The Mineral-Depleted Food Scandal

Great post LCN! – I didn’t realise you’d started your own blog – keep up the good work buddy!

Deano

At first it’s ho-hum, yet another story on bogus research (pseudoscience being beyond epidemic proportions these days). Then the punch line hits – a supplement selling chiropractor came up with it. Made me laugh.

Nice work.

I find your attack on mineral/food supplements very disturbing. I have mitochondrial failure and my G.P cannot prescribe me the coenzymes or minerals that I require to keep me functioning on a daily basis.Hence I have to take supplements – as they provide the coenzymes in the right concentrations, which I cannot metabolize in sufficient quantity from the food that I eat. What would you suggest I do otherwise?

Fantastic! The last paragraph is inspired 😉

I wasn’t to impressed by the Food Commission picking on Chris Hoy as one of the bad guys pushing junk food because he was promoting “high sugar” Kellogs branflakes. Now if I’m to believe Kellogs and that the average portion is 30gm, then that’s about 7gm of sugar (versus the 24 gm of sugars you’d find in a typical 200ml glass of orange juice). Even if 30gm is a bit small, then it’s hardly going to kill you unless you try and live on a diet made up largely of dry bran flakes. Tape a carton of UHT semi-skimmed milk to the cereal carton in the appropriate portions and the resultant meal drops from the FSA red sugar into the green category, even with the added lactose.

Of course this all comes about as the FSA insist on red-flagging foods solely on the basis of the percentage of a given substance rather than the amount you consume in reasonable portions (they do put the absolute amount per portion on their coloured wheel-of-death, but next to the traffic light colour there’s not much clue as to whether the total amount is significant).

Of course the GDA system (which I greatly prefer) has its problems too, but that’s largely because there is simply no way that a few square centimetres of packet space can convey the complex issues of a healthy diet. Simpistic colour coding is no substitute for people being aware of how to plan a reasonably healthy diet (it’s a truism that there are no unhealthy foods, just unhealthy diets).
It’s also not helped by all the spurious certainty claimed by a lot of the food lobby. The oft quoted stuff about the portions of fruit/vegetable, the units of alcohol and the like are subject to a huge range of uncertainties and variations in individuals.

The Food Commission also appears to invite other groups with agendas to publish articles on their subscription magazine. As an example, authors from the Soil Association who have a habit of mixing up some sensible ideas with a lot of unsupported, messianic stuff more in common with a faith organisation.

From the little I can read on the Food Commission site, then I think this is just yet another self-serving pressure organisation that doesn’t care too much for rigour and the essential uncertainties and has a liking for headlines to capture public interest. After all, they, like anybody else have a living to make and they appear to be funded from subscriptions to their magazine.

SnapDragon6:

I find your misinterpretation of the points made, and your overreaction very disturbing.

It seems to me that at no point is this post saying that vitamin and mineral supplements aren’t necessary, for some people – yourself being a perfect example – who have deficiencies and health problems caused by them. It is saying that the impartiality of this report should certainly be questioned, especially given the conflict of interest, which we can assume was not stated. And seeing as there are scant details of what research was done, and what steps were made to take into account the failings that LCN pointed out. Those being;

1) declining to mention whether a well balanced diet could supply peoples needed nutrients (if indeed the nutrient levels of the food stuffs has dropped). Therefore resorting to supplements may not be necessary.

2) not taking into account changes in sensitivity and accuracy of analytical chemistry between the two periods that measurements were taken. Therefore the nutrient value may not have dropped at all, or may have have dropped only an insignificant amount.

3) failing to show that any of the 8% of mineral deficient women were made up of those being so due to an alleged reduction in the nutrient value of the food stuffs. Therefore any drop in the nutrient value of food may have little bearing on the health problems of todays population.

Ultimately it is misleading as the vast majority of people would benefit far more, both in the health and their wallets, by consuming a well balanced diet, instead of buying largely unnecessary (as shown by a large number of high quality studies) supplements.

@SnapDragon6: I don't think anyone is suggesting that people be discouraged from taking supplements where there are medical reasons for them. But the vast majority of healthy people, who have a reasonably balanced & varied diet, do not need them.

