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Chennai, Sep 30: There has been a massive increase in crop production, but without adequate rise in nutrition content, similar to monetary inflation, having more food, but worth less in terms of nutritional value.
A US-based research organisation has reported that, though crops like tomatoes are being produced in greater abundance, their nutritional value has declined.
“Farmers today can grow two to three times as much grain, fruit, and vegetables on a plot of land as they could 50 years ago, but the nutritional quality of many crops has declined’’, says the report prepared by ‘The Organic Center’, a group based in Boulder, Colorado.
“To get our recommended daily allowance of nutrients, we have to eat many more slices of bread today than people had to eat in the past,” notes Brian Halweil, author of the report and food expert of the ‘Worldwatch Institute’. According to the report, ‘Still No Free Lunch’, food scientists have compared the nutritional levels of modern crops with historic, and generally lower-yielding ones.
Today’s food produces 10% to 25% less iron, zinc, protein, calcium, vitamin C, and other nutrients, the studies show.
Researchers from Washington State University who analysed 63 spring wheat crops grown between 1842 and 2003 found an 11% decline in iron content, a 16% decline in copper, a 25% decline in zinc, and a 50% decline in selenium.
Improving the nutritional quality of food on a per-serving basis is an important step in addressing worldwide health problems, the report notes.
“Less nutrient-dense foods coupled with poor food choices, go a long way toward explaining today’s epidemics of obesity and diabetes,” says The Organic Center’s chief scientist, Charles Benbrook.
Plants cultivated to produce higher yields tend to have less energy for other activities like growing deep roots and generating phytochemicals - health-promoting compounds like antioxidants- the report explains. And conventional farming methods, such as close plant spacing and the application of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, often cause crops to absorb fewer nutrients and have unhealthy root systems and less flavour, and sometimes make them more vulnerable to pests.
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