Your Food Is Less Nutritious Than It Used To Be

[TTL News 308]

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As our climate changes, our food is at risk of immediate dangers such as fires and floods. But there are long-term impacts that have already changed the makeup of the food you eat.

Think about a strawberry. How big is it? What color is it? It’s March—are you able to find a strawberry easily in your local grocery store? 

Chances are, yes, you could find strawberries at the store for sale. They’d be about the size of a golf ball, probably bright red and cost a lot of money. It’s likely not surprising that the strawberries your grandparents and great-grandparents were eating just a few generations ago were quite different. They were smaller, probably closer to the size of a quarter, a deeper red hue and they most likely weren’t around at the tail end of winter. 

Certainly, the change in availability is in part due to ease of imports and prevalence of greenhouses today. And some of the other changes are due to breeding and genetic engineering that creates berries that are hardier and more robust for that very shipping. 

But some of the changes, especially the ones we can’t readily see, are due to climate change. 

 

Read more here. 

What do you think?

[Chris 2,162]

Well climate change blame aside, the food you buy in the store is mass produced and hybridized. It’s already lacking the flavor of locally grown and/or heirloom varieties. Why wouldn’t it also lack nutritional value?

[MsKreed 1,179]

47 minutes ago, Chris said:

the food you buy in the store is mass produced and hybridized. It’s already lacking the flavor of locally grown and/or heirloom varieties. Why wouldn’t it also lack nutritional value?

It's become commonplace, but not a new thing really. The introduction of tomatoes, etc decades ago that were "forced" to grow rapidly in greenhouses were clearly  less "ripe", paler and less flavorful (less color/flavor = less nutrients).

 

If anything, a solid argument could be made that any vegetation will typically thrive better with increased CO2 . 

[Chris 2,162]

2 hours ago, MsKreed said:

The introduction of tomatoes, etc decades ago that were "forced" to grow rapidly in greenhouses were clearly  less "ripe", paler and less flavorful (less color/flavor = less nutrients).

Oh yeah, even the stuff I try to keep going indoors like scallions; they’re never as good as the original plant I cut off.