The real harm of pesticides is rarely talked about. The impact on human health, while important (particularly in the third world), is minimal compared to the ecological devastation its done to our soils (and therefore the quality of our food).
Today, one would have to eat eight oranges to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one. A study tracking 43 different types of vegetables found "reliable declines" in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C in the past half century for all 43 of these vegetables.[0] Estimates say mineral levels in our vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914.[1]
Over 90% of all plants rely on mycorrhizal fungi for the MAJORITY of their nutrients. Our obsession with sterile soil has driven countless numbers of these species to extinction and continues to drive one of the largest, and most overlooked, ongoing mass extinctions today. It's not just pesticides either. Artificial phosphorus fertilizers impede the complex plant signaling dance necessary for plants to make this essential connection with these soil fungi
Even if you're not worried about the direct implications pesticides have to your risk of cancer or other diseases, you should absolutely be aware of the nutritional impacts they are having on our produce
• Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains is not declining.
• Allegations of decline due to agricultural soil mineral depletion are unfounded.
• Some high-yield varieties show a dilution effect of lower mineral concentrations.
• Changes are within natural variation ranges and are not nutritionally significant.
• Eating the recommended daily servings provides adequate nutrition.
(Note that the author is Senior Scientific Advisor, Bureau of Nutritional Sciences, Food Directorate, Health Canada, so maybe take that one with a grain of salt as well)
this article is the equivalent of "nothing to see here, move along".
what is natural variation range?
just because barren soils do happen naturally, doesn't mean we have to turn every place in the world barren with pesticides just so we can standardize one combine harvester size.
> this article is the equivalent of "nothing to see here, move along".
Is that bad? Given the replication crisis, it seems pretty reasonable to be skeptical of new studies, rather than taking every attention-grabbing headline at face value.
Sure, but besides the 5 studies the paper reviews, there's quite a few other papers that have covered this topic. And despite difficulties in acquiring high quality data for these types of analyses, none of those studies have found evidence against the claim
This isn't like psychology (which is at the heart of the replication crisis) where studies are really expensive (human subjects have a lot of regulation around them) and are usually only done once. This is something that has been replicated, at varying degrees of quality, quite a few times
Sure, here is a list of points from papers that directly cite the paper you shared:
- The nutrient concentration of fruits and vegetables in the U.S.A. has declined in the past 50–70 years. Organic management practices was shown to increase nutritional quality over conventional[0]
- Soil fertility enhances nutrient accumulation in fruits[1]
- At least 3 recent studies found median decreases between 5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables[2]
- Significant effects on nutrient content of cultivation methods[3]
- Decreases in iron content of vegetables in Australia over time [4]
I would also point out that the study you linked does very little to actually combat the claims made by such studies. For example, in its treatment of Mayer 1997, it notes some potential issues (e.g. not correcting for moisture content), but mostly just points out that Mayer stated further evidence is needed and did not try to establish a "cause-and-effect relationship". Then there's another "depleted soil" hypothesis study, which I myself don't make any claims in support of. Then is points out Davis et al. 2004 which is much more statistically rigorous. It finds that the data is really messy, but when grouped together there IS INDEED a statistically significant decrease in certain minerals. Then the article goes on to talk more about how the "soil depletion hypothesis" doesn't have support in this study as well. Then they point out another 2005 study that finds similar results as Davis 2004 except it finds statistically significant decreases in even more minerals. But then points out again that the data is messy.
In the end all of the studies handled showed a (statistically significant) decrease in mineral content. The main point seems to me that more research is needed to back up these claims but doesn't at any point provide evidence to the contrary.
On the one hand the claim sounds absolutely fantastical right?
"The human tongue which is free is better than a million dollar analytical lab staffed with real scientists."
On the other hand, how did we know what to eat to keep ourselves alive before there were labs and science? Taste maybe? Maybe things taste good to us for survival reasons. Maybe our tongues serve a real and incredible purpose.
If we were to run with this idea then humans lacking in particular nutrients should be able crave specific foods that are abundant in the nutrients theyre lacking.
But we dont see this in people with diets that consist of low nutrient high calorie processed food. Instead they just keep eating and eating the same food and gaining weight while developing nutrient deficiencies.
