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Foods less and less nutritious - and government is sleeping.
Kind regards
Sepp
http://foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=65593
Plummeting mineral levels suggest nutritional crisis in UK
By Anthony Fletcher
03/02/2006 - The plummeting mineral content of milk, meat and
vegetables over the past 60 years will have grave consequences for the
future health of the UK, according to a shocking food analysis.
Dr David Thomas, a primary healthcare practitioner and independent
researcher, made a comparison of government tables published in 1940,
and again in 2002.
His conclusions, which were published by the Food Commission this
month, make alarming reading.
For example, the iron content in 15 different varieties of meat had
decreased on average by 47 per cent, with some products showing a fall
as high as 80 per cent, while the iron content of milk had dropped by
over 60 per cent.
Copper and magnesium, essential for enzyme functioning, also showed
losses in meat products. Magnesium levels have typically fallen by 10
per cent while copper levels have fallen by 60 per cent.
Dairy foods have experienced a 90 per cent fall in copper, while the
calcium loss in high-value Parmesan cheese was an extraordinary 70 per
cent, implying a considerable dilution of the original highly
concentrated recipe.
"Processed and manufactured food has resulted in increasingly
denatured products, with no micronutrients," Thomas told
FoodNavigator. "As time has gone on, things have got lost.
"With the current obesity crisis, lo and behold; people are beginning
to realise that good food makes good sense."
But the default meal for many children remains a plate of rendered
meat, chips and Coke.
"We're beginning to see what was once called adult onset diabetes in
kids, and an increase in asthma and hyperactivity," said Thomas. "All
these have nutritional links. When I see chronic illnesses such as
these, I always think it is amazing what a difference changing diets
can do but why shouldn't it be like this in the first place?"
Intensive farming on exhausted land appears to be one likely major
cause of the decline in the nutritional quality of the food, along
with the selection of varieties for qualities other than nutrition.
Thomas points out that the food industry is also under intense
pressure to produce cheaper food, instead of nutrient-dense food.
"Why is it that you have to eat four carrots to get the same amount of
magnesium as you would have done in 1940?" he asks.
The UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA), which publishes The Composition
of Food, points out that the use the government tables to make
historical comparisons could be problematic. It said in a statement
that any differences over time could be due to a wide variety of
factors, including variety and breed, animal husbandry, storage
conditions as well as differences in analytical methodology.
But statistics clearly show that there is something seriously wrong
with levels of nutritional awareness in Europe. The European
Commission says that 14 million Europeans are now obese or overweight,
of which more than 3 million are children.
"We've lost the plot," insists Thomas. "Until people wake up to this
situation, then things will get worse."
Food, says Thomas, has to be grown well in order for it to be
micronutrient dense. This concept should inform government policies
across Europe.
"But the only people interested in this at the moment seem to be
celebrities," he added.
The individual is supreme and finds its way through intuition.
Sepp Hasslberger
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