Is Agribusiness Making Food Less Nutritious?

[Guest guest]

commentary from redflagsdaily.com: (Article follows)

" Are the fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products you consume less

nutritious today than in the past? And what relevance does this have for

your overall health? This is not an easy question to answer but it is one

that must be faced squarely. What is the gain of advocating more of this or

that if we have a poor understanding of the nutrient value of these foods?

Meanwhile, Food Destruction Inc. (Agribusiness) continues to plunder the

planet of its nutrient value. Here is one perspective that raises some

important concerns. "

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Agribusiness and the Decline of Nutritious Food

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/nutrition061304.cfm

 

Is Agribusiness Making Food Less Nutritious?

 

Growing evidence indicates that today's fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy

products have less vitamins and nutrients than in the past.

 

By Cheryl Long and Lynn Keiley

 

American agribusiness is producing more food than ever before, but the

evidence is building that the vitamins and minerals in that food are

declining. For example, take the two eggs shown at right. The one with the

bright orange yolk is from a free-range chicken raised by Mother Earth News

managing editor Nancy Smith, while the pale one is a supermarket egg from a

hen raised indoors on a factory farm. Eggs from free-range hens contain up

to 30 percent more vitamin E, 50 percent more folic acid and 30 percent

more vitamin B-12 than factory eggs. And the bright orange color of the

yolk shows higher levels of antioxidant carotenes. (Many factory-farm eggs

are so pale that producers feed the hens expensive marigold flowers to make

the yolks brighter in color.)

 

Once upon a time, most of us ate eggs from free-range chickens kept by

small, local producers. But today, agri-culture has become dominated by

agri-business. Most of our food now comes from large-scale producers who

rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and animal drugs, and inhumane

confinement animal production. In agribusiness, the main emphasis is on

getting the highest possible yields and profits; nutrient content (and

flavor) are, at best, second thoughts.

 

This shift in production methods is clearly giving us less nutritious eggs

and meat. Beef from cattle raised in feedlots on growth hormones and

high-grain diets has lower levels of vitamins E, A, D and betacarotene, and

twice as much fat, as grass-fed beef. Health writer Jo Robinson has done

groundbreaking work on this subject, collecting the evidence on her Web

site, www.eatwild.com <http://www.eatwild.com> , and in her book Pasture

Perfect.

 

Similar nutrient declines can be documented in milk, butter and cheese. As

one researcher writing in the Journal of Dairy Research explained, It

follows that continuing breeding and management systems that focus solely

on increasing milk yield will result in a steady dilution of vitamins and

antioxidants. (Today s super-cows are bred and fed to produce 20 times more

milk than a cow needs to sustain a healthy calf.)

 

How much, and why, the nutrients in vegetables and fruits may be declining

is less clear. Comparisons of 2004 data from the USDA s National Nutrient

Database, with numbers from 1975, show declines in nutrients in a number of

foods (see Signs of Nutrient Decline <#resources> ) as well as some

increases. When reports of apparent downward trends in nutrient content in

vegetables and fruits appeared in 1999, we wrote to then-U.S. Secretary of

Agriculture Dan Glickman for an explanation: Is the drop linked to

preventable factors, such as American agriculture s dependence on acidic

nitrogen fertilizers and the effects of acid rain? Will you ask your top

scientists to give us some direct answers?

 

Writing on Glickman s behalf, Phyllis E. Johnson, director of the USDA s

Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md., confirmed the findings.

It is true that in many (but not all) cases, the apparent nutrient content

of these vegetables decreased, Johnson said. She went on to list variables

that might be related to the apparent decline, but she offered no

indication that anyone at the USDA would be studying the issue further.

 

Recently, we contacted Johnson again, to find out whether there had been

any new developments on the matter. Her office referred us back to the 1999

letter and told us Johnson had no additional comment on the subject.

 

 

 

What the Experts Say

 

Many things can impact the nutrient content of a vegetable or fruit.

Variety type, soil quality, fertilizers, crop rotations, maturity at

harvest time and the distance from farm to table all play a role in

determining the vitamins and minerals in our food. We asked sustainable

agriculture expert Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., if reliance on chemical

fertilizers and emphasis on high yields might reduce the nutrients in

fruits and vegetables. Benbrook has been studying the pros and cons of

conventional and organic agriculture for more than 15 years. He explained

factors that make organic foods rich in nutrients:

 

Fertilizers. Non-organic farmers use highly soluble nitrogen fertilizers,

and keeping this nutrient in their soils is difficult. To be sure they get

high yields, they often apply more nitrogen than the crops actually need.

 

This dependence upon chemical nitrogen fertilizers means we re getting less

for our money, says Benbrook. Numerous studies have demonstrated that high

levels of nitrogen stimulate quick growth and increase crop yields because

the fruits and vegetables take up more water. In effect, this means

consumers pay more for produce diluted with water. High nitrogen levels

make plants grow fast and bulk up with carbohydrates and water. While the

fruits these plants produce may be big, they suffer in nutritional quality,

Benbrook says, whereas organic production systems [which use slow-release

forms of nitrogen] produce foods that usually yield denser concentrations

of nutrients and deliver consumers a better nutritional bargain per calorie

consumed.

