Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashartus
30% more phytochemicals is not always a good thing - some of those phytochemicals are the pesticides plants produce to defend themselves and can be toxic to humans, which do tend to be in higher concentrations in some organic produce (30% more nutrients, on the other hand, is probably good). I'm also pretty skeptical of any chemical analyses conducted before around 1980 - they tend to show much higher concentrations than what modern analyses show in my experience, due to things like cross-contamination from laboratory equipment and less sophisticated laboratory equipment, so the change in calcium concentrations could be at least partly due to measurement error. That's not to say there hasn't been a change - growing bigger vegetables faster could have some effects on mineral uptake etc. - but if they can't grow plants with 1950's levels of calcium that leads me to believe the 1950's levels weren't real.
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I would imagine soil concentration of calcium would also be of high importance in comparing the two...