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After good food

  • Dec. 11th, 2005 at 10:29 PM
Mom sent me an article from the March 2001 edition of LE magazine, Vegetables Without Vitamins.
[N]utritionist, Alex Jack ... compared recently published nutrient values with an old USDA handbook he had lying around. Some of the differences in vitamin and mineral content were enormous-a 50% drop in the amount of calcium in broccoli, for example. Watercress down 88% in iron content; cauliflower down 40% in vitamin C content-all since 1975.
I don't have any comfirmation of this in any way. Just thought it was interesting. Wonder how it's related to the taste of vegetables? In my experience, standard supermarket (Hannaford's, Shaw's) veggies & fruits don't taste as good as (more expensive, often organic) veggies from the local co-op & farmstands. Some of this may be my more discriminating palate; some of this is surely the difference between untravelled local crops and imported from Israel & Spain etc. crops.

Curious.

Anyway, logged on for other reasons entirely, of course, but just interesting...

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( 9 comments — say something! Please! ... or not. )
[info]a_little_bear wrote:
Dec. 12th, 2005 06:53 am (UTC)
it's a simple fact.. the fresher, the better

i have never had vegetables more tasty without any seasoning as i have had fresh from an organic garden

if i had the room and wherewithall to do it myself.. i would make a compact garden of my own.. just for fresh new potatoes and lima beans

yes... lima beans. Fresh off the plant.. they are the most awesomely flavored vegetable ever
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[info]metasilk wrote:
Dec. 13th, 2005 06:17 pm (UTC)
I guess my question is: "Can we taste vitamins?" Taste the presence/absence of micronutrients? Does the breeding of veggies for shelf-life necessarily mean excluding vitamins/losing their genetic ability to uptake and store the elements necessary to be vitamin-rich? How much of this is the changing ability of us to detect and test for stuff?

There are many, many reasons to buy organic and local (in fact, buying local can be better, in an overall environmental impact way, even than buying organic, but both is my preference), not least of which is flavor.

Here are some links for us about this kinda stuff, because I just am a link junkie...
http://www.gardenshare.org/eat_local.html and http://www.gardenshare.org/newsletter_05_4.pdf (for the article by Bill McKibben)
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[info]ruthling wrote:
Dec. 12th, 2005 01:41 pm (UTC)
That's fascinating, and disturbing.
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[info]kyaraelf wrote:
Dec. 12th, 2005 02:02 pm (UTC)
Makes me miss living CA where I went to the farmer's market every other week and bought my fruits and veggies directly from the farms that grew them. Even the produce departments of the local Super Stop & Shop were better than they are here in CT.
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[info]nutmegger wrote:
Dec. 12th, 2005 04:27 pm (UTC)
While the produce here in Connecticut is not as good as it could be, the variety of vegetables and their general quality is enormously better than when I was growing up.

Of course, back then, we shopped at the Grand Union, next to the Caldors (where the Walmart now is), and Clover Farms (the original 'Stew Leonards') just had milk and orange juice.
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[info]metasilk wrote:
Dec. 13th, 2005 06:34 pm (UTC)
True, but even us northeatern yankee types could eat locally, albeit with help from our pantries and greenhouses. Some useful links in thread above: http://www.livejournal.com/users/metasilk/160398.html?thread=353934#t353934
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[info]irilyth wrote:
Dec. 12th, 2005 02:23 pm (UTC)
How much of it is actual change, and how much is measurement error? (Maybe it's all actual change, but it made me wonder. 88% is a pretty large error, though.)
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[info]metasilk wrote:
Dec. 13th, 2005 06:35 pm (UTC)
That's a really good question. I don't know the answer, and haven't had a chance to look yet. Have you?
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( 9 comments — say something! Please! ... or not. )