Foods to Avoid

[Benko]

"Prospective study of dietary protein intake and risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women"by Ronald G Munger, James R Cerhan, and Brian C-H Chiu Am J Clin Nutr 1999;69:147-52.

Results: Forty-four cases of incident hip fractures were included in the analyses of 104 338 person-years (the number of subjects studied times the number of years of follow-up) of follow-up data. The risk of hip fracture was not related to intake of calcium or vitamin D, but was negatively associated with total protein intake. Animal rather than vegetable sources of protein appeared to account for this association. In a multivariate model with inclusion of age, body size, parity, smoking, alcohol intake, estrogen use, and physical activity, the relative risks of hip fracture decreased across increasing quartiles of intake of animal protein as follows: 1.00 (reference), 0.59 (95% CI: 0.26, 1.34), 0.63 (0.28, 1.42), and 0.31 (0.10, 0.93); P for trend = 0.037.

Conclusion: Intake of dietary protein, especially from animal sources, may be associated with a reduced incidence of hip fractures in postmenopausal women.

Table 4 of the study shows some really interesting data on the risk of hip fractures (from 6-th column). Namely, in addition to much lower (factor of 0.31) risk for the 43% higher consumption of animal protein, they found 1.9 times HIGHER risk associated with the 31% higher consumption of VEGETABLE protein!Carbohydrate consumption turned out to have been a much bigger factor, perhaps the biggest factor:

23% higher consumption of carbohydrates was associated with 3 times higher rate of fractures
http://stan-heretic.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -myth.html

Weblink has other relevant papers.

[rocketdog]

The argument against excessive consumption of animal products is that excess protein acidifies the blood, which leaches calcium from bones (because calcium is a base, which is why calcium is a major ingredient in antacid tablets). 

But again that's not really an argument against ANIMAL products, just consumption of excessive protein in general. Unless there's something especially acidic about animal protein, you could wind up in that situation as a vegetarian, too. I mean, cheese is full of protein. Nuts are full of protein. Beans are full of protein. And plant proteins are much less bioavailable than animal proteins since they're bound up in cellulose.

This anomaly appears to be specific to animal protein:

Animal protein robs body of calcium, say health experts

From Cornell University:

Want to reduce the risk of osteoporosis? Eat less meat, Cornell researchers say. In fact, they say, reducing the amount of meat in the diet may do more to reduce the risk of osteoporosis than increasing calcium intake.

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1996/11 ... rosis-risk

From Harvard Medical School:

High levels of protein, especially animal protein, alter blood chemistry so calcium leaches out of your bones.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/ ... alcium.htm

[Pointedstick]

It's sorta weird to see you quoting the FDA, rocketdog. What has the FDA ever been right about? This is the big government agency that for decades told people that the foundation of their diet should be cereal grains and that any and all fats and oils should be avoided as much as possible. Now they're saying that nearly a full quarter of our food should be sugary fruits. That agency doesn't have an ounce of credibility in my mind.

[rocketdog]

"Prospective study of dietary protein intake and risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women"by Ronald G Munger, James R Cerhan, and Brian C-H Chiu Am J Clin Nutr 1999;69:147-52.

Results: Forty-four cases of incident hip fractures were included in the analyses of 104 338 person-years (the number of subjects studied times the number of years of follow-up) of follow-up data. The risk of hip fracture was not related to intake of calcium or vitamin D, but was negatively associated with total protein intake. Animal rather than vegetable sources of protein appeared to account for this association. In a multivariate model with inclusion of age, body size, parity, smoking, alcohol intake, estrogen use, and physical activity, the relative risks of hip fracture decreased across increasing quartiles of intake of animal protein as follows: 1.00 (reference), 0.59 (95% CI: 0.26, 1.34), 0.63 (0.28, 1.42), and 0.31 (0.10, 0.93); P for trend = 0.037.

Conclusion: Intake of dietary protein, especially from animal sources, may be associated with a reduced incidence of hip fractures in postmenopausal women.

