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  #1   ^
Old Thu, Sep-14-17, 10:34
Nancy LC's Avatar
Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Default The great nutrient collapse

“Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising,” Loladze said. “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.”

http://www.politico.com/agenda/stor...-dioxide-000511
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  #2   ^
Old Thu, Sep-14-17, 19:17
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Liz53 Liz53 is offline
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Fascinating article and pretty frightening.
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Sep-16-17, 20:45
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walnut walnut is offline
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Quote:
Loladze has investigated the effect of rising CO2 levels on the nutrient levels in food plants by analyzing data on 130 varieties of plants: his dataset includes the results of 7761 observations made over the last 30 years, by researchers around the world. Elevated CO2 levels were found to reduce the overall concentration of 25 important minerals—including calcium, potassium, zinc, and iron—in plants by 8% on average. Furthermore, Loladze found that an increased exposure to CO2 also increased the ratio of carbohydrates to minerals in these plants.
This reduction in the nutritional value of plants could have profound impacts on human health: a diet that is deficient in minerals and other nutrients can cause malnutrition, even if a person consumes enough calories. This type of malnutrition is common around the world because many people eat only a limited number of staple crops, and do not eat enough foods that are rich in minerals, such as fruits, vegetables, dairy and meats. Diets that are poor in minerals (in particular, zinc and iron) lead to reduced growth in childhood, to a reduced ability to fight off infections, and to higher rates of maternal and child deaths.
Loladze argues that these changes might contribute to the rise in obesity, as people eat increasingly starchy plant-based foods, and eat more to compensate for the lower mineral levels found in crops. Looking to the future, these findings highlight the importance of breeding food crops to be more nutritious as the world's CO2 levels continue to rise.


https://lens.elifesciences.org/02245/

he's on twitter and has been posting some graphics and has links to more of his articles, etc https://twitter.com/loladze
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  #4   ^
Old Sun, Sep-17-17, 00:04
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Ambulo Ambulo is offline
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Can anyone who has read the study say whether the data was collected about plants growing in organic soils, conventionally farmed soils or both? Mineral content is higher in organic farmed foods.
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  #5   ^
Old Sun, Sep-17-17, 04:12
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teaser teaser is offline
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Quote:
Loladze argues that these changes might contribute to the rise in obesity, as people eat increasingly starchy plant-based foods, and eat more to compensate for the lower mineral levels found in crops. Looking to the future, these findings highlight the importance of breeding food crops to be more nutritious as the world's CO2 levels continue to rise.


I guess he has to establish that people are getting fatter eating traditional high-starch diets. I'd still put my money on the changing diet, Coca-Cola and McDonald's making inroads into places like China and India, corn syrup and other refined foods increasing.
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  #6   ^
Old Sun, Sep-17-17, 09:00
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walnut walnut is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ambulo
Can anyone who has read the study say whether the data was collected about plants growing in organic soils, conventionally farmed soils or both? Mineral content is higher in organic farmed foods.

from what i understand about his research they are controlling for soil quaility.

This is really huge. did everybody read the entire article that nancyLC posted? for a long time we've all thought that nutrient density was going down because we were selecting for yield and shelf life, not nutrition, and because of diminishing soil quality. now there's this other layer, were the increasing c02 levels actually make ALL the plants create more carb matter/less protein and diminishes the vite/mineral content by 8% overall. i think we can all agree that the cause of obesity is multi-factorial and that it doesn't help when people are chugging down gallons of hfcs soda, etc, but if the carb levels in normal plant matter are being affected this much, it's going to be affecting the entire food chain etc. what happens to grass fed cattle when the protein levels in the grass are dropping?

