Nutritional veg

[CimaDirapa]

As the end of my flu is nowhere to be seen I am in bed reading the excellent book 'in defense of food' by Michael Pollan, one of the comments in the book is how the level of nutrients in some fresh food is lower now than 40 years ago.

With that in mind I was thinking is there any veg varieties that claims to contain higher than normal nutrients levels?

Found one variety of carrots called 'Healthmaster' with 30% plus more betacarotene and one article about M&S selling a broccoli called 'Beneforte' but not much else, anyone else know of such veg (even if engineered by good old science)?

[Nicos]

Oh good- I can easily buy French Celery!!!!

[rustylady]

Do they mean the levels in "fresh" food from the supermarkets? If so I can quite well believe it - the stuff has been flown in from all over the world and stored for days/weeks.

[CimaDirapa]

Do they mean the levels in "fresh" food from the supermarkets? If so I can quite well believe it - the stuff has been flown in from all over the world and stored for days/weeks.

Yes, the book talks about the majority of food so the stuff most of non GYO people eat.
Apparently in the US there is almost complete dominance of one variety of Broccoli and you need to eat 4 apples today to get the same amount of nutrients you got from eating an apple 40 years ago.

[Capsid]

What does he mean by nutrients (vitamins, protein, carbs?) I think there needs to be some specific detail as to which nutrient there is less or more of in a given vegetable.

[CimaDirapa]

What does he mean by nutrients (vitamins, protein, carbs?) I think there needs to be some specific detail as to which nutrient there is less or more of in a given vegetable.

Not carbs (there is actually more of these as bigger veg is better for the industry) he talks mostly about Phytochemicals, vitamins and Omega 3, read the book for more details.

[rinabean]

I don't know specific varieties, but I know most red fruits and vegetables have the same nutrients as the green/yellow ones + anthocyanin too. And stronger tasting things are normally more nutritious (especially herbs - if you like and can eat a handful of fresh herbs, it's better for you than a plate of greens. Not to everyone's taste though I admit!)

I really don't think it matters at all, especially if you are growing your own, and growing for flavour and not just size/appearance. If you were very deficient in anything you'd know, and stress is worse for your health than anything else! Hope you feel better soon.

[Moo's Mum]

Speaking as a Nutritionist, the vast majority of our foods now contain far less useful nutrients in them than before.
We have far more "sophisticated" tastes now due largely to foreign travel etc, and so demand strawberries in December or small beans from Kenya. It has always frustrated me! Why have bland, watery, tasteless forced strawbs in mid winter when there is nothing like a sun ripened strawberry on a summers day? I really do think that if we kept to eating seasonally and as local as possible then precious nutrients wouldn't be lost so easily. I personally think that most people's taste isn't sophisticated at all and have been tainted by high fat, salt and sugar intakes.

Alot of the nutrients and phyto chemicals are water and air soluble and so as soon as fruit and veg are picked the nutritional content starts to deteriorate. I know we are lucky enough to have our own lotties/plots to grow our own and the vast majority of people don't. Economics also comes into play too. It is so expensive to buy fruit and veggies in the supermarket compared to junk foods. Like rinabean says stress is probably far worse for our health than possible deficiencies in our food, as are other lifestyle choices.

[solway cropper]

Funny that, we had some friends round today and they stayed for tea. They don't garden and, although they eat 'proper' food all their fresh comes from the supermarket. They'd never seen radishes the size of the ones I offered them nor tasted such a strong flavour in them or the spring onions. I put this down to the 'food yards'. Ten yards from garden to table and eaten within an hour of being picked.

I'd have to agree with Moo's mum that picking at the wrong time and shipping food half way round the world must play a large part in the loss of flavour and nutrients.