[HN Gopher] Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
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Nutrient levels in retail grocery stores
Author : amadeuspagel
Score : 83 points
Date : 2024-11-04 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
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| modeless wrote:
| I thought it was a little weird that they start off talking about
| "calcium, magnesium, and iron" and then immediately switch to
| talking about how vitamin C degrades over time in produce. OK
| sure, vitamin C can enhance iron absorption, but it doesn't do
| that for calcium or magnesium and, being atomic elements, they
| assuredly do not disappear from food in storage.
|
| When an article conflates things like this without calling it
| out, I become suspicious of the rest of the claims.
| hansonkd wrote:
| The article doesn't say those minerals degrade, however it also
| fails to reiterate the linked paper's reason:
|
| > The high rate of magnesium deficiency now postulated [5-8]
| can be attributed in part to a steady decline in general
| magnesium content in cultivated fruits and vegetables, a
| reflection of the observed depletion of magnesium in soil over
| the past 100 years
|
| > Increasing demand for food has caused modern farming modern
| farming techniques to impact the soil's ability to restore
| natural minerals such as magnesium. techniques to impact the
| soil's ability to restore natural minerals such as magnesium.
| In addition, the use of phosphate-based fertilizers has
| resulted in the production of aqueously insoluble use of
| phosphate-based fertilizers has resulted in the production of
| aqueously insoluble magnesium phosphate complexes, for example,
| further depriving the soil of both components
| solomonb wrote:
| Well that quote appears to contradict the article's claim
| that speed to market is the most important factor.
|
| Now I don't know what to think..
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Here is a way to look at it.
|
| You read the article, and by the end you have actionable
| items, that you can execute today, literally.
|
| Many piece published on the topic go on and on about how
| agricultural methods should do this and that. Sure, and in
| the meantime what do we do?
| modeless wrote:
| It does mention those reasons and others, however all those
| reasons directly contradict the article's next point "If all
| you care about is nutrient content, SPEED is the only factor
| that matters". Seems like all these other factors should
| matter too! Surely not every farm is equal in these
| respects...
| hansonkd wrote:
| > It does mention those reasons
|
| whoops you're right, I somehow skipped that part.
|
| I guess it is kind of weird article with contradicting
| points of view and the author could have communicated that
| improving soil quality and pairing it with speed to
| consumption is the best combination.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| My read is that the author is taking the view of
| consumers. Not regulators and producers.
| biot wrote:
| > Seems like all these other factors should matter too!
|
| The way I read it was that there are some minerals that are
| no longer there to begin with because they're simply not in
| the soil. For nutrients (like vitamin C) created as part of
| the growing process, speed is the only factor that matters.
|
| So yes, it does matter but unless you have a way of knowing
| which farm(s) the produce came from and what their soil
| mineral content is, that's not something you can factor
| into your purchasing decision.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| One of my unorthodox views is that the popular blue light
| obsession is exacerbated by magnesium deficiency, given how
| hard it is to get enough in our diets.
|
| Yes, blue light disrupts melatonin and makes it harder to get
| to bed. But magnesium disrupts sleep quality and deregulates
| melatonin production in the first place and makes one
| particularly sensitive to blue light.
| manmal wrote:
| Melatonin production is influenced at least also by: Zinc,
| iron, calcium, copper, P5P (active B6), and tryptophan.
| Selenium, iodine, and manganese are involved in indirect
| ways. Many people are deficient in most, or all of those.
|
| To be fair, some of these, like iodine and selenium, have
| always been problematic in some regions, like Switzerland
| (lots of goiters). But I find it less than ideal that only
| some minerals are fortified in bread and milk etc, because
| their deficiency is very obvious. While all the other
| minerals are not fortified because their deficiencies are
| less obvious or less well understood.
|
| A healthy human body contains quite a few minerals in
| greater abundance than iodine: copper, bromine, strontium,
| rubidium, gallium, silicon, zinc, iron, and the
| electrolytes. Some of them don't even have lab tests (not
| that blood tests work well for minerals, which is another
| issue - blood is short term transport for most minerals,
| not storage).