With that said I have noticed that ovee the years I have been able to notice tje differencd between a need for caloroes and protein, but thats probably because I've experienced low blopd sugar enough to know the symptoms -- I get hangry.
Have you never heard the tale of that guy, lost at sea, who slowly stopped eating the normal parts of fish as he started to crave the eyes and other unusual parts? Wish I could remember his name. He blamed the change in cravings on a nutrient deficiency.
That you can find bad eating habits doesn't disprove the notion that taste has something to do with nutrient content. Our senses are not distinct from our psyches. Why we might choose to eat in ways that are not good for us is not determined by the tongue alone, and even the capacity to taste can vary. (Of course, more than taste is engaged in determining what to eat. We select foods based on a variety of signs. We can be fooled, but just because a sign may be misinterpreted doesn't mean signs are irrelevant. It's not either/or.)
I've met people who dislike anything except chicken fingers. They dislike anything but a very restricted number of foods, often of mediocre quality. Why? I don't know. Maybe they were raised on mediocre diets. Maybe they suffer from rigidity. That doesn't mean I can't look at a two tomatoes and generally tell which one is likely more nutritious by tasting it.
> Note that the author is Senior Scientific Advisor, Bureau of Nutritional Sciences, Food Directorate, Health Canada, so maybe take that one with a grain of salt as well
Why would we take Health Canada in particular with a grain of salt?
Thanks for the link. The article you provided debunks a specific explanation for the reason for the decline. It debunks the idea that our soils have simply become depleted of minerals over time (something I myself did not state).
However, the claim that nutrition content of our produce has significantly declined is quite well supported. Check out this link showing related papers that cite or are cited by the principle study:
I also have issues with the Scientific American article. I hear a lot of speculation that part of the blame is because of breeding for newer varieties that are larger but less nutrient dense. I also think this claim is really unsupported and don't like that it is echoed by the article. However, I think the article you linked is not actually debunking the central claim I'm alluding to, nor my proposed explanation for it
I'm more interested what happens, when we kill of the last of the insects by those pesticides, and the effect goes up the food chain. Considering the history and eg. killing of the sparrows (four pests campaign), the results might be a lot worse than adding checmically produced nutrients to our diet.
I don't know if you heard the part about the vast majority of plants being dependent on soil fungi for the majority of their nutrients
Sure commercial crops still make it to fruit because farmers take care to add the necessary fertilizers and plant hormones to keep them going, but rest assured that this is a major driver of plant extinction as well
Plants have the smallest trophic level. Without plants, there's no insects either. There's no way you could care about insect extinction and somehow not care about this issue
The worst thing about this is that the people who are responsible for all these transgressions only get a slap on the wrist, a small fine and then they can keep doing what they've been doing... Accumulating more wealth and power, imposing their neglectful and deceptive approach on the employees who work for them, the companies they invest in and the governments they lobby... No wonder the west is on the verge of collapse now. The system has been rewarding the wrong behaviors and the wrong people and now they set all the rules.
In the US we call bribery "lobbying" and it is totally legal. Imagine being in that position and knowing you could get a really cushy position on some board and collect a nice paycheck to take care of yourself and your family after doing your time at the EPA.
In reality lobbying is not nearly as cynical as that and I have no doubts the majority of lobbyists truly believe their bullshit. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
This effect has actually been well studied (see studies on "cultural cognition")
In the end its a larger systemic issue and you can't ever really find a specific individual to blame it on. I'd love it if all we had to do was fire the right person. But the the reality is that we need much larger structural changes to prevent stuff like this form happening
The government has a lot of stakeholders to manage.
If we declare the methods that keep the Midwest alive as the breadbasket of the world and the deserts of California and Arizona as our greenhouses as catastrophes, what’s next?
New Jersey isn’t going to be the garden state again. My grandfather used to buy tomatoes in Paramus from a farm cooperative, now a Westfield mall.
Meat is similar. You don’t have to use gross feedlots and unsustainable husbandry methods. But… distributed meatpacking was unionized and hard to consolidate.
In the long run, we’ll have hard times and small scale gardens for vegetables, etc will come back. Where I live in upstate NY, agriculture is absolutely devastated - like 70% of small farmers are basically out of business in a few years if not already. But Amish families are scooping up property in some areas and make a lot of money on farming with non-conventional methods.
