crop rotation, types of fertilizers, crop genetics, maturity of foods harvest time and the distance that food travels before it reaches the table. The short edge of these practices in large-scale agriculture has been criticized in recent years the development of the mega-industry has grown – not only for food production of lower quality, but also the effects on the environment, too.
Decrease in nutrient content is important to everyone, obviously, but the issue is a concern of many more people suffering from chronic diseases and immunity or nutrient absorption. The body's ability to fight disease and maintain optimal health depends on the level of nutrition. Even if the amount of consumption adequate fruit and vegetables, these patients may have to consume 40% more just to get adequate levels of vitamins and minerals – and not even know.
All this only adds more fuel to the debate on organic food versus conventional. While the SU Department of Agriculture official is the position that traditional crops are not better or worse than those that are produced organically, many would argue differently.
Grassfed the beef has already been shown to contain half as much fat as beef Grain Fed has raised feeders, and provide higher levels of vitamins E, A, D and beta-carotene. Milk plant in the agricultural fair strangely similar results, attributed in part to the practice of encouraging cows to produce twenty times their natural level of milk by the administration of hormones. Egg Farmers of vitamin E 30%, 50% more folic acid, and 30% more B-12 that their counterparts in the factory farm.
Fruits and vegetables show similar results, more time for growth, falling yields, the lack chemical nitrogen fertilizer, practice crop rotation, and less travel time – all factors thought to affect nutrient content – it seems that correlate well with these assertions.
For all broccoli haters out there, this is not an excuse to ignore these fruits and vegetables. Whatever your choice food – conventional or organic – fruits and vegetables are, hands down, one of the best ways to get food per day. Organic foods tend to be more expensive without argument, and many simply can not afford more expensive. The question is what to do with this problem. Food is one the few products that we have, after all.
One way to rethink the situation is to analyze what we see as "more expensive". For this phase may be a question perspective. In terms of nutrient content per calorie, conventionally grown foods do not seem to be the best, after all. The money you save now in the grocery bill back in May, ten times in health care related expenses. Buying organic products in bulk purchases, if possible, in agricultural markets, joining Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), groups of home cooking and cultivating a garden in the yard can save time, money, and the nutrient content and make it possible to buy more nutritious food selections.
Nobody should have to choose between their budgets and their nutrient content. Our health is at stake, after all. One of the things This is unfortunate in some of the chemical soup that has become our product section, however: health is for sale.
Food choices have positive effects a positive effect on your overall health. Be aware of your health, and what you can do to preserve this will undoubtedly affect as you get older, and eventually your wallet as well.
About the Author
Pat Carpenter writes for Precedent Insurance Company. Precedent puts a new spin on health insurance. Learn more at Precedent.com
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