Slow growing essential nutrients -another key to nutriiveda's success????

[Guest guest]

See the article this is in reference below " , who discussed his findings at

a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

meeting in St. Louis, suspects the trend in agriculture toward encouraging crops

that grow the fastest and biggest

is a reason for the decline. The past five decades have been marked by the

" Green Revolution, " which has seen a marked increase in U.S. production and

yields as farmers have turned to the fastest-growing and greatest-producing

plants.

The tradeoff is that the faster-growing plants aren't able to acquire the

nutrients that their slower-growing cousins can, either by synthesis or from the

soil. "

So..... look up the ayurvedic plants in nutriiveda

http://pursuitofresearch.org/ingredients.html -from what I found info on...ALL

SLOW GROWING..hmmm could be another key???

Like

Guggul

" It is a slow growing plant and takes 8 to 10 years to reach to a height of 3 to

3.5 meters. "

http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/final_project_report_dr__vineet_soni.pdf

Gymnema

G. sylvestre (Asclepiadaceae), a vulnerable species is a slow growing,

perennial, medicinal woody climber found in central and peninsular India

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2170951/

Turmeric

" pink in colour and slow growing "

http://www.springerlink.com/index/K1N72821584J447Q.pdf

green tea (PS- they removed the caffeine for nutriiveda)

" Being slow growers, Camellias are slow to become established "

http://www.gardensablaze.com/Shrubs/ShrubsCamellia.htm

Amalaki

" The tree is rather slow-growing and usually only bear fruit when 6-8 years

old. COMMON NAMES Emblic myrobalan, Indian gooseberry,Emblic, Myrobalan,

Emblica, Myrobalan emblic, Aonla, Kimalaka, Malaka, Kemloko, Laka, Melaka,

Ta-sha-pen, Khaam poomz, Ma-khaam pom, Kan-tot, Kam thuat, Chum ruot Me ru'ng "

http://ecocrop.fao.org/ecocrop/srv/en/cropView?id=8537

Haritaki

" The natural regeneration of T. chebula from seeds is

poor and it is a slow-growing tree "

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/feb102007/361.pdf

Cinnamon

" Cinnamomum verum-Family: ceae. Syn. C. zeylanicum. Common Name: true

cinnamon. Bark is the source of the best cinnamon. Leaves have a distinct

cinnamon smell when crushed and can be used like a bay leaf in cooking. Slower

growing than the Chinese cinnamon "

http://www.hawaiiantropicalplants.com/spice.html

I need to learn more and add this to my theory page

http://pursuitofresearch.org/science.html

Full articles:

June 2006

Why Foods Alone Are Failing Us

Significant declines found in the nutritional values of vegetables and fruits.

An Interview with R. , Ph.D. – Part 1

By A. Passwater, Ph. D.

Reading newspaper front pages is almost always depressing. Maybe the only way

that I can stomach the headlines is to read the paper while having an otherwise

pleasant breakfast. On Tuesday February 28, I read the headline to a front-page

article " Today's veggies, fruits less nutritious, " and I thought, " That's not

news. " We all know that. It was documented over a year ago by my longtime

associate, Dr. Don of the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues

at the Bio-Communications Research Institute in Wichita, KS. I wondered, " What's

the big deal? Why is it all of a sudden front page news? "

I started reading the article by Lance Gay of the Scripps News Service

anyway. The first paragraph reported that the " nutritional content of vegetables

and fruits has declined over the past 50 years—in some cases dramatically. "

The second paragraph began with " , a biochemist at the University of

Texas in Austin said that of 13 major nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked

by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1950 to 1999, six showed noticeable

declines. " I thought, " Wow, sometimes it takes a long time for information to

get out. Don published that in December 2004. " His recent publications included

" Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999, " by

, Epp and Riordan, J Am Coll Nutr 2004; 23:669-682 and " Trade-Offs in

Agriculture and Nutrition, " by D.R. , Food Technology, March 2005, p. 120.

So I zapped out an e-mail to Don asking why the information is suddenly gaining

front-page exposure.

Please let me back up a bit at this point and tell you a little about Dr. Don

. I first met Don through Dr. in the mid-1970s. If you have

been reading my writings for a while, you know of my admiration for Dr.

