Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status(ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Challenges in the diagnosis of magnesium status
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/
411 comments
I wonder if there's a relationship to the obesity epidemic, especially since it's not just humans that are getting larger but also lab animals, pets, and wild animals living close to humans [1]. What if we're compelled to eat more calories when we're not getting enough nutrients in our diets? This would impact any animals consuming lower quality fruits and vegetables.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628
> What if we're compelled to eat more calories when we're not getting enough nutrients in our diets?
From what is starting to be known about hunger drives from animal studies [1] this is essentially correct.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221457451...
From what is starting to be known about hunger drives from animal studies [1] this is essentially correct.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221457451...
Completely unscientific - but when you see programs on TV about people that eat a lot, the food tends to be highly processed and low in nutrients, I've been wondering the same thing.
> the food tends to be highly processed and low in nutrients
This type of food is - coincidentally - always extremely high in calories.
But the relationship is orthogonal. You can make processed non-nutritious food that is low in calories, and you can make healthy food that is high in calories. The former happens rarely.
This type of food is - coincidentally - always extremely high in calories.
But the relationship is orthogonal. You can make processed non-nutritious food that is low in calories, and you can make healthy food that is high in calories. The former happens rarely.
this is wat I eat, high calory, cheap, and very nutritious:
breakfast:
6 raw eggs lemon juice (1 lemon, squeezed) 378 calories in total, of which 227 are fat and 144 protein. just enough sugar to help you digest it without bloat. awesome anabolic effects from the eggs.
lunch: 6 raw eggs 200ml whole unhomogenised milk (raw if possible) similar effect but even more anabolic
dinner: 200-300g of fresh steak (beef) cooked blue. can be replaced with lamb or other nutritious meats, but certainly not chicken breast which has nearly no nutritional value whatsoever compared to something like sardines
6 raw eggs lemon juice (1 lemon, squeezed) 378 calories in total, of which 227 are fat and 144 protein. just enough sugar to help you digest it without bloat. awesome anabolic effects from the eggs.
lunch: 6 raw eggs 200ml whole unhomogenised milk (raw if possible) similar effect but even more anabolic
dinner: 200-300g of fresh steak (beef) cooked blue. can be replaced with lamb or other nutritious meats, but certainly not chicken breast which has nearly no nutritional value whatsoever compared to something like sardines
Where do you get your eggs? Or is the salmonella part of the weight control?
i get them from a warehouse in asia where they're left in the yard in the sun all day in 30c heat. there is no problem whatsoever
salmonella is a problem of industrial farming
salmonella is a problem of industrial farming
I'm always quite scared of salmonella, so I tend to overcook everything with eggs in it, be it pudding or some pasta sauce -- mostly scared for my 3 year old daughter, I've lived on a subsistence farm and used A LOT of raw eggs and never got any issues.
I wish there was a salmonella vaccine for humans and be done with it, because raw-ish eggs can be quite delicious.
I wish there was a salmonella vaccine for humans and be done with it, because raw-ish eggs can be quite delicious.
a dozen eggs a day and you’re getting what, 6x daily cholesterol intake?
Don't know how people are STILL concerned about egg intake. The science has been out for over a decade at this point.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-3010...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-3010...
Probably because this article:
1) Doesn’t say it has no effect, it has “clinically insignificant especially when compared to saturated fat”. Not the same as no effect.
2) “ However, in the minds of the public, cholesterol in the diet, specifically from eggs, continues to be viewed with suspicion and that view is still reflected in the advice of some professionals.”
Professionals are still telling people to reduce cholesterol intake when your blood results show high cholesterol. How many people do you think spend every waking hour scouring for new health articles?
This is also just one study, maybe let’s not invalidate the many years of people reducing cholesterol intake to reduce cholesterol so quickly?
1) Doesn’t say it has no effect, it has “clinically insignificant especially when compared to saturated fat”. Not the same as no effect.
2) “ However, in the minds of the public, cholesterol in the diet, specifically from eggs, continues to be viewed with suspicion and that view is still reflected in the advice of some professionals.”
Professionals are still telling people to reduce cholesterol intake when your blood results show high cholesterol. How many people do you think spend every waking hour scouring for new health articles?