I love food, especially when it tastes good and I eat it whenever i can.
But heaven only knows whether my diet is balanced.
Frankly I don’t want to be bothered to work it out.
BECAUSE……….
For only £1 (not your neo-puritanical, science-nurd-rabble-rousing £20 mate) I can buy 1 months worth of Sainsbury’s multi-vitamin tablets.
One of those a day and I’ve got all the vits I need.
All day. Every day. Sorted.
What can possibly be wrong with that?

Anonymous – the ‘multivit’ as an insurance may cause harm if it gives you a false sense of achieving a balanced diet and therefore, you no longer concentrate so much on healthy eating. There is no shortcut here.

Healthy eating is not hard. The vitamin sellers try to make it look hard to you so that you take a ‘fallback’.

In contrast, many recent large studies have been showing that taking vitamins actually does not achieve the health effects you would expect and indeed may even do you direct harm, e.g.

Vitamins E and C were ineffective in preventing `cardiovascular disease in men. Sesso HD, Buring JE, Christen WG et al. JAMA, 2008;300 (Physicians’ Health Study II, mong 14,641 male physicians. […] The study participants were randomized to receive 400 IU of vitamin E every other day or a placebo and 500 mg of vitamin C daily or a placebo.

Selenium and vitamin E supplements, taken either alone or together, did not prevent prostate cancer; these results came from initial, independent review of study data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), funded by the National Cancer Institute. (publication Feb. 1 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.)http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=285

All the studies quoted above investigate whether high doses of vitamins can cure or prevent diseases.
They indicate that high doses of vitamins do not prevent or cure the diseases studied.
Maybe they are harmful.
But these studies tell us absolutely nothing about whether a daily multivitamin will help maintain good health.
And lets face it, that’s not a question which will ever be addressed by a double blind study. (Difficulty selecting endpoints, no-one will fund, etc)
So any opinion on the matter must rather be obtained through logic.
Just ask yourself one question.
How long did Barbara Cartland live?

I cannot believe you can get away with totally bad-naming one of the most trustworthy knowledgable people I have ever met! David Thomas has been treating his patients for 30 years and the reason he carried out the ‘Mineral Depletion Report’ was because he was concerned about the amount of patients that had signs of different mineral deficiencies. He also was aware of a lot of ‘modern’ diseases, namely ME, ADD, ADHD, Autism and guess what, a lot of these people after being tested were deficient in Magnesioum, Selenium and Zinc (to name a few). David then sourced the best mineral supplement he could find and I can asure you, he is not a ‘Businessman’ with a money making agenda, he wants to make people well. I really think you should meet him and hear what he has to say before you slate a man you don’t even know. I am not even going to tell him about what you have written because you have him ‘so wrong’ it would probably really hurt him! I know how it might seem BUT you couldn’t be more wrong, please consider having a meeting with him and removing this crap from your web-site. It’s not big to make assumptions that are so badly wrong about a man with more integrity than anyone I’ve ever known.

Julie Rose is spot on. David is a man of the highest integrity.
The agricultural, chemical and pharma industies have conned us into using petro based chemical fertilisers for over 60 years. Does anyone with an oz of sense believe that after this length of time there are any nutrients left in our crops?
Our whole food chain has been corrupted. The use of highly carcinogenic chemical sprays to kill weeds and bugs are commonly used. (do you think they won’t effect us?).
GMO foods result in tumours and low sperm counts in rats.
Fluoride and chlorine in our drinking water plus loads of other nasties.
Just use your common sense everyone, it does not take much to realise what is really going on here!

I don’t understand the author’s intention. Article is trying to awake all of us with the dangers of chemical farming & the resultant depletion in various nutrients from the food chain. I am 60 year old medical practitioner & I am clearly seeing severe rise in the various metabolic diseases like hyperacidity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, skin problems ……….over last 30 years. Don’t ask for the formulae everytime but use commonsense. Declining minerals from the food chain certainly plays very major role in the human health.