. He was my mentor in many ways, teaching me a great deal about

nutrition and biochemical individuality. I had the opportunity to lecture from

the same podium with him and in 1970, our pictures and news of our research

appeared on the same page of Chemical and Engineering News. This great man was a

true nutrition pioneer, yet he called me a pioneer for my research. That is the

greatest professional compliment I ever received.

Dr. was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, from 1939 to

1986. He founded and directed the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute from

1941 to 1963. The Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute has been renamed the

" Biochemical Institute " at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr.

discovered the B-vitamin, Pantothenic Acid, and concentrated and named Folic

Acid. He wrote 21 books and nearly 300 articles on nutrition and biochemistry.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1946 and became president

of the American Chemical Society in 1957.

Dr. 's books, including Nutrition Against Disease, Biochemical

Individuality, The Wonderful World Within You, and The Prevention of Alcoholism,

had wide impact. They helped inspire an explosion of nutrition research, and

they strongly influenced many nutritional scientists and physicians such as Drs.

Linus ing, Wayne Jonas (former director, NIH Office of Alternative

Medicine), , Alan Gaby, Abram Hoffer, Bland, Carl

Pfeiffer, Hugh D. Riordan and myself.

As important as his nutritional discoveries were, the atmosphere and direction

he gave to his co-researchers and students were equally important. Dr. Lester

succeeded Dr. as director of the Clayton Foundation Biochemical

Institute. Dr. was the discoverer of alpha-lipoic acid and its role in

energy transfer.

Another important scientist who has worked since 1974 at the Clayton Foundation

Biochemical Institute is Dr. R. . Dr. has also been the

director of the J. Nutrition Institute (1987-90). In addition to

his research at the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin,

Dr. also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied

Nutrition (editor-in-chief 1986-1991) and the Journal of Advancement in

Medicine. Also, he formerly served on the editorial board of Journal of

International Academy of Preventive Medicine (1983-85). He has published more

than 90 technical articles and letters.

Other discoveries at the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute included: two

of the three forms of vitamin B-6, lipoic acid, avidin, folinic acid (a

derivative of folic acid), synthesis of vitamin B-12, and pioneering work on

inositol.

My early discussions during the late-1970s and 1980s with Don centered on

vitamin safety, especially vitamin A, and the superiority of whole grains over

processed grains. Later, I became very interested in Don's research with the

nutrient content of foods and his unique way of presenting the information so

that the nutrient value of the food was readily apparent.

Later, Don and his colleague, Dr. E. H. Strickland, developed a computerized

program and database called NutriCircles that all nutritional scientists,

nutritionists and even the general public could use as an aid to evaluating

foods and diets. The key is that the level of each nutrient is shown graphically

by bars radiating from the center towards a ring representing the RDA level for

that nutrient. A food with high nutrient density is readily apparent by the

length of bars in the graph and how bars fill the circle to form a " bull's eye "

look. This gives great visual imaging to an otherwise obscure and nondescript

list of numbers. Figure 1 shows the NutriCircles presentation of processed grain

compared to whole grain.

Figure 1 compares un-enriched flour (left) to whole wheat (right). Enriching the

flour (Figure 2) helps, but that still does not equal whole grain flour (as seen

in Figure 2).

Figure 2 depicts enriched flour.

So that's the background. Now let's get back to the " new " story. Don's answer to

my e-mail was that he has just presented the 2004 data as part of a talk at the

American Association for the Advancement of Science at their annual meeting in

St. Louis on February 20, 2006. A large number of the leading science reporters

attend this meeting and as a result the information was again brought to the

public. However, this time, conditions were right for the news to receive

greater prominence. Don included his previous research in his presentation

entitled " Trends in the Nutrient and Antioxidant Content of Common Foods. "

Following is a conversation Don and I had about the findings and their impact on

the nutrition industry.

Passwater: Your earlier interest seemed to be on the physical side—physics and

physical chemistry. Why were you interested in this and why did you then become

interested in biochemistry and nutrition?

: I loved chemistry and physics in high school and through my postdoctoral

education, because they helped me understand how the physical world works. By

the time I was an assistant professor of chemistry, at the University of

California at Irvine, my interests were moving toward understanding how the

biological world works and how people work. My research in physical chemistry

began to seem less relevant.

