gholapin Hacker News • Recommends
On “Nutrient deficiencies in rice grown under higher carbon dioxide”
"Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?: Veritasium"1 is a good short video that puts this into context. 1: link to this video
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Is Our Food Becoming Less Nutritious?
Veritasium
21M subscribers • 15 videos on Rounds
- Recommended by 2 people, in Hacker News, across 2 different months.
- Presented by Derek Muller, as the video describes them
- The description links 1 paper.
- May be out of date. Uploaded 8 years ago, in an area where guidance changes.
- Debated among experts. Its central claim is contested, so look for the other side.
For anyone, no background needed. Education, not medical advice.
2.1M views8 years ago2 recommendations
NutritionVitamins and mineralsDiets compared
Derek Muller explores why the nutrient content of crops is declining, focusing on the role of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The nutrient content of food is declining. Is it because of soil depletion, selective breeding, or... something else? Watch my new documentary, VITAMANIA: ve42.co/vita I came across this story as I was making the film Vitamania. When you ask sellers of vitamins why you should take vitamin supplements even if you eat a healthy diet, they will say because our food doesn't contain all the nutrients it once did. This is supposedly due to soil depletion, cold storage, food ripening off the vine, and global transport of out-of-season foods. And to an extent this is true. Foods contain the greatest amount of nutrients if they are eaten soon after they are harvested. An unexpected source of nutrient decline is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It causes plants to grow faster and bulk up on carbs but at the expense of other nutrients, so in percentage terms the amount of nutrients are actually declining. For now this decline is modest so supplementing with vitamin pills is probably unnecessary for most people with a healthy diet but it may be a concern in future. Thanks to Kate Pappas & Chris Kamen for writing, producing and filming this video with me Edited by Lucy McCallum Sound mix by Wayne Hyett Fact Checking by Calvin Lee and Claire Smith Thanks to the Collingwood Children’s Farm and Glenn Fitzgerald from the University of Melbourne & Agriculture Victoria Further Reading: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157516302113 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15637215/?ncbi_mmode=std soils.wisc.edu/facstaff/barak/poster_gallery/minneapolis2000… politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-d… abc.net.au/news/2018-05-24/scientists-warning-rice-may-becom…Why it's here
2 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as a clear explanation of how rising carbon dioxide levels and other factors are reducing the nutrient density of plants.
dghughesin Hacker News • Recommends
On “Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914”
Derek from Vertasium on YouTbe has a nice explanation. Even showing how the nutrient levels in weed specimens are also falling. The weeds were collected by researchers over the last 100 or more years. The weeds were vital because it showed it wasn't limited to farming practices it's all plants. link to this video
rdedevin Hacker News • Mentions
On “Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status”
Veritasium did a video on this topic of vegetables becoming less nutritious link to this video He argues that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is making the plants grow faster. This is making the plants produce more carbs wet to other nutrients, making the plant less nutritious compared to the past
steve_adams_86in Hacker News • Mentions
On “A genetic modification boosts grain yields, shortens the growth duration of rice”
It hasn't actually been shown that it's the strain variation because identical strains (giving wild plants as samples) are shown to have the same declines. There's no known reason, but one decent hypothesis is that the atmosphere is changing and plants are bulking faster due to the increase of CO2. This is something you can demonstrate in a grow tent by venting in CO2. When plants have higher CO2 they increase the synthesis of carbohydrates, sugars and starches, and they decrease concentrations of protein and nutrients. This details someone of these details, including references to some of the studies you linked. Worth noting is that if GMO varieties had stark differences in nutrient content…