How much of the EPA is political appointees and how much is career professionals? How are the career professionals insulated from politics? Who has what power?
I think you answered that question yourself. They may not be "bribed" directly, but they are put under the direct influence of politicians who can be bought through campaign contributions and lobbying.
> Reactive Oxygen Species is also reportedly quite harmful but I guess everything has its place.
Yes, I think it does. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are generated as part of the metabolic pathway. That is in processes essential for life. Though the details of the biochemistry are beyond me, I recall Cytochrome c oxidase [1] produces H+ used to power ATP generation. Along the way it produces ROS. Of course there are other mechanisms for neutralizing the ROS. The point is ROS probably not something to get too agitated about.
When thinking about cell signalling and sensing, I wonder if a group of cells generate ROS to "nuke" a faulty cell, I say nuke because ROS will destroy surrounding healthy cells.
The problem with this theory, is its hard to see it working in anything other than a test tube!
Lets face its not like we can audit each and every cell, its contents and condition in a body is it!?!
Sure we can use some magnetic spin with some chemicals, or radioactice isotopes with others, but the sensing equipment is what holds us back with in vivo studies, so then its back to the patient provided metadata to form an opinion.
LD50 casual reading, not very casual. Carcinogens - who can say with all the confounding factors? Endocrine-disruptors ? people are overly sensitive.. right? </s>
Big Ag are likely to also be Big Pharma though, they are chemists, and then depending on their skillset/knowledge/money they specialise in producing certain types of chemicals, thats not to say they couldnt diversify either.
However when is Big Ag is to plants what medicine is to humans? The only problem with farming is they have got good at growing to a certain point in order to maximise yields for human consumption, and this might not always be good for our health. For example, B5 Pantothenic acid, little in pig feed because little causes fat to build up around organs, lots causes fat to deposit under the skin. Supermarkets dont want an inch or two of fat under the skin. So Farmers do what their customers (supermarkets) want, however supermarkets also like to trump out they are meeting customer demand. Is this genuine demand or manufactured consent from the media? If the media, where do they get their opinions from, the editor, or someone else or Govt Legislation? If Govt Legislation, where do they come up with it? Driven by the public or by some other knowledge perhaps military?
Or is the above just a bit of everything in a pseudo chaotic fashion, little more than the blind leading the blind?
I worked in computer aided chemistry professionally for almost two years, in California. Both of my managers had PhDs in Chemistry -- they didn't need any help from me on that. I wrote C/C++ code for them. my opinions are my own
So I remember watching a farming program years ago about what could best be described as the hot potato. So chemicals get sprayed on a field of crops and one of the crops would take up more of the chemicals than those around it. It meant that individual plant would be above "safe" or legal levels but because it was impossible to detect which of the plants was the one above allowed levels, they never got tested. I'm also aware of the glyphosate over use issue and how thats been causing health problems. Glyphosate reduces Testosterone levels in rats according to one study and was intergenerational ie the lowered levels were seen in offspring. I think its some sort of management plan for global population levels. Dont know if thats what you are getting at?
So too low to stimulate an immune system response based on a typical diet is what this appears to be saying?
I do find some Vitamin RDA's to be pernicious!
> The Poison Papers is a project of The Bioscience Resource Project and The Center for Media and Democracy.
Center for Media and Democracy has a bias against pesticides and conventional agriculture. CMD runs Sourcewatch.org, which has no problem attacking scientists (like Kevin Folta) that speak favorably of biotech (GMOs), but conveniently has no entry USRTK, an organic funded advocacy group. This is is because CMD's executive director Lisa Graves sits on the board of USRTK.
I don't trust CMD to present a balanced, evidence based view of things.
I don't see what your point is with bringing up Kevin Folta... He's also been criticized by the New York Times[0] and articles published in Nature[1]. I feel like criticizing his industry connections is pretty uncontroversial
My point is that CMD is quick to attack Kevin Folta (speaks favorably of conventional ag), but fail have same level of investigation of USRTK or Charles Benbrook[0] (university professor who sat the board of various organic organizations and takes money to write pro-organic studies). Why aren't then giving Benbrook the same coverage as Folta? My point is they pick who to watch based on their agenda.