Table 4 of the study shows some really interesting data on the risk of hip fractures (from 6-th column). Namely, in addition to much lower (factor of 0.31) risk for the 43% higher consumption of animal protein, they found 1.9 times HIGHER risk associated with the 31% higher consumption of VEGETABLE protein!Carbohydrate consumption turned out to have been a much bigger factor, perhaps the biggest factor:

23% higher consumption of carbohydrates was associated with 3 times higher rate of fractures
http://stan-heretic.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -myth.html

Weblink has other relevant papers.

Amazing, isn't it, how grass-eating cows don't seem to get osteoporosis?  In fact, it's a virtually unknown disease amongst all plant-eating wild animals.  And yet not a single one of them consumes dairy products!  Hmm... how could this be??? 

[Pointedstick]

Amazing, isn't it, how grass-eating cows don't seem to get osteoporosis?  In fact, it's a virtually unknown disease amongst all plant-eating wild animals.  And yet not a single one of them consumes dairy products!  Hmm... how could this be???

Well, cows live for 20 years and have four stomachs specifically designed to break down plant matter. Humans live significantly longer and have simpler digestive systems not as well optimized for extracting nutrients from plant matter. It's not really a useful comparison.

[moda0306]

Do alligators get osteoporosis?

[doodle]

Why are we are making the assumption that we want to live a long life? Maybe we should get in and out of this mess as quickly as possible.

I've been off and on with the study of Nihilism and I came across this quote. Happy Friday! 

The best for man were not to have been born and not to have seen the light of the sun; but, if once born (the second best for him is) to pass through the gates of death as speedily as may be.
Theognis of Megara

[rocketdog]

Amazing, isn't it, how grass-eating cows don't seem to get osteoporosis?  In fact, it's a virtually unknown disease amongst all plant-eating wild animals.  And yet not a single one of them consumes dairy products!  Hmm... how could this be???

Well, cows live for 20 years and have four stomachs specifically designed to break down plant matter. Humans live significantly longer and have simpler digestive systems not as well optimized for extracting nutrients from plant matter. It's not really a useful comparison.

It's a perfectly useful comparison since Gumby's always going on about how our ancestors evolved to eat.  Well, they sure didn't eat dairy products, so they were obviously getting their calcium from somewhere.  And that "somewhere" was plants. 

[rocketdog]

It's sorta weird to see you quoting the FDA, rocketdog. What has the FDA ever been right about? This is the big government agency that for decades told people that the foundation of their diet should be cereal grains and that any and all fats and oils should be avoided as much as possible. Now they're saying that nearly a full quarter of our food should be sugary fruits. That agency doesn't have an ounce of credibility in my mind.

The National Dairy Council itself advises against raw milk.  Why would they do that?  They're advising customers against buying one of their products in its natural state!

I can find plenty of other sources that will echo the FDA's position, if that's what you want. 

Campylobacteriosis associated with consumption of raw milk from a cow-share program in alaska, 2011.

Got E. coli? Raw Milk's Appeal Grows Despite Health Risks

CDC: Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk

Dairymen oppose sale of raw milk, cite health risks

Milk, Cheese, and Dairy Products: Myths About Raw Milk

Health risks from consuming raw (unpasteurized) milk and milk products

Outbreaks from Foodborne Pathogens in Unpasteurized (Raw) Milk and Raw Milk Cheeses, United States, 1998-present

[rocketdog]

This one's for Gumby:

Raw Milk Outbreaks do happen despite what the Weston A. Price Foundation says

[Pointedstick]

Personally, I do not drink raw milk for precisely those reasons (then again, I don't really drink any milk at all). Pasteurization was invented for a reason; to kill harmful bacteria in low-quality milk. If you're going to drink industrially-produced milk from some faraway corporation or dairy farmer whose practices you haven't bothered to learn about, then it's probably best that that stuff be pasteurized.

My infant son has been happily drinking fresh raw milk straight from my healthy wife for the last year so it's not like this stuff is toxic waste. But when you don't pasteurize it, you need to be sure it's free of the bacteria that the pasteurization process kills. That goes for cow's milk as well as human milk.

It's just a big trade-off. Pasteurization kills harmful bacteria as well as helpful enzymes alike. If the milk isn't contaminated, then pasteurization isn't worth it. If it is, then it's vital.

[rocketdog]

Do alligators get osteoporosis?

Um... er... what?