 

Benbrook says the USDA has a tacit policy to avoid discussions of

differences in food quality and safety that may be a function of how food

is grown and processed. The Department made a political decision when they

finalized the national organic rule; they declared that organic food was

not nutritionally superior or safer than conventional food, even though

there is solid evidence suggesting otherwise. This would certainly explain

the response we got from Johnson s office.

 

What it all comes down to, Benbrook says, is that you can t buy soil

quality in a bag any more than you can buy good nutrition in a pill.

Organic farmers work to support the complex natural relationships between

crop roots, soil microbes and minerals, but scientists only understand a

few of those relationships. Unless we understand much more fully what the

critical balances are, it s very difficult to import them to the farm in a

bag or a bottle.

 

Vitamin C. High nitrogen levels reduce the concentrations of vitamin C in

crops such as lettuce, beets, endive, kale and Brussels sprouts. Similar

effects have been detected on fruits such as apples, oranges, lemons and

cantaloupe. Swiss studies have shown similar impacts on potatoes and

tomatoes, as well as citrus fruits which are major sources of this

important vitamin.

 

Harvesting and storage. The fact that the average supermarket apple travels

1,500 miles from farm to table only adds to the problem. Most fruits reach

best eating quality and peak nutrition when fully ripened on the tree or

plant, explains Julio Loaiza, Ph.D., a research scientist at Texas A & M

University s Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center. However, fully ripened

fruit may not withstand the harsh handling typically involved for travel to

distant markets, which leads to a compromise in optimum maturity and

nutritional quality.

 

Breeding for high yields. Plant breeders could maintain and even increase

the nutrient content of most crops, if they were asked to do so. But this

goal usually takes a back seat to economic issues: Large-scale growers want

size and fast growth so they can harvest early. These factors feed into

sacrifices in nutritional quality, Benbrook says.

 

Why Buy Organic

 

What we need is a more holistic approach to our food systems. We need to be

sure that high yields and maximum profits for producers don t come with

hidden price tags to consumers in terms of nutritional decline or

environmental damage. This approach isn t anything new to organic farmers

they ve been working their farms as holistic systems all along, and the

result is a production system that is better for us, domestic animals and

the environment. The growing evidence that organic foods are more

nutritious is summarized in Why Organic Food is the Winner. <#resources>

 

Certified organic growers are not allowed to use chemical nitrogen

fertilizers, ever. Instead they build soil fertility using cover crops,

compost and slow-release natural fertilizers. Because they aren t grown

with chemical nitrogen, organic fruits and vegetables tend to be smaller,

and yields seem lower compared to non-organic crops. But as mentioned

above, studies have shown that organic crops often contain less water, so

in terms of actual nutrient value (and flavor) per bite of food, organic

often is a better buy than non-organic produce.

 

The higher dry matter/lower water content of organic produce also impacts

the levels of health-promoting antioxidants such as polyphenols and

flavonoids. In a review of the scientific literature, Benbrook discovered

that smaller fruits had up to five times more of these antioxidants per

unit of calories.

 

There s more research that must be done before we can know to what extent

the overall quality of our food is declining, and whether the rapidly

expanding organic industry will be able to consistently produce more

nutritious food than chemical-based agribusiness.

 

But Benbrook says the public health implications are considerable: When you

think about the diseases and long-term health problems that are caused by

poor nutrition heart disease, diabetes, cancer the value to society of

producing more nutritious crops is enormous.

 

Indeed, a 1992 USDA report estimated the following potential health

benefits if everyone in the United States could be convinced to eat a diet

containing the recommended daily amounts of primary nutrients shown in the

table:

 

" 20 percent reduction in cancer

 

" 25 percent reduction in heart and vascular conditions

 

" 50 percent reduction in arthritis

 

" 20 percent reduction in respiratory and infectious diseases

 

" 50 percent reduction in infant and maternal deaths

 

So, it seems to us that the government should be doing more to monitor the

nutrient content of our food, especially organic and pasture-based

products. Currently, the USDA s National Nutrient Database, which is widely

used as the official source for nutrient levels, includes more than 6,600

food products, including meat; fresh, frozen and canned produce; and

processed foods. They even include candy bars, gumdrops, TV dinners and

hundreds of fast food items in the database. But the agency has not

included a single organic item, nor any entries for products from

pasture-based meat or dairy systems. If they use our tax dollars to report

the nutrients in candy bars, isn t it time they started including data on

these healthier alternatives, too?

 

If you agree that the government needs to do more to enhance the quality of

our food supply, write your congressional representatives and let them

know. After all, as one USDA secretary whispered while giving us the

mandated brush off, It s up to the public. If they really want to know,

they have to press Congress to appropriate the funds. You also can send a

message every time you shop for your groceries: When you choose organic or

grass-fed products, you are helping support farmers and ranchers who are

offering high-quality foods from sustainable production systems.