Food For Thought

According to a recent scientific study published in the Daily Mail (Monday 5 March, 2001) modern farming methods have caused a dramatic reduction in essential minerals in our food.

How many of us actually realised that our fruit and vegetables were better for us fifty, years ago?

We are all aware that minerals are very important to our physiology but how many of us knew that there has been such a dramatic decline in our food?

The study revealed that there is up to 75 per cent less calcium and 93 per cent less copper in fruit and vegetables.

Runner beans which used to contain a significant mount of sodium (which we know is vital for the working of the nerves and muscles) have almost no trace of it at all.

Broccoli has 75% per cent less calcium (which is essential for building healthy bones and teeth)

Spinach has 60% less iron than 50 years ago and carrots have 75 per cent less magnesium (which protects against heart attacks, asthma and kidney stones).

The levels of other important minerals such as iron, phosphorous, potassium and magnesium have also plummeted.

Nutritionist David Thomas believes that these reductions area direct result of modern farming methods, which use massive amounts of fertiliser on the soil.

The fertilisers encourage plant growth but at the expense of the minerals.
Mr. Thomas said, "We are made up of these substances. If they are deficient then the body cannot cope as well as it would otherwise.

The conclusions were based on data from a comprehensive study of the contents of all major foods dating back to the 1940s.

Certain trends were compared using figures from over a 50 year period.

Similar trends were shown in the British Food Journal 1997 when data between 1930 and 1980 was compared.

Professor Tim Lang from Thames Valley University, the renowned Centre for Food Policy, is quoted as saying the results revealed an important trend, which needs to be exposed.

He claimed these big percentages show that the nature of production is altering what we are eating.

Plant breeders have been trying to develop tomatoes, carrots and fruit that look nice, resist disease and can stand being shipped half way round the world.
They are less concerned about the minerals in our food.
He says that we are dying prematurely of
Coronary heart disease and cancer.
To which the answer is we are being told to cut down on fat and eat more fruit and vegetables, but at the same time they are
changing the content of what we are eating.

It is essential to increase our mineral intake to restore a healthy balance