Nutrition today and in days of yore..

Here's another way to understand how nutritious our food is...compare it to the past

While there is much debate about whether organic food is more nutritious than conventional food, there is little debate needed about the fact that the nutritional content of food has been in decline over the last 60 years.

Modern agriculture has enrolled ever more industrial inputs and processes. In tandem, an ever-longer and more complex food system has moved foods further and faster around the globe.

According to some recent research, this has had a detrimental effect on the nutritional content of the food we eat. The data available on food nutritional decline since the middle of the last century is staggering. Simply put, it suggests that we have sacrificed quality over quantity.

One the one hand, due to advances in medical science and a variety of lifestyle changes, we in the west can live for longer than we could previously. On the other hand, living a long life does not necessarily mean living a healthy or a particularly happy life.

Medical interventions have become, in many ways, a substitute for healthy lifestyles.

According to the UK�s Food Commission �the recent changes in dietary habits towards highly-processed foods means we are likely to be overfed yet malnourished in terms of�micronutrients�.

These micronutrients are increasingly being seen as vital for the healthy functioning of the brain, nervous system and the wellbeing of the body in general.

The Food Commission studied fruits and vegetables last year. They compared data from the 1930s to the 1980s for the fruits and vegetables. Typically, they found a 20% decline in minerals. Increased water content was partly to blame, but �intensive farming on exhausted land was likely to be the major cause of the decline in nutritional value of food, along with selection of varieties for characteristics other than nutrition�.

Similar research in the US (Davis et al 2004), covering the period from 1950-1999, tested 43 garden crops, and found that there was a statistically significant decline in 6 of 13 nutrients tested for. The researchers concluded that change in the varieties chosen by growers �in which there may be trade-offs between yield and nutrient content� explains their findings.

The Food Commission have just released their follow up comparative study to last year�s fruits and vegetables study. This time, they compare meat and dairy from the 1930s to the year 2002.

In milk, calcium was only marginally down, but magnesium and iron were down significantly; 21% and 62% respectively. In fact, across the 15 different food categories compared, iron decline was pronounced; it was down 47% on average, and by as much as 80% in some cases.

It is noteworthy that while calcium levels were almost unchanged for milk in the two periods, calcium content of cheese had declined significantly. This suggests that processing and scale changes have had an effect on the quality of the product.

In the case of Parmesan cheese, calcium has fallen by 70%, a fact that suggests �considerable dilution of the original highly concentrated recipe, or some other significant shift in ingredients� according to the Food Commission.

In fact, the more processed meats such as corned beef showed a far greater decline in nutritional content than the less processed meats such as beef, over the two periods. In the UK, cattle are still to a significant extent grass fed and outdoors. That said, the decrease of 55% in iron content in beef is obviously a cause for concern.

Copper, essential for enzyme functioning, was significantly down across dairy and meat categories. On average, it was down 60% in meat and an extraordinary 90% in dairy.

These findings suggest that, along with other problems, nutritional deficiencies occur with the rise in the industrialisation and globalisation of agriculture.

The anthitesis of this agri-industrial model could improve nutritional levels. Smaller scale, more locally-orientated, more seasonal, fresher and less processed foods have lots of socio-environmental benefits. Based on these findings, it is now possible to make the case for the nutritional benefits of foods produced in this less intensive way too.