[rocketdog]

Personally, I do not drink raw milk for precisely those reasons (then again, I don't really drink any milk at all). Pasteurization was invented for a reason; to kill harmful bacteria in low-quality milk. If you're going to drink industrially-produced milk from some faraway corporation or dairy farmer whose practices you haven't bothered to learn about, then it's probably best that that stuff be pasteurized.

My infant son has been happily drinking fresh raw milk straight from my healthy wife for the last year so it's not like this stuff is toxic waste. But when you don't pasteurize it, you need to be sure it's free of the bacteria that the pasteurization process kills. That goes for cow's milk as well as human milk.

It's just a big trade-off. Pasteurization kills harmful bacteria as well as helpful enzymes alike. If the milk isn't contaminated, then pasteurization isn't worth it. If it is, then it's vital.

Human breast milk is, of course, technically raw milk, but the baby grew and developed inside the source of that milk, and of course the baby and its mother are of the same species, so there is a very close biological relationship there. 

One article I read made a good point: humans who drank raw milk throughout history were largely drinking it from cows they owned and/or were interacting with every day.  That means they were being exposed to the same bacteria as the cows and developing an immunity to it.  Some of the problem arises when you take raw milk from a cow in one place and give it to a human being in a different place who has never interacted with that particular cow before. 

So if you want to raise yourself a cow and drink raw milk directly from its udder, then you have my blessing.

[Pointedstick]

So if you want to raise yourself a cow and drink raw milk directly from its udder, then you have my blessing.

Yeah, that is pretty much the only scenario in which I could imagine drinking raw milk. My wife is chomping at the bit for a goat so we can have goat's milk and goat cheese, but unfortunately we have no yard. 

[moda0306]

Do alligators get osteoporosis?

Um... er... what?

You seemed to be claiming that because cows each so musch greenery they avoid osteoperosis, and that somehow was an indication that humans should eat similarly or something. Also, our meat is apparently causing too much acid and therefore osteoperosis within us.

I was wondering if looking at whether alligators get osteoperosis was a good indicator as to whether we should eat raw whole animals. 

Just tongue in cheek of course.

[rocketdog]

So if you want to raise yourself a cow and drink raw milk directly from its udder, then you have my blessing.

Yeah, that is pretty much the only scenario in which I could imagine drinking raw milk. My wife is chomping at the bit for a goat so we can have goat's milk and goat cheese, but unfortunately we have no yard. 

I hear goat's milk is actually closest to human milk and more easily digestible than cow's milk.  My wife bought some recently to try her hand at making some homemade goat's cheese, but instead she wound up using it in her coffee and on her cereal.  She said it tasted good: slightly sweet, but a little "goaty".

She and I visited several creameries in the Finger Lakes when we were visiting the wineries last year.  One of them exclusively makes goat cheese (Lively Run Goat Dairy) and a baby goat had been born a few days before we arrived.  It was a slow day and we were the only ones there so they took us out to the barn to see it.  Cutest damn thing you ever saw, like a little knobby-kneed dog.  Like this: 

http://www.mountainspringscabins.com/up ... 706243.JPG

[Gumby]

Adequate levels of fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 reduces the amount of calcium an adult needs to maintain bone health.

Which are all included in fortified milk, so your point is...?

Uh, no Rocketdog. You're wrong. Vitamin K2 is not added to milk. It's too expensive. Vitamin K2 costs $1.5 million per kilogram! So, most supplements avoid it from the prohibitive cost. When Vitamin K is used to "fortify" something, it's almost always in the form of K1, found in plants — which is less than ideal.

Vitamin K2 is found naturally in grass-fed milk and cheeses and egg yolks. Vitamin K2 is essential for taking calcium out of your arteries and soft tissues and putting the calcium where it belongs — in your bones. In fact, Vitamin K2 is only found in animal fats (it's a fat-soluble vitamin) except for one other source: natto. And natto is naaasty. So, for a vegetarian to get Vitamin K2 from food, they have to eat one of the most disgusting foods on the planet. In Japan, they actually have "natto-free" eating sections because most people cannot stand the taste of it. Furthermore, natto is mostly the MK-7 (Menaquinone-7) version of Vitamin K2, whereas animal-based foods tend to contain the mostly MK-4 (Menaquinone-4) version. Presently, MK-4 has been shown to inhibit and reverse soft-tissue calcification — while it's not clear what MK-7's function is (yet).