So I was ripe for change about 1970 when one of my general chemistry students

came by my office and gave me a copy of Adelle ' book, Let's Eat Right to

Keep Fit. She was a prominent and well-educated nutrition enthusiast and author

of that time. I don't know why my student thought I would be interested, except

possibly because I kept a jar of shelled sunflower seeds on my desk as a

convenient snack. I was very interested, though as a scientist, I was

unsatisfied with the evidence for some of her conclusions. The medical and

dietetic professions were quite critical of her. But I was interested in what

might be right about her theme that good nutrition is much more important than

was commonly supposed for building health and for recovering from illness.

I began reading other nutrition books, too, and soon discovered J.

's Nutrition in a Nutshell and Alcoholism: The Nutritional Approach.

Here was a world-class biochemist and vitamin researcher who was equally

convinced that improved nutrition had great potential for preventing and

overcoming common health problems. To follow my interest, I introduced an

elective course for undergraduates, " The Chemistry of Nutrition. " I used Dr.

's newly published Nutrition Against Disease (1971), Dr. Linus

ing's Vitamin C and the Common Cold, and, for balance, a dietetics textbook

and a book by an anti- " faddist, " The Nuts Among the Berries.

Passwater: What brought you together with Dr. ?

: My interest in nutrition grew, and I wrote to Dr. and others,

asking if I might spend a sabbatical leave in their laboratories. Only

was encouraging (thankfully!), so in late 1973 I spent three months with him in

Austin. He was 80 years old, but he still was writing books and articles, and he

still had two Ph.D. researchers in his group, as well as younger nutrition

colleagues. I did a rat-feeding study of " the average American diet " compared to

three others. It produced interesting results, and he invited me to come back,

which I did a year later.

Dr. gave me great freedom to follow my interests, and I learned

nutrition and biochemistry the way I learn best, in the context of my diverse

projects. I absorbed his advanced ideas, and I benefited from not having a

background in the narrow view of nutrition as it was taught then. My

biochemistry is still weak, but I had stronger numerical skills than most

biochemists. Several of my contributions, including my next publication, advance

the statistical analysis of nutrition research. About 1980 I found an error in

the statistical interpretation of RDAs published by the past chairman of the RDA

committee. I was privileged to work closely with through his reluctant

retirement in 1986--a remarkable 13 years.

Passwater: Wait a minute. There are two thoughts there that I just can't let

pass without follow-up. What did you find interesting about your rat-feeding

study?

: Supplementing the " average American diet " with modest amounts of 25

vitamins and minerals made no obvious differences in the study. The

un-supplemented rats seemed to be healthy and to grow well. But the supplement

improved the rats' growth or health in subtle ways, including ways that still

may not be considered nutrition-related.

The supplemented rats ate less food, but they grew slightly better. (They were

young, male rats.) In skin-patch studies, their hair grew back more quickly, and

their wounds healed faster, on average. Later in the study, their average

appetite for sugar was found to be much lower. At the end, the supplemented rats

recovered much more quickly from a low dose of injected cyanide. There was no

vitamin C in the supplement, because rats make their own. Throughout, we saw the

biochemical individuality that Dr. frequently emphasized. Some rats'

hair was nearly regrown when others' hair had hardly begun to regrow. Some rats

loved sugar; others didn't touch it. Details are in the American Journal of

Clinical Nutrition, 1976; 29:710-15.

Passwater: What was the statistical error that you found in the interpretation

of the RDA concept?

: The chairman of the Committee on Dietary Allowances for the 1974 RDAs

later became chairman of the Committee's parent, the Food and Nutrition Board,

for the 1980 RDAs. He often used his status to pooh-pooh any idea that Americans

might have poor diets, or benefit from nutritional supplements. One of his

arguments in a 1984 article on supplements was that the RDAs were so generous

that " about half of the population should require less than half of the RDA. "

I wrote to him that this statement was grossly incompatible with the statistical

assumptions in the RDA books (that RDAs are set about two standard deviations

above the average need). After nine months he made a small concession: " About

40% of the population should require less than half of the RDA. " I sent him my

calculations and graphs showing that only 0% to 1% would have needs that low.

After his non-committal reply four months later, I suggested a $500 wager (about

$900 today), to be paid to the vindicated party's favorite, third-party

scientific organization. I planned that he would be writing a check to the Linus

ing Institute. Wouldn't that be fun for me and truly amazing of him?

