i read that post on an other list and wanted to share it with you.
jean-claude
Allan Balliett was here a few weeks ago and asked a question about
juice
quality. Although he didn't pass on the study reproduced below to
this
group, I suspect he would be glad to get any comments from Forum
members.
Obviously, this is a subject that deserves more and more research.
IMHO, studies of this nature, showing not just 10 fold---but
multi-hundred-fold---variation in produce mineral content blow massive
holes in *any* nutritional table put out by government and industry.
If
anyone doesn't believe that the typical government-sanctioned tables
are
total BS, they should seek out a food lab and talk to a scientist.
He/she, if even remotely honest, will candidly admit that mineral
content values are mis-leading averages of all they have tested. The
math is simple: if 99 commercial-crap carrots have 1 mg of 'goodness'
and *1* truly great carrot has 100mg of 'goodness', the published
table
is adjusted to read that "carrots have 1.99mg of goodness."
-----------------------------------------------
<Can any of our [or Forum] Australian readers comment on this study?
-Allan [speaking to BDNow]
From: Chris Alenson <[log in to unmask]
Organization: Organic Advisory Service
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Food nutrition and soil regeneration
I have followed this interesting subject for some time and I am
grateful to Steve Diver and the many respondents for further
references
on the subject.
Our organisation has just completed a study looking at mineral levels
of
four vegetables (silver beet, capsicums, beans and tomatoes) to see
whether soil manipulation could improve the nutritional
characteristics
of these vegetables. Equivalent vegetables from a supermarket were
also
analysed.
The hypothesis was based on the observation that consumers purchase
fruit and vegetables from supermarkets and stores on the assumption
that
they are providing them with sound nutrition. They do not necessarily
know the variety or where or how they are grown. Our belief is that
despite its often glossy wonderful appearance food today is not
delivering the range of nutrient elements that it should. The taste is
often very average.
We all know that many factors in the production process can affect the
ultimate nutrition of the crop, ie fertility management, variety,
stage
of ripening, post harvest chemical treatment, storage, etc
We concentrated on the production end of the supply chain.
The soil that the trial vegetables were grown on is a degraded
volcanic
soil pH of 4.5 low in nutrient elements such as calcium, magnesium,
potassium and trace elements. It is in fact in the last stages of the
weathering cycle with aluminium and iron oxides and hydoxides evident
in
the mineral fraction (X-ray diffraction was used to analyse the
mineral
components). Analysis indicates that the cation exchange minerals are
scarce (supported by a low CEC in the soil analysis) and humus is low,
meaning that storage of plant nutrients for ready access for plant
roots
is also low.
This soil was revitalised with rock dust(basalt) and specific
prescription mineral fertiliser containing calcium, magnesium,
potassium, phosphorus and trace elements, a zeolite mineral added to
increase the exchange capacity and good quality compost added to
increase the biological activity of the soil and to aid in
mobilisation
of nutrients from the minerals added.
It should be emphasised that this was not a replicated plot experiment
and the results are only an indication and not a direct comparative
study. The trial is however sufficient to illustrate that replenishing
a
depleted soil with the correct minerals will result in mineral rich
foods. A lot more work needs to be done in this area and to expand the
nutrient elements to include more mineral elements, proteins, amino
acids, phytochemicals, etc. When we examined the analytical results
from
the vegetables grown on the revitalised soils and the supermarket
items
mineral levels were often ten times higher on the revitalised soil.
Australian soils as many people would know are very old and fragile
requiring careful treatment. Our results indicate that perhaps
conventional management supplying only a limited number of nutrients
through synthetic fertilisers and not replenishing organic matter may
not be providing the nutrition that Australian consumers believe to be
the case. I believe it was Wm Albrecht that said production levels
continued well after quality diminished. Perhaps we are seeing this in
Australia at the present time?
We hope this limited study will stimulate further research.
Results are below:
beans tomatoes capsicum silver beet
calcium S 40 6.7 4.7 6
O 480 67 84 1600
potassium S 260 200 150 450
O 1900 300 1600 2600
magnesium S 26 10 11 69
O 240 89 700 1700
sodium S <1 2.4 <1 180
O <10 26 20 1800
iron S .6 <.5 <.5 1.4
O <5 <5 <5 9.4
zinc S .38 .19 .13 .57
O 3.4 1.2 2.5 130
mg/kg
S-supermarket produce
O-organic/revitalised soil
I hope this table reproduces so readers can follow the results.
Chris Alenson
Technica Adviser
Organic Advisory Service
Organic Retailears & Growers Association of Australia
email [log in to unmask]
------------------------------------------------------------
A footnote here: if I had served as farm advisor for this experiment,
I
would have insisted on a true balancing of the soil before starting
and
also recommended that the crop receive appropriate foliar feeding
while
growing. Translation: as good as the organic results were, I feel
confident they could have been significantly improved with just a
little
work.
Regards,
Rex Harrill
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