See, Vitamin K1 isn't all that special — and is plentiful in plants. But only bacteria can convert Vitamin K1 into K2. We all have some bacteria in our guts that convert teeny amounts of K1 into K2, but it's not nearly enough to provide sufficiency of K2. Animals, such as cows, do a better job than we do (they have more of the right bacteria than we do). So, in order to prevent our arteries from calcifying — from all that wonderful calcium found in plants — we must obtain sufficient quantities of Vitamin K2 from food: natto, grass-fed dairy, grass-fed butter, egg yolks, etc.

Sooo... All that calcium in plants that you keep raving about. All it's doing is probably calcifying your arteries and getting into your heart and joints where it doesn't belong, if you are deficient in Vitamin K2 (which you likely are since you don't consume natto or grass-fed dairy).

Adequate supply of Vitamin K2 reduces the amount of calcium that one needs to consume to avoid bone density issues — since calcium is used far more efficiently and correctly when the supply of

This is why most vegetarian arguments are so weak, Rocketdog. You guys seem to think everything is so simple — when in reality it's far more complex than you realize. Simply eating calcium — or calcium supplements, for that matter — causes calcification problems without the right micronutrients in place. It's pretty clear from your plant-based diet, you're lacking sufficient quantities of Vitamin K2.

And for the upteenth time, pasteurized milk has relatively low bioavailability of minerals and nutrients. It needs to be raw dairy if you want to absorb most of the calcium.

Then please explain why the National Dairy Council and FDA both recommend drinking pasteurized milk and against drinking raw milk

That's easy. It's well-established that lobbyists write our government's dietary guidelines. Small dairy farmers do not contribute to those lobbying groups — so the guidelines are biased to promote the factory-based dairy industry. Small community dairy farmers are the competition in the dairy business. What better way to squash the competition and convince the masses to consume factory-farmed dairy than to slander the competition?

Sesame seeds still win with 88mg per tablespoon.

That's a pretty dumb way to get calcium. Sesame seeds are really high in Omega-6 (as are most seeds/nuts). It's recommendations like that which make it difficult to take you seriously.

[Gumby]

It's a perfectly useful comparison since Gumby's always going on about how our ancestors evolved to eat.  Well, they sure didn't eat dairy products, so they were obviously getting their calcium from somewhere.  And that "somewhere" was plants.

Rocketdog, your arguments are pretty ridiculous. Everyone here agrees that we should eat plants. We all eat plants. The part of the conversation that you are oblivious to is that a vegetarian diet is malnourishing and problematic because it lacks some pretty crucial vitamins such as B12 and K2, among others.

Secondly, plants were only available in non-tropical latitudes for half of the year. Fossils from the Paleolithic period do not show evidence of osteoporosis — despite the lack of plants out of season. Clearly any need for calcium was either reduced due to the absence of grain and adequate supply of Vitamin K2 from animals, or it was entirely met from animal foods (skin, small bones, fish heads, etc). Water was likely a major source of calcium.

...Water was a major source of calcium for our ancestors.

Since calcium needs aren’t great if you’re replete with D and K, hard water could be a major source.

Source: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/08/wh ... ment-17172

Additionally...

The National Research Council has found that hard water can actually serve as a dietary supplement for calcium and magnesium.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water

And...

The results of the present study showed that high-calcium mineral water not only represented an additional dietary source of calcium but also modulated parathyroid function and bone metabolism

Source: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/4/999.long

[Gumby]

This one's for Gumby:

Raw Milk Outbreaks do happen despite what the Weston A. Price Foundation says

Gee, five alleged contaminations of raw milk. Whatever will we do? The fact is that raw milk is far safer than most foods:

“At last we have access to the numbers we need to determine the risk of consuming raw milk on a per-person basis,”? says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation that provides information on the health benefits of raw, whole milk from pastured cows.

The key figure that permits a calculation of raw milk illnesses on a per-person basis comes from a 2007 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) FoodNet survey, which found that 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk, or about 9.4 million people, based on the 2010 census. This number may in fact be larger in 2011 as raw milk is growing in popularity. For example, sales of raw milk increased 25 percent in California in 2010, while sales of pasteurized milk declined 3 percent.

