Study suggests nutrient decline in garden crops over pas...( ture practices are affecting food crops...)

"We conclude that the most likely explanation was changes in cultivated varieties used today compared to 50 years ago," Davis said. "During those 50 years, there have been intensive efforts to breed new varieties that have greater yield, or resistance to pests, or adaptability to different climates. But the dominant effort is for higher yields. Emerging evidence suggests that when you select for yield, crops grow bigger and faster, but they don't necessarily have the ability to make or uptake nutrients at the same, faster rate."

According to Davis, these results suggest a need for research into other important nutrients and foods that provide significant dietary calories, such as grains, legumes, meat, milk and eggs.

"Perhaps more worrisome would be declines in nutrients we could not study because they were not reported in 1950 -- magnesium, zinc, vitamin B-6, vitamin E and dietary fiber, not to mention phytochemicals," Davis said. "I hope our paper will encourage additional studies in which old and new crop varieties are studied side-by-side and measured by modern methods."

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Contact: Barbra Rodriguez
brodriguez@mail.utexas.edu
512-232-0675
University of Texas at Austin
1-Dec-2004