This is also just one study, maybe let’s not invalidate the many years of people reducing cholesterol intake to reduce cholesterol so quickly?
That's because you can't get super fat without either a lot of hard work or by eating calorie dense, processed foods.
Most foods found in nature will fill you up long before you can eat enough to gain hundreds of pounds.
Most foods found in nature will fill you up long before you can eat enough to gain hundreds of pounds.
You don’t need to gain hundreds of pounds to be obese, 30 pounds will put you over the line just the same.
I was fat and had serious joint and muscle pain and major migraines.
I started taking high levels of magnesium. My joints and muscles improved drastically. Migraines cut in half.
I became able to exercise a lot more. I’m still fairly fat because I eat to much. Plus side effects of other medications.
But I’m a lot stronger now since I can work out so much more.
Best trick of all. Stop eating sugar / carbs.
I started taking high levels of magnesium. My joints and muscles improved drastically. Migraines cut in half.
I became able to exercise a lot more. I’m still fairly fat because I eat to much. Plus side effects of other medications.
But I’m a lot stronger now since I can work out so much more.
Best trick of all. Stop eating sugar / carbs.
That's great! Re: "high levels" Specifically how much?
It seems highly plausible to me that that's part of the story.
Another part of the story is that modern food is designed to be super-tasty: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
Another part of the story is that modern food is designed to be super-tasty: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
>That's why I don't have an iPhone, for example; the last thing I want is for the Internet to follow me out into the world.
I wonder how long that lasted
I wonder how long that lasted
I’ve been saying this since my nutrition lecture said it in 2003, and he’d been saying it for at least two decayed before that.
If you don’t get enough chromium and molybdenum your body can’t properly regular blood glucose control via insulin sensitivity, protein, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism.
If you don’t get enough chromium and molybdenum your body can’t properly regular blood glucose control via insulin sensitivity, protein, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism.
Like that could be contributor, but also don't forget how many calories some refined and processed foods can have also while either being sweet or fatty/savory.
Does sound like interesting hypothesis though.
Does sound like interesting hypothesis though.
[deleted]
Anecdotally, this has been my personal experience. I have gone through phases of my life where I ate a lot of junk food. I would feel constantly hungry during those phases, until I ate something nutritious, green and easily-digestible, like steamed broccoli or green peas.
This doesn’t make any scientific sense. Study after study has shown that protein and complex carbs are what reduces feelings of hunger, not vegetables.
This makes sense when you consider most green vegetables like broccoli are 90% water. A meat like chicken, after cooking is only about 60% water.
So if you eat 400g of broccoli vs 400g of chicken, the one that will make you feel more full is obviously the protein.
What’s more likely, is due to marketing we’ve associated anything that is green in color with being “real, nutritious food” and have convinced ourselves that is what makes us feel full.
It’s like people who claim they “feel better” after eating a salad. The average iceberg lettuce has near zero nutritional value and is 96%+ water.
The only way you’d feel better after eating one is if you were dehydrated.
-- *edit - people seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not saying fast food is healthy. I'm simply refuting the idea that green vegetables are the key to feeling full. If you wanted to feel satiated, green vegetables would be one of the most inefficient ways to do so--due to their 90%+ water content.
This makes sense when you consider most green vegetables like broccoli are 90% water. A meat like chicken, after cooking is only about 60% water.
So if you eat 400g of broccoli vs 400g of chicken, the one that will make you feel more full is obviously the protein.
What’s more likely, is due to marketing we’ve associated anything that is green in color with being “real, nutritious food” and have convinced ourselves that is what makes us feel full.
It’s like people who claim they “feel better” after eating a salad. The average iceberg lettuce has near zero nutritional value and is 96%+ water.
The only way you’d feel better after eating one is if you were dehydrated.
-- *edit - people seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not saying fast food is healthy. I'm simply refuting the idea that green vegetables are the key to feeling full. If you wanted to feel satiated, green vegetables would be one of the most inefficient ways to do so--due to their 90%+ water content.
I did clearly state that it was an anecdote, with a sample size of one, myself.
