Advertisement
www.motherearthnews.com/Sustai...ng.aspx
We all know that organically grown heirloom veggies and fruits are more nutritious, but here's an article that gives specific numbers from a scientific study. No wonder Americans overeat, we're not getting what our bodies need.
We all know that organically grown heirloom veggies and fruits are more nutritious, but here's an article that gives specific numbers from a scientific study. No wonder Americans overeat, we're not getting what our bodies need.
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 2:52 PMI wonder if that's why organic fruit and veg always taste better to me, because they have a high nutrient level? -Freya -
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 2:57 PMI know that the organic fruit and veg I get from my CSA are tastier but that's because they're fresher (recently harvested) and they're also heirloom varieties that are bred for taste and not look and the ability to endure transport and storage (and aren't picked unripe). Non-organic local produce is also much tastier than supermarket fair for the same reasons (though I prefer organic for many reasons). -
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 3:07 PMI have a couple of hybrid organic tomato plants and my sister has the same variety (Better Boy) that we got at the same nursery the only difference is that I use organic compost and plant soil and she uses regular and also uses the occasional pesticide on hers and she even says mine taste better. I guess it could be due to what we are feeding them,but then wouldn't that mean the nutrient levels are different. Just thinking aloud. -Freya -
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 4:24 PMI remember in secondary school (Irish equivalent of High School) learning about what happened if you grew a tomato plant using each one of the 3 main fertilizer ingredients seperately- nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. One would make it big, but it would be sickly and yellow, another on its own would make it green but small and the other- I forget what the other did. All 3 together made it look right, but I remember thinking "what kind of a plant is that? Where are the other nutrients?" Apparently too many farmers have been giving plants enough to look right, but sacrificing taste and nutritional value. -
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 5:00 PMYou're right, Freya, we are in need of nutrients we mostly do not get when we don't have organic, or minimally, when what we purchase has been sprayed with endless toxins. Yes, it's sad, but in the name of money...as always. The hunger pains so many insist they've got add up to a want of appropriate nutrition...not a need for actual food. But what does one do when they've not identified this, or have even gotten in touch with those foods that have these needed nutrients? More and more, I find myself venturing on leaving this country for what our government is
not doing to protect its own. But the process of feeding ourselves wholesome foods as this group aims to is by far a significant thing. There's also the issue of when we pollute our plants, we pollute our air, and so the domino falls.... Just the other day, my dog found he liked the compost I was feeding my plants, and ended up nibbling on the composted soil. I was beyond glad that I had not put toxins on my plants...for his sake then as well. I fear my brussel sprouts seeds are history...and they were planted in time...
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 5:54 PMSimilarly, studies have shown a clean correlation between malnutrition in cannibals and a diet based only on meat and potato fed americans. -
-
Re: Scary
Tue, June 23, 2009 - 5:58 PMrofl. So Will, you're saying that we don't make very good eating?
-
-
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 12:20 PMNeat to be able to compare different growing methods/conditions side by side - though unless they were literally grown side by side there may be other factors contributing to the taste difference too (amount of sun, water, etc). That said, the kind of soil used and growing conditions totally influence taste. Plants pick up what's in the soil, it's why growing food plants in toxic soil or soil very heavy in certain minerals will pick up what's in the soil (and why plants can be used for soil remediation). Also, it appears that the compounds plants create themselves to ward off pests influence taste and nutrient content so not using pesticides probably changes taste too (or, more accurately, using pesticides does). In some instances, the plant created pesticides can also make the plants less edible for humans (since they're a means for the plant to make themselves less tasty to big animals as well as insects). So, yeah, the nutrient levels will be effected by factors such as what you feed them, if you use pesticides, how much sun/water they get, etc. It's all really cool stuff and science is still figuring out all kinds of stuff about plants and nutrition. -
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 12:56 PMYep. I think you are right. I just don't understand why my sister would choose to use pesticides, etc. when she has a better option. Needless to say we discuss this a lot. -Freya -
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 1:24 PMThe article said they grew varieties developed recently side by side with ones from earlier this century. The older varieties had more nutrients.