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Not contradicting your view that the article isn't very
| diligent, but have you heard of oxidation?
|
| Atoms constantly react to the environment, they can bond with
| other atoms, form new compounds. Oxidation time varies, in the
| case of potassium it is very fast, the claims in the articles
| would stand. For vitamins, it also depends.
|
| I got into a rabbit hole a few years back, digging into numbers
| from multiple academic sources on the subject. They concur that
| fruits and vegetables have "lost" the majority of their
| nutrient density. The low end figure is (rather was) 70% loss,
| the high end 90%.
|
| The reasons are multiple like the article said. I recall
| reading a thorough and most backed paper explaining the main
| cause is the soil. We are over exploiting, not allowing the
| time needed for soils to recoup their content, in minerals in
| particular. We use fertilisers but these are to enable growth,
| not so that what end up in your dish is rich in nutrient.
|
| We could quite easily reverse the trend, even getting back to
| normal levels, but that implies a massive hit in production for
| several years, in a row. Some would call it greed, but can we
| even produce for the world's population if we did that...
| philipkglass wrote:
| _Not contradicting your view that the article isn 't very
| diligent, but have you heard of oxidation?_
|
| _Atoms constantly react to the environment, they can bond
| with other atoms, form new compounds. Oxidation time varies,
| in the case of potassium it is very fast, the claims in the
| articles would stand._
|
| Potassium, calcium, and magnesium are always fully oxidized
| in foods. These elements are very reactive with water and
| oxygen; on Earth they are not naturally found in less
| oxidized forms.
| giarc wrote:
| It's an odd article all around. Look at the first graph. It's
| an average mineral content of calcium, magnesium, and iron in 4
| different vegetables, but only represented by a single line.
| Why isn't it broken out for each category (ex. iron in tomatoes
| over time)?
| miltonlost wrote:
| The first graph is also 5 data points connected by a line and
| separated by decades and most likely differing methodlogies.
| And this footnote
|
| > "The chart has unverified information "The average mineral
| content of calcium, magnesium, and iron in cabbage, lettuce,
| tomatoes, and spinach has dropped 80-90% between 1914 and
| 2018 30,34,35,36,371. Asterisks indicate numbers could not be
| independently verified."
|
| What is this chart and data? It's meaningless and
| nonsensical. And so the rest of the article is suspect when
| based on unverifiable nothing.
| derbOac wrote:
| I had a similar reaction to the discussion of farmer's markets.
| Technically yes, I've been to markets where it's obvious some
| vendors are not selling local produce but in the vast majority
| of the markets around me it's equally obvious that they are (I
| actually think most of them have rules that the produce has to
| originate within a certain radius). And selling "5 different
| types of produce" all grown locally at the same time is hardly
| difficult to do. Different produce does in fact ripen around
| the same time.
|
| It made me wonder about the rest of it.
| hammock wrote:
| You're sort of mixing ideas I believe. The nutrient density
| (minerals etc) is declining because of the soil quality it is
| grown in, not because it is sitting on shelf.
|
| The vitamin C thing was about nutrient loss due to blanching (a
| processing step) I believe
| modeless wrote:
| The article is mixing ideas, is the point. If soil quality
| matters, that seems to contradict the article's claim that
| speed is the only thing that matters.
| hammock wrote:
| When it comes to nationwide grocery chains, with limited
| transparency on their supplies, of what you can control,
| speed might be an important factor
| karldcampbell wrote:
| The article is from the comsumer's perspective. For me,
| someone who doing my daily / weekly shopping, time-from-
| harvest is the only factor I can use in a purchasing
| decision. I can't rely on branding, source, grower etc as
| all that is a crap-shoot. Even if one grower has nutritious
| tomatoes this year, next year they might use a different
| field leading to worse nutrition.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| They're saying how fast the food goes from farm to table is
| what matters.
|
| Doesn't matter if you grow old variety organic seeds the
| slow way in small batches on virgin soil if it takes 11
| months for the food to get to your mouth.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| worth actually reading:
|
| - farmers markets are hit or miss (anyone should know this by
| now)
|
| - walmart came ahead of whole foods for produce quality (whoah)
|
| alas we cannot go back to 1914 so we have to make due with what
| is out there now or grow our own
|
| keep this in context...declining-quality produce in 2024 is still
| better for you than pizza
| hansonkd wrote:
| > That means it had been a year since the apples he bought were
| actually picked
|
| I've been saying for a while that instead of focusing on "best
| by" dates, food suppliers should be forced to put on the harvest
| or manufactured date.
|
| "Fresh" Apples being sold after a year is nothing compared to how
| old some of the food you by in the freezer, or boxed section.