this affects more than just the health of humans... they looked at goldenrod pollen and the affect on bees due to the dropping protein percentages in the goldenrod.
Quote:
Study results showed that the pollen protein levels have declined by up to a third since the 1850s, when atmospheric CO2 levels began rising, and that the most serious declines have occurred since 1960, when CO2 levels began rising dramatically. It was the first study to document the effects of rising CO2 levels on honey bee diets.
http://www.beeculture.com/catch-buz...-bee-nutrition/ we've all heard about colony collapse, and how the honeybees are struggling, and we all know how important they are for pollinating human food crops, etc etc etc. again, it's a multi-factorial problem compounded by mites, migratory beekeeping, etc etc etc, but if the essential proteins necessary for raising healthy bees are missing, you can see that it would be difficult to keep strong bees in the first place.

there is a bunch of his work available on his google site: https://sites.google.com/site/loladze/home it's dense reading, but really interesting.
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  #7   ^
Old Sun, Sep-17-17, 12:08
Blue Ruby Blue Ruby is offline
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This is research is upsetting, as if climate chaos and loss of northern habitats and changing timing of plant growth messing up bird food sources in migration weren't enough. But thank goodness someone is looking at it, thanks for sharing Nancy.
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  #8   ^
Old Wed, Sep-20-17, 04:38
64dodger 64dodger is offline
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The real cause of obesity, cakes, cookies, chips, sugar drinks, rice, potatoes and etc. Get real folks.
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  #9   ^
Old Wed, Sep-20-17, 17:57
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Calianna Calianna is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 64dodger
The real cause of obesity, cakes, cookies, chips, sugar drinks, rice, potatoes and etc. Get real folks.


Granted, I believe the primary cause of obesity is due to the excess consumption of carbs - whether in the form of cakes, chips, sugary drinks, potatoes, or even those hearthealthywhole grains, and that the sheer volume of those foods available so cheaply these days is the biggest culprit in obesity and diabetes.

But I think that other more seemingly minor and more subtle changes in the food supply have also contributed to the problem.

For instance, HFCS could be considered a minor change in the food supply, because a lot of foods that are currently sweetened with HFCS were at one time sweetened only with sugar. People ate those foods, and didn't become obese on them. They also didn't eat as much of them as they do now, but the question is why do people eat so much more of those foods now?

Should the switch to HFCS have really made any difference, since HFCS only has 10% more fructose than sugar? Same number of calories, right? But it's not just the calories involved, it's the subtle difference in the number of calories readily accessible for energy. If you can't access that 10% because it's in the form of fructose instead of sucrose, it can cause you to hunger for enough readily accessible calories to make up for the slight energy shortfall. And then hunger even more when the insulin kicks in, at which time you're eating even more HFCS laced foods, which results in even more fat storage and less readily accessible energy than you were used to experiencing.

So I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that if every single food we eat is becoming even very subtly more and more nutritionally inferior as the CO2 levels rise, that we will tend to eat more and more in order to make up for the nutritional shortfall, thereby becoming just another small part of the cause of obesity.
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  #10   ^
Old Wed, Sep-20-17, 22:30
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Karhys Karhys is offline
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Default

When I was 20 (that's 20 years ago now), I visited America from Australia. I stayed for about 4 months, travelling around the country and visiting friends all over. My diet was similar in content to what it had been in Australia (I ate a lot of junk back then, so definitely processed carbs everywhere) and I was actually getting more exercise in America than I did in Australia. I still came home 15kgs heavier, in just 4 months. And I dropped that 15kgs again in a few months in Australia, on the same junk diet. The only main difference that I'm aware of is that Australia never really got on the HFCS bandwagon the way the US did.

On an unrelated note, my partner put on 20kgs in 3 months while eating the exact same diet, all because her doctor put her on Zoloft. It's now ten years later and we've been on LCHF/Paleo for six years and that weight has refused to budge. It's only finally starting to drop now because we found a holistic doctor who seems to be able to treat the underlying causes.

