9:02 AM 8/19/2006
With all of the information and even some purposeful encryption, it is a wonder that a special subject is not added to our college curriculum to help us deal with shopping now and later in life. First of all, to digest the standard "Nutritional Facts" portion of the food listing is not a simple undertaking. The vitamin "A" listing can only be an average value determined over time, because the vitamin A content in a given quantity of any food varies according to the soils content and therefore the geography of where the farm is located along with many other variables encountered in the "growing" process.
Food manufacturing is truly a science that entails the initial sowing of the seed to the delivery of the finished product. All along the way of this complicated process of logistics is a predetermined and fundamental fact of all those that are involved, i.e., each must make a profit in order to remain in business. All of us are somewhat familiar with quantity pricing, where the greater the quantity of a particular product produced, the price per unit quantity is lower. One method of achieving this goal in the farming industry is to "super fertilize" prior to planting. Artificial fertilizer is much less costly than the organic method and thus, the profit...for the farmer is higher. The benefits to the consumer are less than desirable.
It has been found that using chemical fertilizers over many years can greatly lessen the nutrient level of most soils. An 80 year study by the USDA has found that from about 1910 to about 1995, there has been found as much as a 7 % loss of the minerals zinc, potassium and magnesium, along with Vitamin B12 in our food supply. Other studies of our recent food supply have found a 20 to 300 % drop in varying nutrients of our crops. This drop can be attributed to poor crop rotating methods, weather, original soil fertility, etc..
The lifelong results of our food production and final delivery to the consumer is fairly straight forward,i.e., we cannot accurately know the intake of critical life preserving vitamins and or minerals needed to sustain a maximum disease free living. Consequently, we can think that we have been getting our MDR of Calcium, when, because of the source of the vegetable supplying us this particular mineral, we have fallen dangerously short. Because of this fact, some doctors recommend taking Vitamin/Mineral supplements as a precaution. We might also be a person who eats onions on a daily basis as one source of Selenium, not realising that because of where your grocer purchased their onions, this mineral was lacking and therefore you or your family might be lacking in this particular nutrient, which is crucial to both men and women. Other scenarios could be presented, but the point made should be pretty clear, that sometimes we must be more observing of the food we purchase.