Also I think you're being extremely reductionist here. I'm not claiming that I never felt the sensation of fullness in my stomach. Of course I did. Maybe I should rephrase, that I constantly felt like I was craving food even though my stomach was full.
Moreover, to suggest that our brains somehow only understand macronutrients when it comes to regulating our sense of hunger, is ridiculous. You really think that people feeling better after eating broccoli is because they have been brainwashed by the marketing of the vegetable-industrial complex? is it really that outlandish to hypothesize that eating nutritious food makes you feel better?
Of course it would be fallacious to generalize my experience to other people, if only because I myself hardly understand what was going on. But it would be equally fallacious, not to mention arrogant, to dismiss that such an effect might exist, on the grounds that we did some controlled studies and found that hungry people feel more satisfied after eating something substatial.
Also I think you're being extremely reductionist here. I'm not claiming that I never felt the sensation of fullness in my stomach. Of course I did. Maybe I should rephrase, that I constantly felt like I was craving food even though my stomach was full.
Moreover, to suggest that our brains somehow only understand macronutrients when it comes to regulating our sense of hunger, is ridiculous. You really think that people feeling better after eating broccoli is because they have been brainwashed by the marketing of the vegetable-industrial complex? is it really that outlandish to hypothesize that eating nutritious food makes you feel better?
Of course it would be fallacious to generalize my experience to other people, if only because I myself hardly understand what was going on. But it would be equally fallacious, not to mention arrogant, to dismiss that such an effect might exist, on the grounds that we did some controlled studies and found that hungry people feel more satisfied after eating something substatial.
There's more to it -- there's a considerable delay between your stomach being full to your brain telling you you're full.
I can eat one pound of icecream in one go before I feel that I'm done, or 1/3 of that, tell myself I can eat the rest in 15 minutes IF I still feel the need to at that future time, and I usually don't -- sort of like the reverse of telling myself I'll only work 5 minutes on that boring task I don't want to, but usually I work through it all.
My unscientific point being, there's no way the brain can tell I've eaten 1/3 meat and 2/3 salad vs 3/3 meat in the span of 15 minutes; sure, it will digest the salad much faster, but by that time I'm already doing other things that don't involve me stuffing my face with food; I've found that with food, if you can resist the urge to eat more for 15 minutes, and don't have snacks just laying around you, you actually solved 90% of your overeating problem. SO in my experience, eating broccoli/salad, or just drinking water, absolutely do work to make you full/less hungry, for a short while at least, but that short duration should not be underestimated, because a lot of times is all that is required for one to stick to a caloric limit.
I can eat one pound of icecream in one go before I feel that I'm done, or 1/3 of that, tell myself I can eat the rest in 15 minutes IF I still feel the need to at that future time, and I usually don't -- sort of like the reverse of telling myself I'll only work 5 minutes on that boring task I don't want to, but usually I work through it all.
My unscientific point being, there's no way the brain can tell I've eaten 1/3 meat and 2/3 salad vs 3/3 meat in the span of 15 minutes; sure, it will digest the salad much faster, but by that time I'm already doing other things that don't involve me stuffing my face with food; I've found that with food, if you can resist the urge to eat more for 15 minutes, and don't have snacks just laying around you, you actually solved 90% of your overeating problem. SO in my experience, eating broccoli/salad, or just drinking water, absolutely do work to make you full/less hungry, for a short while at least, but that short duration should not be underestimated, because a lot of times is all that is required for one to stick to a caloric limit.
> there's no way the brain can tell I've eaten 1/3 meat and 2/3 salad vs 3/3 meat in the span of 15 minutes
Again, I think this is trusting too much in "today's science". Who's to say that your body/brain can't detect whether a food is nutritious? For all we know, some trace nutrients are subconsciously detectable in taste and smell, even if heuristically.
I'm not saying that is what happens, but I don't think we know nearly enough to dismiss such a possibility.
Again, I think this is trusting too much in "today's science". Who's to say that your body/brain can't detect whether a food is nutritious? For all we know, some trace nutrients are subconsciously detectable in taste and smell, even if heuristically.
I'm not saying that is what happens, but I don't think we know nearly enough to dismiss such a possibility.
