Nutrients shrink as veggies grow

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NUTRITION: Nutrients shrink as veggies grow

Miami Herald

07 Mar 2005

It's a good thing Popeye was created many moons ago.

The ornery cartoon character would have to gobble 65

cups of spinach today to get the same amount of iron

he got from gulping down a can of the stuff in 1950.

That wouldn't leave much time to woo Olive Oil.

That's the message from a new study conducted by the

University of Texas at Austin, based on U.S.

Department of Agriculture data. Compared to 50 years

ago, today's fruits and vegetables contain smaller

amounts of some key nutrients, including protein,

calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C.

The declines included a 6 percent dip for protein and

38 percent loss of riboflavin.

" This is one more reason to eat more vegetables

because they are still, by far, our most

nutrient-dense food, " said Dr. , the

study's lead author and researcher with the

university's Biochemical Institute in the Department

of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Counters Dr. Lawrence of West Palm Beach's

Original Medicine, which markets Garden of Life whole

food supplements, " There is already an obesity

epidemic and while vegetables are certainly good for

you it's not possible to eat 65 cups of spinach in one

sitting. "

Lawrence recommends supplementing one's diet with a

good multivitamin.

said there may be more than one explanation for

the fall-off in nutrients, but the main reason is that

farmers breed higher-yielding crops these days. The

study of 43 fruits and vegetables, which included

broccoli, strawberries, celery and green peppers,

looked at 13 nutrients, and found that plants have a

fixed amount of energy they can spend and varieties

with high yields may have less energy to take minerals

from the soil.

Researchers found that celery, green peppers and

tomatoes lost the most protein; cantaloupe, lettuce

and tomatoes have less phosphorus than they did in the

era of the space race, and eggplant and tomatoes

contain less vitamin C than they used to.

" That's the unintended side effect of our efforts to

increase the yield of crops, " said, calling the

phenomenon the Dilution Effect.

" When you irrigate and fertilize and control weeds to

intensively increase the yield of a crop, it dilutes

amounts of some nutrients. By encouraging a plant to

grow faster and bigger, it does grow faster and bigger

but it doesn't have the ability to uptake or

synthesize the nutrients at the same faster rate, "

said.

Mark Overbay, a spokesman for United Fresh Fruit &

Vegetable Association, a Washington D.C.-based trade

organization representing the produce industry, had no

comment on the findings because the association hadn't

looked at the study yet.

' study was inspired by a 1991 British study that

also found that the nutrient content of fruits and

vegetables had declined in recent years.

However, the results are not beyond question he says.

" The analytical techniques used 50 years ago are not

the same as now, " said. For instance, magnesium,

zinc, vitamins B-6 and E, dietary fiber and

phytochemicals were not reported in 1950. " The

possibility of what we are seeing could be artifacts

of that nature. It might be that the plants haven't

changed but the analytical methods have.

" The advantage is that people can look at nutrients

that we may not have known about 50 years ago -- or at

least not analyzed. We hope our research will

stimulate more comparisons, " he said, citing the need

to do similar research on grains, legumes, meat, milk

and eggs.

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