|
| Manufacturers and store owners are the ones that benefit the most
| from keeping food on the shelves longer.
|
| > If you walk into a booth and that vendor is selling over 5
| types of produce, there's no way they all ripened at the same
| time. They may not even all be grown by them.
|
| I noticed this also when i was buying a "farmers box" that
| promised to deliver fresh produce from a local farm. Upon closer
| inspection almost all of the organic farmers market type produce
| delivery services buy from other suppliers and sell as if they
| grew them themselves.
| hammock wrote:
| Frozen vegetables are often blanched and flash frozen at the
| peak of freshness. In many cases they are "fresher" than what
| you find in the produce section
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| many of the "fresh" verities are also grown explicitly for
| hardiness and transportability, and are often also not great
| in terms of taste or texture.
|
| freezing meanwhile can preserve them on the spot and ensure
| the less transportable types can make it to consumers.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Nutrients is a very broad term. This article seems to be focused
| on just three. Is there a good reason to restrict analysis to
| just three "minerals"?
| hirako2000 wrote:
| There is a dozen commonly known vitamins and minerals. There
| are over a hundreds. Where should an article stop?
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| This article seems to lack common sense. Yes, the amount of
| Vitamin C will reduce the longer you store a vegetable or fruit
| in a fridge, but the amount of calcium and iron does not change.
| Nor does the the density of other minerals.
|
| Why is the author nominating Walmart as the winner based just on
| their speed to market? What about the other factors like soil
| degradation etc., which reflect the amount of iron and other
| minerals?
| ec109685 wrote:
| Deep in the text they mention that a study looked at nutrient
| contents and Walmart was the best:
|
| "I learned this from talking to Brent Overcash, co-founder of a
| startup called TeakOrigin, which specialized in testing
| nutrient content in groceries from retail grocery stores. For
| years, every week, his team would walk into grocery stores, buy
| thousands of produce items the way normal consumers would, and
| bring them back to the lab to assess nutrient content."
| mythrwy wrote:
| This is really important in my opinion.
|
| I've been growing most of my own produce for several years and I
| make sure all trace elements are present and available. It's a
| ton of work and makes no financial sense (it's not really cheaper
| when all is said and done) but at age 53 I feel a lot better than
| I did at age 38.
|
| I wish I could share this more widely but I think a lot of the
| worlds problems might be from lack of trace elements. Just a
| theory but eating produce picked the same day with proper mineral
| balances as a regular diet is astounding.
| tomxor wrote:
| The older I get the more I appreciate how important good
| nutrition is for basically everything in your life. I started
| focusing on it more for climbing where I kept getting injured,
| injury used to set limit for me, now I hardly ever get injured
| or it's far more subtle and manageable. I feel way stronger and
| happier, and noticed other parts of me generally feeling
| healthier. I've been climbing for a very long time so even
| though this is anecdotal, it's a very clear relationship to me,
| and this is supported by some of the leading climbers in the
| world who really get into the science of it.
|
| It's hard to sell most people on this because nutrition is
| historically such a terrible science, but the western diet over
| the past 50 years has gradually set the bar so low, that it's
| incredibly easy to make substantial improvements for little
| effort by focusing on the basics of simply getting back onto
| natural foods for the core part of your diet. The bioscience of
| nutrition is complex, and the statistics of nutrition is
| fraught with misinterpretation and flat out bullshit, but it's
| bizarrely simple when you figure out the actual changes to
| make... meat, veg, eggs, dairy, all the things that have been
| villainized by the food industry. That people still think
| eating egg yolks is bad for you just reflects how poor public
| education is on this stuff, and how damaging all of the ancient
| missinformed and massively outdated WHO recommendations have
| been to public health.
| qwerpy wrote:
| How do you ensure the trace elements are present and available?
| I assume there's some testing you can do for both the soil and
| the produce, but how do you fix any deficiencies that you
| discover?