Silagra, launched by Cipla, contains Sildenafil Citrate as the active constituent. It helps men with impotence to attain satisfaction during the love making.
Exactly like its branded counterpart, Viagra
When taken they improve the blood supply to the male reproductive organ thus, helping the impotent men to get his reproductive organ stiffer and keep it harder for sufficient period of time.

Mineral depletion in our soil is a Global problem and has been confirmed by the WHO, UNICEF, UK Ministry of Agriculture and the Royal Society of Chemistry-North America 85% loss, South America 76% loss, Asia 76% loss, Africa 74% loss, Europe 72% loss and Australia 55% loss. Just checking out the current health statistics of any nation speaks for itself.

This is relevant. Scientific American
Sustainability »
EarthTalk

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Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?
Because of soil depletion, crops grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today
April 27, 2011

Martin Poole, Digital Vision/Thinkstock

Dear EarthTalk: What’s the nutritional difference between the carrot I ate in 1970 and one I eat today? I’ve heard that that there’s very little nutrition left. Is that true?—Esther G., Newark, N.J.

It would be overkill to say that the carrot you eat today has very little nutrition in it—especially compared to some of the other less healthy foods you likely also eat—but it is true that fruits and vegetables grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today. The main culprit in this disturbing nutritional trend is soil depletion: Modern intensive agricultural methods have stripped increasing amounts of nutrients from the soil in which the food we eat grows. Sadly, each successive generation of fast-growing, pest-resistant carrot is truly less good for you than the one before.

A landmark study on the topic by Donald Davis and his team of researchers from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.

“Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly,” reported Davis, “but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth.” There have likely been declines in other nutrients, too, he said, such as magnesium, zinc and vitamins B-6 and E, but they were not studied in 1950 and more research is needed to find out how much less we are getting of these key vitamins and minerals.

The Organic Consumers Association cites several other studies with similar findings: A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent. A similar study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal,found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19 percent; iron 22 percent; and potassium 14 percent. Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.”

the story is not as simple as you make out.

Lmao like those charities actually give the money they collect to those in need. Nah the CEOs and

And those other “charity” working thieves that for their own fancy vacations. Thanks but I’d rather spend my money on vitamins

Here’s an entire article, well researched and peer reviewed from the Science community on the subject, and yes, I’m saying you are the quacks!! http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/

Just so you know the first article wasn’t unique, here’s another by Horticulture Science..http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/44/1/15.full

Humans do not need the same minerals as plants also plants do not necessarily die if they are low in the minerals they need.

There is currently a subset of people on earth who have ailments that are due to deficiency in some essential mineral. The rest don’t have ailments but some clearly will be on the cusp. If the levels of essential minerals in food subsequently went down would the numbers of people with deficiency go up, down or stay the same?

There are major problems with this article. There is a lot of biased waffle around the theme and the three core pieces of evidence cited to denigrate the ‘selected’ source of the mineral-depletion theory:

‘there is nothing in this report to suggest that the levels have fallen to dangerous levels’
This does not mean that there has been no mineral-depletion.

‘Analytical methods have changes [sic] enormously over this time and there is no correction for biases’
This does not prove that the research conclusions were faulty; they may only lack finer detail.

‘The report goes on to show that 8% of women might be mineral deficient but … does not say that this is a result of the (alleged) lower mineral levels in food. This could be down to these women just having very poor diets’
This point would, indeed, render the citation immaterial, but, again, this is immaterial when it comes to making the point about mineral-depletion.

It is very easy to perceive that any disingenuousness exists on the part of the writer of this article. Its main objective is denigrating the mineral-depletion theory, and this is attempted by relying solely on one source which it lambasts in the most shallow and unscientific manner. This item does not answer the question at all. There is no reference to any real studies, and it appears, from the look of most of the comments below it, to be preaching to the choir. Ultimately, then, this is a highly irresponsible piece of hack pseudo-journalism, at best; dangerously misleading at worst.

Okay lets say the soils are not depleted can you explain to be about the Brix Refractometer this is where this can be proven other wise and seems that some people seem to miss the boat about that.