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. 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...
Gearing up for canning season, yesterday I started reading a new canning book we bought. In it, the author makes this claim, which I haven't confirmed, but if true, is truly nasty.
According to a friend of the author's, the mortician in her town said that it used to be that you had to hustle to get a body processed. Nowadays, a human body will hold for a two weeks thanks to all the commercial preservatives they've eaten.
I'll be signing us up for that Grant Farms co-op delivery post-haste!
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
And our food can be selected to be more toxic in order to be disease resistant. Organic will not save you here.
Another example of the risks of traditional breeding is celery. Celery naturally contains a photoactive toxicant, that is, a chemical that becomes toxic when it hits sunlight. There was a case in California where a new variety of celery was bred that, unknown to the people who bred it, had high levels of this toxicant in it. It was planted. People went along, harvested this, and the workers who harvested this came out with a very severe skin rash. Why? Because it had the high level of toxicant resulting from the commercial, normal kind of breeding. So the normal kind of breeding can produce risks, just as any other genetic or other kinds of breeding can produce risks.