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| From article "Side note on frozen produce: The post above is
| about fresh produce only. A potentially appealing alternative may
| be buying frozen produce, which on average has equal or higher
| nutritional content than fresh. This is because frozen produce is
| picked at peak ripeness then frozen shortly after, locking in
| most of the nutrients at the expense of
| appearance/texture/flavor."
| lacrosse_tannin wrote:
| Reminder to get back into hydroponics or some home scale growing
| of at least leafy greens.
| necessary wrote:
| Any tips for a beginner to get started with some easy herbs?
| silverquiet wrote:
| There are simple all-in-one kits on Amazon that are
| affordable. It's a very easy way to get started.
| eltondegeneres wrote:
| > If you walk into a booth and that vendor is selling over 5
| types of produce, there's no way they all ripened at the same
| time. They may not even all be grown by them. Once, he actually
| saw a vendor at Boston farmers' market selling carrots from
| Target! He could tell from the packaging because he used to work
| for them.
|
| I don't think this is true. In California and New York City,
| vendors at farmers markets can only sell what they grew
| themselves, unless they get an exemption for a specific product
| and prominently label the product as grown by a third party,
| specifying the third party (usually things like cranberries grown
| by one vendor in the fall). Very occasionally you'll see foods
| like apples in plastic bags with supermarket labeling, but that's
| because the farmer packages and sells the produce directly to the
| supermarket.
| tcfunk wrote:
| My wife ran a farmer's market for years, it can definitely be
| true.
|
| Vendors tried to sneak stuff in constantly, and unless you have
| a market manager who really cares and is constantly vigilant,
| vendors will resell stuff they have bought in bulk and are
| reselling at a markup.
|
| Not all vendors of course, but like anything else there's
| always a handful of bad actors.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yeah I have seen a farm do this! They bought from other local
| farms at least, not Target. But the claim "vendors at farmers
| markets can only sell what they grew themselves" is only true
| to the extent that there is enforcement and sufficient
| oversight to find violators.
| afpx wrote:
| Is this regulated by the state? In VA, I often see farmers
| market vendors selling produce that they purchased from the
| distributors or wholesalers.
| cyberax wrote:
| This article smells like a fine bullshit. It's based on one
| diagram and a meta-analysis of papers.
|
| However, the diagram has these nice annotation: "Asterisks
| indicate numbers could not be independently verified". And there
| are asterisks on all the historic data except for 1948.
|
| The only reliable reference is from "35. Firman, B. Ash and
| Mineral Cation Content of Vegetables. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc.
| 1948,13, 380-384."
| eykanal wrote:
| This article could use an awful lot more links to the cited
| research. Reading this as a skeptic, I don't know whether the
| claims are accurate or not, but the fact that (nearly) none of
| his claims are supported by citations to authoritative sources is
| not promising.
| miltonlost wrote:
| Literally the author states it's unverifiable data:
|
| The chart has unverified information "The average mineral
| content of calcium, magnesium, and iron in cabbage, lettuce,
| tomatoes, and spinach has dropped 80-90% between 1914 and 2018
| 30,34,35,36,371. Asterisks indicate numbers could not be
| independently verified."
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If you reduce the amount of magnesium in a plant by 80%, it
| dies.
|
| It could possibly vary in fruits, so the tomatoes get a pass.
| But leaves need a pretty constant amount.
| krunck wrote:
| "It's a well-documented phenomenon that nutrient levels in
| produce have been declining for decades. ... There are several
| reasons for this, but most of them are due to modern agricultural
| practices. These reasons include: ... higher CO2 levels in
| atmosphere diluting nutrient content in plants, ... "
|
| The author then links to an X post with a chart that shows
| relative carbon and nitrient levels and that says that "exposure
| to high levels of CO2 reduces the nutritional value of plants".
| It's not clear to me from the chart that spinach raised in high
| CO2 levels would contain less nutrients per kilogram than regular
| spinach. The chart only show proportions of the nutrients to
| carbon. Does the amount of carbon per kilogram of edible spinach
| stay the same or go down as CO2 increases? It's not clear.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > If you walk into a booth and that vendor is selling over 5
| types of produce, there's no way they all ripened at the same
| time.
|
| This makes me think this person simply has no idea how growing
| food works at all.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| My one addition to this is that I wonder if this is part of the
| obesity crisis.
|
| If food is less nutritious, then logically we should eat more of
| it to get the nutrition we need.
|
| Excess calorie consumption could at least partially be a
| byproduct of our biological drive to acquire the lacking raw
| vitamins and minerals we need from the foods that we eat.
|
| This is undoubtedly exacerbated by eating processed foods, sure,
| but I'm willing to bet this lack of a fundamentally nutritious
| foodscape almost certainly contributes to the Pavlovian habit of
| overeating and resultant societal obesity.
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