Yes, proteins and carbs reduce feelings of hunger. But nutrient deficiencies cause food cravings. That's why people who eat high-calorie meals with few vitamins and minerals tend to overeat, they satiate their hunger but the cravings remain.
If that were true, you could solve your cravings by taking a simple multivitamin. Which just isn’t the case unless you’re critically deficient in something (which, most 1st world people aren’t). Eating fast food 3 meals a day but taking a multivitamin will change nothing about your feelings of hunger.
What’s more likely, is fast food doesn’t make you feel full because its low in protein (the most expensive ingredient typically, so fast food skimps on it) and high in simple carbs.
What’s more likely, is fast food doesn’t make you feel full because its low in protein (the most expensive ingredient typically, so fast food skimps on it) and high in simple carbs.
You can't model a complex biological system as a simple flow-balancing problem of a few substances that have no effect on one another.
> Study after study has shown that protein and carbs are what reduces feelings of hunger
Proteins and fat you mean?
Also, incidentally, water do quench hunger as well. My trick to eat less when i was overweight was to drink a lot during meals.
Proteins and fat you mean?
Also, incidentally, water do quench hunger as well. My trick to eat less when i was overweight was to drink a lot during meals.
Also in my experience, proteins & fat reduce the feelings of hunger, not carbs.
If I eat at breakfast in the morning 140 g turkey breast + 70 g cashew nuts + 3 sweet potatoes + 1 bell pepper, then I feel perfectly satiated and I feel no hunger until late in the evening, when I have next meal. Deleting either the turkey breast or the cashew nuts from that breakfast menu, makes me hungry much earlier.
On the other hand, if I eat just bread, I have to eat a very large quantity, e.g. 1 kilogram, until I feel satiated due to the full stomach, and then after a few hours I feel hungry again.
There are many kinds of food, like bread, vanilla or cocoa cream and many others, which I like very much, but which do not satiate me unless eaten in huge quantities, so I have given up on eating those kinds of food, because it is much easier to not eat them at all than to stop after eating just a small quantity.
If I eat at breakfast in the morning 140 g turkey breast + 70 g cashew nuts + 3 sweet potatoes + 1 bell pepper, then I feel perfectly satiated and I feel no hunger until late in the evening, when I have next meal. Deleting either the turkey breast or the cashew nuts from that breakfast menu, makes me hungry much earlier.
On the other hand, if I eat just bread, I have to eat a very large quantity, e.g. 1 kilogram, until I feel satiated due to the full stomach, and then after a few hours I feel hungry again.
There are many kinds of food, like bread, vanilla or cocoa cream and many others, which I like very much, but which do not satiate me unless eaten in huge quantities, so I have given up on eating those kinds of food, because it is much easier to not eat them at all than to stop after eating just a small quantity.
> most green vegetables like broccoli are 90% water.
That's super misleading. The nutrition facts for broccoli here [1] gives 89% water but actually over 1/3rd of broccoli by mass is carbs, fats, proteins or fibers. And comparing raw broccoli to cooked chicken is deceptive - cooking broccoli obviously gets rid of a lot of it's water depending on how you cook. Moreover, comparing gram-to-gram, I'm sure broccoli is less filling, but a lot of people care more about calorie-to-calorie.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/broccoli#nutrient...
That's super misleading. The nutrition facts for broccoli here [1] gives 89% water but actually over 1/3rd of broccoli by mass is carbs, fats, proteins or fibers. And comparing raw broccoli to cooked chicken is deceptive - cooking broccoli obviously gets rid of a lot of it's water depending on how you cook. Moreover, comparing gram-to-gram, I'm sure broccoli is less filling, but a lot of people care more about calorie-to-calorie.
[1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/broccoli#nutrient...
Raw chicken with skin on is 66% water, so I wouldn't call it super misleading. I simply mentioned "cooked" because almost nobody eats chicken raw. Lots of people eat raw broccoli.
Boiling or steaming broccoli does basically nothing to its water content. Baking it may reduce by 10%. So still 20% more water than the protein.
Anyways, the water point was brought up to give something intuitive to grasp on to.
As said, the main reason eating one chicken breast makes you feel more full than multiple servings of broccoli, is the 55g of protein.
