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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: [SANET-MG] American Consumers Cynical About 'Organic' Food Label
  • Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 18:56:43 -0400

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Frank Schultz <wb5ayy@aircanopy.net>
Date: Tue, May 19, 2015 at 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] American Consumers Cynical About 'Organic' Food
Label
To: SANET-MG@lists.ifas.ufl.edu


Kris,

"... but if you don't pay attention to the mineral content of the
soil/plant, you may be missing a key mineral that is limiting the plant's
potential. That happens all to often, with the notion floating around that
all you need is excellent soil life."

EXACTLY!!! QUITE WELL SAID! Conventional wisdom seems to say that lots of
organic matter with good biological activity is the panacea to growing
nutrient-dense produce.

We've just come out with a Fruit and Vegetable Mineral Nutrients Analysis
but here's the problem: Establishing Standards. While we can easily report
mineral content numbers, we can't tell the client what those numbers should
be, as we normally can with soils, plants and irrigation water. I've done a
little poking-around (although not exhaustively), trying to find nutrient
levels in various fruit and vegetable as they existed by no later than the
early 1950s to form initial benchmarks, without much luck.

To make the problem more interesting, we can't tell the client what the
mineral content of the produce - fruit / grain - should be at the particular
stage of development, as we can with the plant. There are differences.

While there are a number of references to percentages of [dramatic] decline
for various elements, I'm having a hard time coming up with the actual
numbers of the original assays. Further, it appears that some trace
elements which are now known to be essential or at least beneficial, may not
have been known at the time and were therefore not assayed. Additionally,
we can now measure down to parts per billion which was not possible back
then.

Of course, this is an over-simplification, as not many varieties from back
then are much seen today. The new varieties (not even GM) seem to have been
developed first for yields and other qualities, then maybe for taste.
Mineral nutritional quality seems to have been little considered, if at all.

Additionally, at least some new varieties seem to be unable to take up much
of certain elements and are intrinsically mineral-deficient (especially true
for GM), regardless of the amounts and forms of the elements applied -
whether to soil or foliarly. In scanning the material I've seen, this seems
to be particularly true of the grains generally available today.

Our idea is to be able to give the client some approximate benchmark for
produce mineral nutrition content compared to what he's growing now.
Perhaps unrealistic and impossible, but will continue poking.

Thanks for your post! Frank-

-----Original Message-----
From: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group
[mailto:SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU] On Behalf Of Kris Johnson RR
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2015 8:53 AM
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] American Consumers Cynical About 'Organic' Food
Label

And of course the reason why consumers might have doubts is because of th
propaganda from the industry. But there is another issue - certified organic
is not a guarantee of top quality. You can use all the compost in the world,
cover cropping, etc., but if you don't pay attention to the mineral content
of the soil/plant, you may be missing a key mineral that is limiting the
plant's potential. That happens all to often, with the notion floating
around that all you need is excellent soil life.
Kris
http://www.mercyviewmeadow.org/Garden/GardeningforMaximumNutrition.htm


--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
Ello: @ecoponderosa <https://ello.co/ecoponderosa>
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/
https://sites.google.com/site/venaurafarm/




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