Scarcity of Minerals and Vitamins in Our Food

Veggie Nutrients Dip in Tests

Some Blame Environment; USDA Says Better Tests a Factor

Washington - No one is sure why, but government records of vitamins and minerals in a sampling of vegetables show the level of nutrients has gone down over two decades, some dramatically. The little publicized changes in broccoli, cauliflower and other vegetables are prompting suspicion by some in organic gardening and vegetarian circles that a changing environment could be affecting the produce Americans eat. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while acknowledging that its own data indicate a decline, says it is just as likely that testing techniques for measuring vitamins A and C, and calcium and iron, among other nutrients, have simply become more accurate, making the old data wrong.

" It's rather difficult to attribute the change to any one factor." says David Haytowitz, the USDA nutritionist whose job is to keep information on vegetable vitamins and minerals. " I'm not saying it's one or the other." says Joanne Holden, the research leader of the USDA's Nutrition Data Laboratory in Beltsville, MD. " I'm just saying that we can't avoid looking at all of these things." Haytowitz says there is no way to be certain because it is impossible to retest the onions, collards and other vegetables that show changes in nutrients over the last 25 years. Those vegetables or ones from the same crop, have long since been destroyed or eaten. But testing methods have improved substantially, he said, so the laboratory's goal is to focus on better analysis. The governments approach does not satisfy Alex Jack, a Massachusetts author, editor and advocate of natural food diets. Jack was updating a book: " Healing Food." with the latest USDA nutrition information when he first noticed changes between figures published by the government in 1973 and 1997. " My best guess is that this was environmental, part of the large environmental crisis - Food quality, air quality, water quality, sea quality. " Jack said. " I don't have definite proof, but I think that government and our representatives should be looking into this." Jack published his findings in "One Peaceful World." his newsletter advocating a macrobiotic diet, in the spring of 1998. Anne Marie Mayer, a British nutritionist now working on a doctorate at Cornell University, had found similar decline in England during research that began in 1995. No one else appears have done such an analysis.

Jack randomly selected 12 vegetables to check nutrients: broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, collards, daikon, kale, mustard greens, onions, parsley, turnip greens and watercress. Comparing data published in a nutrition handbook in 1975 with data on the Internet in 1997, he found that the amount of calcium reported for raw broccoli - the kind sold at supermarkets - had declined by 53 percent. Broccoli also had 38 percent less vitamin A, 48 percent less riboflavin, 35 percent less thiamine and 29 percent less niacin. Similar declines were found for the other vegetables. The measurements were for 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of each uncooked vegetable, the equivalent of one-third to one-half a cup. For more information

The above text was published in the OMAHA WORLD-HERALD on Saturday, January 29, 2000