So adding broccoli to your fast food won't suddenly make you feel full. Dumping the fast food altogether and eating a chicken breast instead might.
Boiling or steaming broccoli does basically nothing to its water content. Baking it may reduce by 10%. So still 20% more water than the protein.
Anyways, the water point was brought up to give something intuitive to grasp on to.
As said, the main reason eating one chicken breast makes you feel more full than multiple servings of broccoli, is the 55g of protein.
So adding broccoli to your fast food won't suddenly make you feel full. Dumping the fast food altogether and eating a chicken breast instead might.
I was saying that "90% water" stat is super misleading because it makes it sound like <10% is anything of value, but that's off by a factor of 3. Baking absolutely makes a bigger than 10% water loss by mass in broccoli, and that would of course double the non-water fraction even if it were only 10%.
But the point is, it doesn't matter how much water there is. No one is wondering whether they'll feel more full on 100g of chicken or 100g of broccoli. Anyone trying to control weight would ask about 100 calories of broccoli versus 100g of chicken. I don't know what the answer there is, but they're probably comparable. A head of broccoli is just 205 calories but still contains 17g protein and 16g of fiber. Equivalent calorie chicken breast would be like 40g protein and no fiber. Both are healthy food choices unless you deep fry them or something. You're making lots of fast-and-loose comparisons here that are simply misleading. (Why is the comparison broccoli + fast food versus just chicken? Why do you suddenly switch to talking about iceberg lettuce? Why pretend that broccoli isn't a healthy food that is substantially more satiating than fast food - as is chicken?)
But the point is, it doesn't matter how much water there is. No one is wondering whether they'll feel more full on 100g of chicken or 100g of broccoli. Anyone trying to control weight would ask about 100 calories of broccoli versus 100g of chicken. I don't know what the answer there is, but they're probably comparable. A head of broccoli is just 205 calories but still contains 17g protein and 16g of fiber. Equivalent calorie chicken breast would be like 40g protein and no fiber. Both are healthy food choices unless you deep fry them or something. You're making lots of fast-and-loose comparisons here that are simply misleading. (Why is the comparison broccoli + fast food versus just chicken? Why do you suddenly switch to talking about iceberg lettuce? Why pretend that broccoli isn't a healthy food that is substantially more satiating than fast food - as is chicken?)
>> So if you eat 400g of broccoli vs 400g of chicken, the one that will make you feel more full is obviously the protein.
The idea under discussion is that the thing that will make you feel more full is the food that has what you're deficient in. That makes sense, and evolution tends to do things that make sense.
The idea under discussion is that the thing that will make you feel more full is the food that has what you're deficient in. That makes sense, and evolution tends to do things that make sense.
Phytochemicals found in some veggies and spices increase immune and other functions. Even if it's 90% water, there are still many functional compounds that aren't found in meat.
Mushrooms are a fascinating bunch to look at regarding this. There are many chemicals in them that are being studied around the immune system, anti-tumor properties, and health in general.
The human body is complex and ultimately poorly understood. These studies typically focus on short-term hunger cues which aren't necessarily indicative of why someone can happily eat 1 meal a day and someone else feels compelled to eat mcdonalds 3x per day.
Anecdotally, If I have a deficiency I'll keep snacking/eating until I've found something that satisfies the deficiency or I'm completely full. Eating to fullness 3x per day or more is a great way to gain a ton of weight.
Anecdotally, If I have a deficiency I'll keep snacking/eating until I've found something that satisfies the deficiency or I'm completely full. Eating to fullness 3x per day or more is a great way to gain a ton of weight.
Volume is important for feeling full. For sure protein really helps, that's well-studied. But low-calorie-density high-nutrient density foods (like veggies) can really hit the spot and help satiety. And yes, people do get a lot of water from veggie intake, actually!
Or…you know…vegetables have fiber and meat doesn’t?
Fiber is certainly important, but try eating a diet of only broccoli one day vs a diet of only chicken the next.
You’ll likely feel normal on the chicken day. On the broccoli day you’ll feel like you’re fasting (because on a calorie basis, you literally will be unless you eat 5-7X as much broccoli as you do chicken).
