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  • From: miranda@tagoresmith.com
  • To: "gardenwriters-on-gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [gwl-g] Study suggests nutrient decline in garden crops over past50 years
  • Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:13:39 -0600 (CST)

Doreen,

Thank you for sending the link to the study about declining nutrient
content of foods. I couldn't help wondering if declining soil quality
wasn't also a contributing factor. According to some research done a
gazillion years ago--or at least 20, anyway--in Germany and publicized in
IFOAM material sometime in the early 1980s, there was a correlation
between declining soil quality and declining protein content in grains as
well as a correlation between declining soil quality and declining solid
matter content in cabbages.

I did a major clean-up of old research docs a couple of months ago, so I
no longer have the reference. However, I'm sure that someone in IFOAM
would be able to pinpoint the study if anyone were interested. I'm pretty
sure that Hardy Voghtmann did the work.

Best,

Miranda

> A recent study of 43 garden crops led by a University of Texas at Austin
> biochemist suggests that their nutrient value has declined in recent
> decades
> while farmers have been planting crops designed to improve other traits.
> The study was designed to investigate the effects of modern agricultural
> methods on the nutrient content of foods. The researchers chose garden
> crops, mostly vegetables, but also melons and strawberries, for which
> nutritional data were available from both 1950 and 1999 and compared them
> both individually and as a group.
>
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/uota-ssn120104.php
>
>
>
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