In addition, Dr. Beals has compiled published reports of illness attributed to raw milk from 1999 to 2010. During the eleven-year period, illnesses attributed to raw milk averaged 42 per year.

“Using government figures for foodborne illness for the entire population, Dr. Beals has shown that you are about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk,”? says Fallon Morell. “And with good management practices in small grass-based dairies offering fresh unprocessed whole milk for direct human consumption, we may be able to reduce the risk even further.”?

“It is irresponsible for senior national government officials to oppose raw milk, claiming that it is inherently hazardous,”? says Dr. Beals. “There is no justification for opposing the sale of raw milk or warning against its inclusion in the diets of children and adults.”?

According to Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, “Where raw milk is concerned, the FDA has an agenda apart from protecting the public health. The agency wants to restrict and discourage the sale of unprocessed dairy products. This will have the effect of denying freedom of choice.”?

“Every time there is a possible connection between illness and raw milk, government officials issue dire press releases and call for bans on raw milk sales,”? says Fallon Morell. “However, these numbers fail to justify the government opposition and prove what we’ve known all along, that raw milk is a safe and healthy food.”?

Source: http://westonaprice.org/press/press/gov ... -milk-safe

More people get sick from eating bad melons each year. Does knowing that make you want to pasteurize all your melons?

[Gumby]

This anomaly appears to be specific to animal protein:

Animal protein robs body of calcium, say health experts

When you get your dietary information from infotorials, you aren't getting the whole story. Chris Kresser explains why the "protein robs the body of calcium" theory is a myth:

Dr. Herta Spencer’s research on protein intake and bone loss clearly showed that protein consumption in the form of real meat has no impact on bone density. Studies that supposedly proved that excessive protein consumption equaled more bone loss were not done with real meat but with fractionated protein powders and isolated amino acids. [1. (a) H Spencer and L Kramer. Factors contributing to osteoporosis. J Nutr, 1986, 116:316-319; (b) Further studies of the effect of a high protein diet as meat on calcium metabolism. Amer J Clin Nutr, 1983, 924-929; c) Do protein and phosphorus cause calcium loss? J Nutr, 1988, 118(6):657-60.]

The claim that meat consumption causes a degenerative disease like osteoporosis is hard to reconcile with historical and anthropological facts. Osteoporosis and other chronic ailments like heart disease are primarily 20th century occurrences, yet people have been eating meat and animal fat for many thousands of years. Further, as Dr. Weston A. Price’s research showed, there were/are several native peoples around the world (the Innuit, Maasai, Swiss, etc.) whose traditional diets were/are very rich in animal products, but who nevertheless did/do not suffer from the above-mentioned maladies. [2. WA Price. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. (Keats Publishing; CT.), 1989, 256-281.] Dr. George Mann’s independent studies of the Maasai done many years after Dr. Price, confirmed the fact that the Maasai, despite being almost exclusive meat eaters, nevertheless, had little to no incidence of heart disease, or other chronic ailments. [3. (a) G Mann. Atherosclerosis and the Masai. Amer J Epidem, 1972, 95:6-37; (b) Diet and disease among the milk and meat eating Masai warriors of Tanganyika. Food Nutr, 1963, 24:104.] This proves that other factors besides animal foods are at work in causing these diseases.

Source: http://chriskresser.com/natures-most-po ... omment-484

You were saying?

He then goes on to show that we are designed to be omnivores...

As to our evolutionary biology and the diet of our ancestors, I suggest you investigate the “Expensive Tissue Hypothesis”?, formulated by anthropologists L. Aiello and P. Wheeler. Our brains are twice as large as they should be for a primate of our size. Meanwhile, our digestive tract is 60 percent smaller. Our bodies were built by nutrient-dense foods. The Australopithecine brain grew to Homo sapiens size because meat let our digestive system shrink, thus freeing up energy for those brains. For more on the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis, see this post by Dr. Michael Eades.