I just think its interesting that we have a national overeating problem at the same time our food lacks the nutrition our bodies need. Could it be we're eating more to make up for the lack?
Obviously the American diet could use improvement. But what if we ate breat that contained 30 percent more protein? Would we crave less bread? I don't know but it makes for some interesting thought. -
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 1:33 PMVery interesting! I do wonder sometimes how my sister is so thin, because she eats tons of sugar, fat and junk. I on the other hand eat healthier and less than she does and am overweight. Sometimes I think I must be missing something in my diet and other times I think it must be genetics. But such widespread obesity in America is a huge worry and good nutrition is the first place to start. -Freya
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 2:20 PMSome vegetables have a LOT more nutrition than others. Some of these i think are easier to grow and very delicious compared to a lot of plants we are used to eating. Like this one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corc..._olitorius
or this one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port...nary_usage
here is a broccoli developed for high sulforaphane, which is evidently good for us:
www.psa-rising.com/eatingwe...per05.htm
Actuallly, i think a lot of work has been done towards vegetables with higher vitamin content, but they have not caught on. I can't find a list of such, but i've read about them in various seed catalogs.
-
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 2:24 PMthis is a much better link for the first vegetable i listed. It has literally dozens of names. It is "bush okra" in africa and latin america and i think that is a pretty good name as it is kin to okra and slimy like it. It is delicious and off the graph in nutrition:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_okra -
-
This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 3:58 PMThanks Will. I love trying new things. -Freya -
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 4:31 PMI also highly recommend araranth greens, either young for salads or older as a potherb. It is delicious, much like spinach but grows in the heat of summer. I like the variety called "polish". It is very beautiful as well as easy to grow and highly nutritious. Eaten by most of the world and there are hundreds of varieties.
www.wildgardenseed.com/product_info.php
I think it is a good time to start kale seedlings in cells now where i live. That certainly one of the more nutritious vegetables.
Wild greens like nettles, dandelion and creasy greens, have considerably more nutrition generally than cultivated vegetables. Creasy greens grow great here and reseed lots and are very tasty in my opinion and are very tough in the cold. I eat lots of them as volunteers in my garden. Here is a good article on creasy greens, aka winter cress, in which we learn:
" that 100 grams of winter cress contain an impressive 5,067 I.U. of vitamin A and 152 milligrams of vitamin C! By comparison, the same weight of raw broccoli spears rates only 2,500 I.U. of vitamin A . . . and oranges (which of course are universally acknowledged as a good source of vitamin C) provide a comparatively measly 50 milligrams of C per 100 grams!"
www.motherearthnews.com/Real-F...ns.aspx
Pumpkin leaves are used in many african recipes and are, in think, more nutritious than the fruit.
www.nutritiondata.com/facts/v...s/2599/2
The seeds of pumpkin are what the plant was first domesticated for, and they are more nutritious than the fruit or the leaves:
www.nutritiondata.com/facts/n...s/3066/2
I think a lot of the problem of lack of nutrition in food is ignorance and the fact that people are quite conservative and hard to get to change when it comes to food.
-
-
Re: Scary
Thu, June 25, 2009 - 4:51 PMPumpkin leaf and ground peanuts are a dish all over africa.
recipes.suite101.com/article...h_recipe
africhef.com/blog/
this site preaches the virtues of pumpkin to pacific islanders, and has a good comparison between the nutrition of pumpkin leaves and peas as well as recipes:
www.fao.org/WAIRdocs/x5425e/x5425e0c.htm -
-
Re: Scary
Sun, June 28, 2009 - 4:22 PMI've started to include spirulina and chlorella in my supplement regime as both are considered good sources of whole food-green algae, basically. (Chlorella also has been shown to help seizures, which I have a history of.) I figured it was wiser to cut back on the meat I
purchase for home and see where that goes. I've really gotten into leeks lately too...and hummus and cilantro.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