Alas, he quickly relented. Close enough, anyway. He wrote that he should have

said that about half of the population should need less than 75% of the RDA.

(Actual: Half of the population would need less than 77% to 83% of the RDA,

according to the published assumptions.)

Thus, I finally corrected one false claim about the RDAs, but I doubt that I

made much of a dent in the unrealistic and complacent attitudes about nutrition

that prevailed at high levels in those days. This same person suggested about

then that it is OK for Americans to get up to 10% of their calories from sugar

and other refined foods. In a later public panel in which we both participated,

he was clearly completely out of touch with the reality that Americans on

average get well over half of their calories from refined foods, and about 20%

from refined sugar alone. Unfortunately, these simple facts are still largely

unrecognized by those who need to know.

Passwater: And, there are more facts that people need to know. What is the trend

in the nutrient value of vegetables and fruits?

: Slowly downward, according to three different kinds of evidence. This

downward trend is unfortunate, because vegetables and fruits are important

sources of nutrients and phytochemicals that many Americans do not get enough

of. In a study of 14 wheats introduced between 1873 and 1995, the average rate

of decline in six minerals was 2% to 3% per decade.

Passwater: What brought this to your attention?

: First, a 1997 historical comparison of minerals in fruits and vegetables

from the United Kingdom. Then we did our historical comparison of vitamins,

minerals and other nutrients in U.S. foods, published in late 2004. Along the

way I discovered other kinds of evidence for the downward trend.

Passwater: Let's pause here for a break and come back next time to look at the

different kinds of data you examined that led you to this conclusion. WF

© 2006 Whole Foods Magazine and A. Passwater, Ph.D.

http://www.drpasswater.com/nutrition_library/davis_1.html

(article this was in reference to)

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Fruits, vegetables not as nutritious as 50 years ago

By LANCE GAY

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

In spite of what Mother taught you about the benefits of eating broccoli, data

collected by the U.S. government show that the nutritional content of America's

vegetables and fruits has declined during the past 50 years -- in some cases

dramatically.

, a biochemist at the University of Texas, said that of 13 major

nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked by the Agriculture Department from

1950 to 1999, six showed noticeable declines -- protein, calcium, phosphorus,

iron, riboflavin and vitamin C. The declines ranged from 6 percent for protein,

15 percent for iron, 20 percent for vitamin C, and 38 percent for riboflavin.

" It's an amazing thing, " said , adding that the decline in nutrient content

has not been widely noticed.

He said an agriculture scientist appears to have been the first to pick up the

disappearance of nutrients in 1981 in a paper comparing the data on nutrients on

garden crops grown in the United States with those grown in England.

, who discussed his findings at a recent meeting of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in St. Louis, suspects the

trend in agriculture toward encouraging crops that grow the fastest and biggest

is a reason for the decline. The past five decades have been marked by the

" Green Revolution, " which has seen a marked increase in U.S. production and

yields as farmers have turned to the fastest-growing and greatest-producing

plants.

The tradeoff is that the faster-growing plants aren't able to acquire the

nutrients that their slower-growing cousins can, either by synthesis or from the

soil. He said there also are differences in the amounts of nutrients lost in

differing varieties of wheat and broccoli.

said he doesn't want his study to encourage people to stop eating

vegetables on the grounds they lack nutrients.

" That's completely wrong, " he said, contending his study shows that people need

to eat more vegetables and fruits, not less. " Vegetables are extraordinarily

rich in nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals. They are still there, and

vegetables and fruits are our best sources for these. "

Al Bushway, a food-science professor at the University of Maine and an expert

with the Institute of Food Technologists, said the decline of nutrients in

vegetables and fruits could be made up through other foods Americans eat.

" For vegans only using plant sources for food, this could be an issue, " he said.

But he said most Americans would pick up adequate quantities of calcium they

need by drinking milk.

Bushway said that fruits and vegetables are still crucial to providing nutrients

people need. " They are an important part of the diet -- extremely important, " he

said.

The Agriculture Department data that used doesn't include all of the

nutrients scientists today can identify in fruits and vegetables.

http://www.seattlepi.com/health/261163_veggie01.html

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