Humans are not monofeeders. From the moment we stood upright, we’ve been eating large ruminant animals. Four million years ago, Australopithecines, our species forerunners, ate meat. Anthropologists Matt Sponheimer and Julia Lee-Thorp found Carbon-13 in the tooth enamel of four three-million-year-old skeletons in a South African cave. Carbon-13 is a stable isotope present in two places: grasses and the bodies of animals that eat grass. Those teeth showed none of the scratch marks of grass consumption. [4. Eades and Eades, Protein Power Life Plan, p.6]

Humans have the physiology of a true omnivore – not a vegetarian. We have incisors in both jaws, ridged molars, and small canine teeth. Our stomach has a relatively small capacity (2 quarts), and our colon is also short and small and has putrefactive bacterial flora. In contrast, a true vegetarian animal like a sheep has incisors in the lower jaw only, flat molars, and no canines. Their stomach is huge (8.5 quart capacity) and their colon is long and capacious, with large amounts of fermentative bacteria (to help them digest cellulose and raw grains, which humans are incapable of digesting.)

I could go on but I believe I’ve made my point. If you are open minded and willing to question your own views, I suggest you read The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith. It will disabuse you of these (and many more) common misconceptions about meat eating and vegetarianism that are so often reiterated on the internet and elsewhere.

[Gumby]

The argument against excessive consumption of animal products is that excess protein acidifies the blood, which leaches calcium from bones (because calcium is a base, which is why calcium is a major ingredient in antacid tablets).

Nope. Not true. But, apparently vegetarians will believe anything as long as it makes meat look bad.

All meat & processed food leaves an acidifying ash after digestion for which the body has to strip essential alkalizing minerals i.e calcium & magnesium away from bones to counter this effect. One can understand that much disease e.g Osteoporosis is caused by our diet.

This is a myth. The homeostatic mechanisms controlling the pH of your blood are incredibly robust and tightly regulated. Proponents of the “acid/alkaline hypothesis”? view salivary and urinary pH as the same. They’re not. Saliva is not used by the body to get rid of excess acid or base. Although the pH of your urine can indeed range from 4.5 to 8.0 (nearly four orders of magnitude difference in H+ concentration), urine pH is not body pH. In fact, you can’t really control the pH of most of your bodily fluids, particularly blood and extracellular fluid.

Urine is one exception, and this is the very reason why the “remedies”? sold by the pH fetishists appear to work. For example, dairy products, eggs, and foods with a lot of protein, like meats, will indeed acidify your urine, mainly because the kidneys will secrete the excess acid that is generated when the excess protein is broken down. Your blood pH changes minimally if at all.

As you pointed out, certain foods can leave end-products called ash that can make your urine acid or alkaline, but urine is the only body fluid that can have its acidity changed by food or supplements. Alkaline ash foods include fresh fruit and raw vegetables. Acid ash foods include all animal products, whole grains, beans and other seeds. These foods can change the acidity of your urine, but that’s irrelevant since your urine is contained in your bladder and does not affect the pH of any other part of your body.

Several studies have supposedly shown that meat consumption is the cause of various illnesses, but such studies, honestly evaluated, show no such thing.

Source: http://chriskresser.com/natures-most-po ... omment-484

Another myth squashed.

[doodle]

You know, i hate to derail this topic... ....but what I find so fascinating is how mechanistic and material we all seem to be when talking about diet and health, yet as we delve down into our atomic building blocks how much more mysterious and counterintuitive everything seems to become.

Just the mere fact that the atoms that comprise our bodies are 99.99999999999% empty space immediately begins to make me question the seemingly self evident sensory observation that im a material creature. Then as you go deeper into the structures of the atom to the quantum level, the nature of reality seems indeterminate and exhibits characteristics of both material particle and wave depending on whether it is being measured or observed.

It seems so contradictory to me how the macro and micro seem to operate on totally different planes of reality. How can we be so mechanistic and material at one scale of magnification and so mysterious and ethereal at another?

When we eat food we are essentially reconstructing ourselves with its atomic building blocks so I see understanding this particular topic somewhat relevant.

[Gumby]

Very interesting Op/Ed in the New York Times about the loss of nutrition in our plants over the last few centuries...

NYTimes: Op/Ed: Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food

Studies published within the past 15 years show that much of our produce is relatively low in phytonutrients, which are the compounds with the potential to reduce the risk of four of our modern scourges: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. The loss of these beneficial nutrients did not begin 50 or 100 years ago, as many assume. Unwittingly, we have been stripping phytonutrients from our diet since we stopped foraging for wild plants some 10,000 years ago and became farmers.

