Vegetables w/o Vitamins - the rest of the story...

[Guest guest]

The rest of the story:

Before " modern " civilization, there was a food " cycle " , where the

nutrients taken from the ground were returned there. Now, the loop

has been " opened " to become a food " chain " , with sewage processing

plants flushing the water soluble nutrients into the ocean, and some

plants returning the non water soluble nutrients for agriculture use.

Most trace minerals go to water-soluble forms in sewage. For example,

there is a cobalt atom in the heart of every vitamin B-12 molecule,

which when excreted, comes out as a water soluble cobalt salt such as

cobalt chloride, which then goes through sewage processing plants to

ultimately end up in the ocean.

There are few known methods of restoring " trace " minerals, such as

harvesting seaweed or water lilies and returning them to the land, as

the Aztecs did, or powdering rock, which isn't economically feasible

except where rock has been incidentally powdered, as in mining

operations.

Can you believe that the US government is now actually supporting

research to develop a disease to kill off water lilies?!

Fertilizers simply do not return these " trace " minerals, as they are

not in the oil feedstock to begin with, and even where there are

some,

they end up in the sludge at the bottom of the cracking tower at the

refinery.

The bottom line is that there is absolutely no known way that we can

continue to live in cities and flush our nutrients into the ocean. We

will soon pass into history, if indeed there is anyone to appreciate

future history, as surely as their own lead pipes poisoned the

Romans. The big difference is that a new civilization can't simply

live aside from the technology that killed off the prior civilization

(us).

Surely, future civilizations will have to live off the sea, after our

present civilization has died off long enough and hard enough for the

sea to recover. However, we have left so much long-life radioactive

debris, both in the ocean (as discarded Soviet nuclear reactors) and

around to be washed into the ocean (as present nuclear reactors and

spent fuel), that future life spans will almost certainly be very

much shorter than present. once these have circulated through the

future world biomass.

Much of what we now call " aging " is really malnutrition, and this can

only get a LOT worse.

There is a very finite supply of trace minerals and other

micronutrients in the top soil, and when they are gone, they are

gone. Natural restoration takes tens of millions of years. The plants

take what they need, unless the supply has dwindled so low that they

just aren't there to take. The fact that nutrient levels of plants is

dropping so quickly tells me that we are nearing the end of this

story, and that soon there won't be enough to even keep the plants

alive.

You can already take a book showing plant deficiency diseases to the

grocery store and see prime examples sitting on the shelves. Surely,

there can be no wonder why we are deficient when we eat them.

Is there a way around this bleak projection? Yes, but the first step

is to universally realize that our present city dwelling lifestyle is

quickly destroying our world's ability to support us, in a very

fundamental way that no foreseeable technology can recover from.

The western coastal strips on each continent, from the ocean to the

top of the first mountain range, must be turned back into rain

forest,

so that the water can make it over the first mountain range to the

remainder of the continents to reverse desertification. People must

live on the land that feeds them, as transporting the sewage back to

the farms is economically prohibitive. Sewage-based fertilizationmust

become the norm, with fossil fertilizers used only to help restore

the

land, not as replacement for sewage. Except for certain research and

manufacturing centers, we must abandon the cities that will soon

indirectly bring death by malnutrition to our children and

grandchildren.

If you doubt any of this, just grab almost any recent graduate from

an agricultural school, show them this email, and receive your

independent verification. They already know the facts, but they

sometimes need to see them all strung together like I have done here

to see where it is all going.

Neither is this any sort of surprise. F. H. King, commonly referred

to as the father of modern agriculture, documented this in 1911 in

his book entitled " Farmers of Forth Centuries " . Unfortunately, his

dire warnings have gone unheeded for the last 90 years.

As I see it, this is a product of popular misinterpretation of Old

Testament teachings to subdue the land and leave the details of

future survival to God. Whatever the original message was, what we

have now is certainly not it. Change or die.

Enjoy it while you can, as despite your age, you will probably live

to

see at least the beginning of the end of Western Civilization in your

lifetime. I am making sure that my kids receive a generous dose of

education on nutrition and agriculture, in the hopes that this will

give them the mental tools to somehow survive this looming global

disaster. How do you plan for your kids to survive this?

Can you guess - this is one of my hot buttons!

Steve

==============

> > > >

> http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2001/mar2001_report_vegetables.html

> > >

> > > That's hair-raising. I know there have been runors in the

organic

> > > foods community for some time that vitamin and mineral content

was

> > > decreasing in conventionally grown vegetables, due to the

> depletion

> > > of nutrients from the soil in conventional farming practices.

Too

> > > bad the guy didn't measure the vitamins and minerals in organic

> > food,

> > > maybe my forking out for organic stuff to avoid pesticides,

etc.

> is

> > > paying off in better nutrient levels :-)

> >

> > I find this fascinating, but not surprising. I have been

aware

> of

> > this decline for some time, but hadn't seen the figures

documenting

> > the degree of decline of nutritive content in foods. It's only

> > logical, seeing that most foods are " pushed " these days, by

> > fertilizers, composed mostly of nitrogen, phosphorus, and

potassium.

> > As a farm boy, I've seen the changes in agriculture, close up.

> > Continuous cropping, sold by the chemical companies, under the

guise

> > of good soil management, gives soils no chance to recoup their

trace

> > minerals, and the food that we are eating is consequently

becoming

> > less and less capable of supplying our bodily needs.I have long

> found

> > it ludicrous that doctors will in general insist that foods

contain

> > all the required elements for health and disease prevention, and

> that

> > supplementation is a waste of money. They are completely out of

> touch

> > with the realities of modern agriculture. This declining

nutritive

> > value of produce of all kinds, is almost cerainly the major

reason

> for

> > the huge increase in degenerative diseases - a simple case of

> robbing

> > the body of the foods it needs for its protection. At the same

time

> it

> > has spawned a new industry. But the really interesting

postulation

> is:

> > Who has the most to gain from trying to keep this from getting

the

> > attention it deserves? I am not hinting at some conspiracy here,

I

> am

> > out-and-out stating that money drives everything these days.

Figure

> it

> > out.

> > I would dare to suggest that even our common enemy, AF, will

be

> > found one day to be at least in part the result of some aspect of

> > nutrition that is lacking, and, since we are to some extent

unique,

> > some of us are more susceptible than others. But how will that be

> > discovered (I can't resist this) - if they refuse to test my

> > effluents? (At the risk of being obsessive once again....)

> >

> > My .02!

> >

> > Lawrence

>

> I should have pointed out that I fully realize that when

> information such as this, produced by a " Life Extension Foundation "

> which has its own vested interest in getting people on THEIR

> aupplements, it is received with a grain of salt. My observations

are

> based on my experience with the agricultural industry in Canada,

and

I

> can vouch for the point that is made that fod production today aims

> for quantity and appearance - not necessarily nutrition. (One

> exception, protein content is rewarded in the case of wheat...) But

> trace minerals? No longer reliably supplied by foods. And the loss

of

> selenium, for example, makes us unable to utilize the magnesium

> content... It goes on and on. There are problems in paradise...

>

> Lawrence