Many of the sources have CMD ties (Carey Gillam who works for USRTK), are anti-GMO activist groups (GM Watch), have financial interests (Rachel Parent makes money from her anti-GMO views, her parents sell natural products), or law firms suing Monsanto.
with this much money at stake, absolutely nothing, including courts, will present a balanced and evidence based view of things. EVER.
It's an unachievable idea.
Maybe, if someone is being viciously attacked by both sides, then maybe, just maybe ~10%, or so, of what they say is unbiased, but it's still hard to disentangle that apart from the wrong/incorrect/biased other things they said.
I'm optimistic about Wikipedia. The popularity means if an important fact is missing it will get added, and the entrenched interests mean the fact will get reverted if it isn't balanced. Hence an article presenting a balanced, complete viewpoint is the steady state. But of course the article isn't guaranteed to reach that state.
I've spent hundreds of hours editing Wikipedia and have come out really pessimistic about the whole thing. In fact, I'd say that everyone I know who's actually pessimistic about Wikipedia also have tons of hours of experience editing
> I'm optimistic about Wikipedia. The popularity means if an important fact is missing it will get added, and the entrenched interests mean the fact will get reverted if it isn't balanced.
That was the hope for Wikipedia, but my experience editing it is the opposite: Editing disagreements are interminable, enormously time-consuming, legalistic free-for-alls, and whoever is most willing and able to spend their days fighting them, wins. That is usually the more radical or politically motivated person or party, some of them clearly acting for outside interested parties. The editors often participate and support such people.
You can find many descriptions of the same thing. Just search around.
> with this much money at stake, absolutely nothing, including courts, will present a balanced and evidence based view of things. EVER.
Sorry you feel that way but what basis is there for believing it? What does it mean? Nothing is perfect, of course, but there are enormous differences between, e.g., an honest person (everyone lies) and a sociopathic fraud.
And certainly we always need to read critically and think for ourselves - it's our duty as citizens, IMHO - again that doesn't mean everything is so biased.
In the past I would have just smiled at it and moved on, but now, with baseless despair engulfing our society, I am going to challenge it. The only thing we have to despair about is despair itself!
My basis is simple. Very unfortunately, I've spent a lifetime working for people in the highest echelons of power, and for some captains of industry. I've watched C-level of some corps you all know simply lie outright to their own legal counsel on quite literally daily basis.
You won't find honest men there at high noon with a flashlight.
> I've spent a lifetime working for people in the highest echelons of power, and for some captains of industry. I've watched C-level of some corps you all know simply lie outright to their own legal counsel on quite literally daily basis.
That isn't more meaningful than saying all people are biased. In both cases, there are vast differences in degree, and those differences contain all the meaning and significance. Some people and some information are vastly more biased than others. Sean Hannity is not the same as PBS News Hour. Elon Musk is not the same as Tim Cook. Marjorie Taylor Green is not the same as Mitt Romney.
Life is about deciding who to trust and thinking critically. 'Everybody lies' is the claim of liars, who not only want to normalize their abnormal behavior but also bring down honest people.
Hyperbole may be satisfying, but it tells us nothing but the emotion of the speaker. It also demonstrates a lack of understanding - they don't know anything more than a vastly overgeneralized claim (though maybe the speaker is just not expressing what they know).
(Also, most information in the world doesn't come from C-level corporate executives.)
Today, one would have to eat eight oranges to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one. A study tracking 43 different types of vegetables found "reliable declines" in protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin, and vitamin C in the past half century for all 43 of these vegetables.[0] Estimates say mineral levels in our vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914.[1]
Over 90% of all plants rely on mycorrhizal fungi for the MAJORITY of their nutrients. Our obsession with sterile soil has driven countless numbers of these species to extinction and continues to drive one of the largest, and most overlooked, ongoing mass extinctions today. It's not just pesticides either. Artificial phosphorus fertilizers impede the complex plant signaling dance necessary for plants to make this essential connection with these soil fungi
Even if you're not worried about the direct implications pesticides have to your risk of cancer or other diseases, you should absolutely be aware of the nutritional impacts they are having on our produce
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/