Processed carbs absolutely made both our lives a LOT more worse. We are both much healthier off processed carbs. But they are just a part of what I feel is a very complex story.
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  #11   ^
Old Thu, Sep-21-17, 03:55
Calianna's Avatar
Calianna Calianna is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Karhys
When I was 20 (that's 20 years ago now), I visited America from Australia. I stayed for about 4 months, travelling around the country and visiting friends all over. My diet was similar in content to what it had been in Australia (I ate a lot of junk back then, so definitely processed carbs everywhere) and I was actually getting more exercise in America than I did in Australia. I still came home 15kgs heavier, in just 4 months. And I dropped that 15kgs again in a few months in Australia, on the same junk diet. The only main difference that I'm aware of is that Australia never really got on the HFCS bandwagon the way the US did.

On an unrelated note, my partner put on 20kgs in 3 months while eating the exact same diet, all because her doctor put her on Zoloft. It's now ten years later and we've been on LCHF/Paleo for six years and that weight has refused to budge. It's only finally starting to drop now because we found a holistic doctor who seems to be able to treat the underlying causes.

Processed carbs absolutely made both our lives a LOT more worse. We are both much healthier off processed carbs. But they are just a part of what I feel is a very complex story.


I know it could be considered an n=1 case, but if it doesn't show the huge difference that tiny 10% more fructose in HFCS can make, I don't know what does. Your case also shows that more exercise is definitely not the be-all and end-all for weight control, especially since you lost the weight eating the same foods in the same amounts once back home - the only difference being the lack of HFCS in your food.

If HFCS laced food can make that much difference, who knows how much difference slightly higher sugars and slightly diminished nutritional content in our entire food supply (including unprocessed foods) can make in weight gain?
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  #12   ^
Old Thu, Sep-21-17, 05:48
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teaser teaser is offline
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Plan: mostly milkfat
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I'm a bit torn on the hfcs vs. sucrose thing. On the one hand it might be prudent to be wary of the great increase in free fructose vs. fructose bound as sucrose in the diet, that seems more likely to be a big deal to me than the small increase in percent fructose. On the other hand, trust sugar itself seems horribly imprudent to me, I shuddered a while back when I saw people hoping to improve their health by getting coke made with sucrose from Mexico.

The canary in the coal mine Pima Indians got in trouble just fine with plain old sugar.
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  #13   ^
Old Thu, Sep-21-17, 14:32
Calianna's Avatar
Calianna Calianna is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by teaser
I'm a bit torn on the hfcs vs. sucrose thing. On the one hand it might be prudent to be wary of the great increase in free fructose vs. fructose bound as sucrose in the diet, that seems more likely to be a big deal to me than the small increase in percent fructose. On the other hand, trust sugar itself seems horribly imprudent to me, I shuddered a while back when I saw people hoping to improve their health by getting coke made with sucrose from Mexico.

The canary in the coal mine Pima Indians got in trouble just fine with plain old sugar.


Oh I don't doubt at all that things will not improve (at least not significantly) as food processors slowly switch from HFCS back to sugar. Part of the problem is simply the vast number of products which never had sugar in them to begin with, but over the last 40 years or so, the HFCS salesmen convinced a few food processors that a little sweetness (from the very easily incorporated HFCS) perks up the flavor of their product, resulting in increased sales. Then their competition also added a little HFCS to perk up the flavor in their products, so they increased the sweetness a little more, in order to perk up the flavor even more in order to hold onto sales. It's at the point now that I think the most popular commercial tomato sauces almost ought to be in the dessert aisle, since they can have as much as 16 g carbs (mostly sugars, most of that added sugars) in 1/2 cup serving. Compare that to a tomato sauce made purely of tomatoes and seasonings such as herbs and garlic, at only 6 g carbs per 1/2 cup serving.

Now that the consumer is used to such a sweet product, a product which at one time was never sweetened at all, when the manufacturers switch to sugar to maintain that sweetness, the consumer is still going to be getting more sugar (and more fructose) in their diet than they did before the HFCS was added. It's not going to help much, if at all. Actually, it could result in even more diabetes, as the consumer is going to end up with slightly higher blood sugar than they did with the HFCS.
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