Nutritional Value of Fruits & Vegies Is Dwindling Go Organic!!!

MSNBC reports vitamins minerals proteins of our food supply is way down.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37396355/
Nutritional value of fruits, veggies is dwindling
Chemicals that speed growth may impair ability to absorb soil's nutrients
While we've been dutifully eating our fruits and vegetables all these years, a strange thing has been happening to our produce. It's losing its nutrients. That's right: Today's conventionally grown produce isn't as healthful as it was 30 years ago — and it's only getting worse. , in the UK.

It's happening to crops in the UK and the United States, too. In 2004, Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, led a team that analyzed 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999 and reported reductions in vitamins, minerals, and protein. Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg. What's going on? Davis believes it's due to the farming industry's desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce's ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.


A different story is playing out with organic produce. "By avoiding synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers put more stress on plants, and when plants experience stress, they protect themselves by producing phytochemicals," explains Alyson Mitchell, PhD, a professor of nutrition science at the University of California, Davis. Her 10-year study showed that organic tomatoes can have as much as 30 percent more phytochemicals than conventional ones.

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Tags:

• Fruits
• Vegetanbles
• Obesity
• Fat
• Vitamins
• Weight
• Loss
• Organic
• Minerals
• Protein