These insights have been made possible by new technology that has allowed researchers to compare the phytonutrient content of wild plants with the produce in our supermarkets. The results are startling.

Wild dandelions, once a springtime treat for Native Americans, have seven times more phytonutrients than spinach, which we consider a “superfood.”? A purple potato native to Peru has 28 times more cancer-fighting anthocyanins than common russet potatoes. One species of apple has a staggering 100 times more phytonutrients than the Golden Delicious displayed in our supermarkets.

Were the people who foraged for these wild foods healthier than we are today? They did not live nearly as long as we do, but growing evidence suggests that they were much less likely to die from degenerative diseases, even the minority who lived 70 years and more. The primary cause of death for most adults, according to anthropologists, was injury and infections.

Each fruit and vegetable in our stores has a unique history of nutrient loss, I’ve discovered, but there are two common themes. Throughout the ages, our farming ancestors have chosen the least bitter plants to grow in their gardens. It is now known that many of the most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste. Second, early farmers favored plants that were relatively low in fiber and high in sugar, starch and oil. These energy-dense plants were pleasurable to eat and provided the calories needed to fuel a strenuous lifestyle. The more palatable our fruits and vegetables became, however, the less advantageous they were for our health.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opini ... -food.html

[Gumby]

Holy crap!

In 1836, Noyes Darling, a onetime mayor of New Haven, and a gentleman farmer, was the first to use scientific methods to breed a new variety of corn. His goal was to create a sweet, all-white variety that was “fit for boiling”? by mid-July...

He succeeded, noting with pride that he had rid sweet corn of “the disadvantage of being yellow.”?

The disadvantage of being yellow, we now know, had been an advantage to human health. Corn with deep yellow kernels, including the yellow corn available in our grocery stores, has nearly 60 times more beta-carotene than white corn, valuable because it turns to Vitamin A in the body, which helps vision and the immune system.

Supersweet corn, which now outsells all other kinds of corn, was born in a cloud of radiation. Beginning in the 1920s, geneticists exposed corn seeds to radiation to learn more about the normal arrangement of plant genes. They mutated the seeds by exposing them to X-rays, toxic compounds, cobalt radiation and then, in the 1940s, to blasts of atomic radiation. All the kernels were stored in a seed bank and made available for research.

In 1959, a geneticist named John Laughnan was studying a handful of mutant kernels and popped a few into his mouth. (The corn was no longer radioactive.) He was startled by their intense sweetness. Lab tests showed that they were up to 10 times sweeter than ordinary sweet corn. A blast of radiation had turned the corn into a sugar factory!

Mr. Laughnan was not a plant breeder, but he realized at once that this mutant corn would revolutionize the sweet corn industry. He became an entrepreneur overnight and spent years developing commercial varieties of supersweet corn. His first hybrids began to be sold in 1961. This appears to be the first genetically modified food to enter the United States food supply, an event that has received scant attention.

Within one generation, the new extra sugary varieties eclipsed old-fashioned sweet corn in the marketplace. Build a sweeter fruit or vegetable — by any means — and we will come. Today, most of the fresh corn in our supermarkets is extra-sweet, and all of it can be traced back to the radiation experiments. The kernels are either white, pale yellow, or a combination of the two. The sweetest varieties approach 40 percent sugar, bringing new meaning to the words “candy corn.”? Only a handful of farmers in the United States specialize in multicolored Indian corn, and it is generally sold for seasonal decorations, not food.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opini ... -food.html

That's insane!

[RuralEngineer]

I've had to cut out all soda from my diet and replace it with water (one 12 ounce coke per day, with dinner, and a diet coke with lunch) due to a new migraine medication leaving me unable to taste carbonation.  Flat soda is disgusting and I only lost the ability to taste it on my tongue. I can still feel the carbonic acid in my throat, and that's just plain weird.

Anyway, I've lost 12 pounds already in about 6 weeks with no additional exercise.  It's crazy how much such a simple thing does to our diets, but if Americans just stopped drinking soda, I think the results would be shocking, because I was actually closer to the low end of the scale on consumption.

Now if I could just get over my depression at having to give up beer as well...