You’ll likely feel normal on the chicken day. On the broccoli day you’ll feel like you’re fasting (because on a calorie basis, you literally will be unless you eat 5-7X as much broccoli as you do chicken).
You’re being disingenuous.
The conversation started about nutrient depleted junk food vs whole foods.
And now you’re comparing two different types of whole foods.
The conversation started about nutrient depleted junk food vs whole foods.
And now you’re comparing two different types of whole foods.
The comment I directly replied to here suggested fiber was the reason for feeling full.
Fiber can certainly help with feeling full as it takes longer to digest, however fiber alone cannot satiate.
Meanwhile, a diet completely devoid of fiber can still make you feel full.
Fiber can certainly help with feeling full as it takes longer to digest, however fiber alone cannot satiate.
Meanwhile, a diet completely devoid of fiber can still make you feel full.
Just quietly, you need to update your knowledge.
Look in to, at the very least, how chromium and molybdenum help regular homeostasis via insulin sensitivity and macronutrient metabolism.
Look in to, at the very least, how chromium and molybdenum help regular homeostasis via insulin sensitivity and macronutrient metabolism.
Far satiates much more than carbs
Salad (nothing but vegetables) has the effect of increasing mechanical fullness before a meal.
Plain, boiled potatoes cause the most satiety.
Oranges and oatmeal are also good.
Plain, boiled potatoes cause the most satiety.
Oranges and oatmeal are also good.
Pretty widely known effect of sugars on the body. The more simple, processed carbs you eat, the more hunger you feel. Easy enough to test out: stop all simple carbs for 2-4 weeks, observe the results. If you're deep into carbs or junk food, there will be withdrawal symptoms from the sugar addiction. After a month, you'll notice you don't crave any sugars, and you'll feel significantly less hungry on a regular basis.
Sibling poster is unnecessarily certain. Craving and satiety is not going to be well covered by macronutrient RDAs. There are interactions in the small intestine related to digesting plant fiber that produce serotonin, for example. I could find details on request.
> I wonder if there's a relationship to the obesity epidemic
You don't have to wonder. Read the inside story of that epidemic in this beautifully researched history by Michael Moss:
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giats Hooked Us by Michael Moss
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar-fat
You don't have to wonder. Read the inside story of that epidemic in this beautifully researched history by Michael Moss:
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giats Hooked Us by Michael Moss
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar-fat
Interesting. I recently started using Magnesium Glycinate as a supplement and I feel it truly changed my life, not exaggerating. I’ve suffered from chronic general anxiety for most of my teens and adult life. Magnesium has completely cleared this up, things I thought were just part of my personality (being anxious and other associated things) were actually due to a chronic magnesium deficiency. I just have to make sure I get a decent amount of calcium in my diet (via canned mackerel mostly) to avoid muscle twitches from the magnesium.
I have been heavy dosing magnesium (glycinate, citrate) for years and am still a nervous wreck. Your mileage may vary.
I’ve recently switched to magnesium L-Threonate which has shown to be far more effective at being absorbed by the brain and I’ve found myself far less anxious in social situations.
The L-Threonate compound was developed at MIT specifically for better brain absorption. Source: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/96066/Slutsky...
The L-Threonate compound was developed at MIT specifically for better brain absorption. Source: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/96066/Slutsky...
I found that mag l-threonate helps me fall asleep after an anxious afternoon/night but I'm groggy in the morning. Also, I've read anecdotal reports that after a couple of weeks of regular use, the effect flattens out (sorry, too lazy to search for those reports) and one has to take a break for the effect to return. Have you noticed anything along those lines?
For me, the effect is less (or possibly just less noticable) after a few weeks. But some coffee or tea gets me going pretty quickly and the effects wear off.
I've always been a slow morning person, so 30-60 minutes to start feeling normal is on par for me, so it doesn't really affect my timetable, but you may have a different schedule in mind.
My morning bowel movements when I take magnesium l-threonate are amazing, however, which used to slow me down even more on a typical morning.
I've always been a slow morning person, so 30-60 minutes to start feeling normal is on par for me, so it doesn't really affect my timetable, but you may have a different schedule in mind.
My morning bowel movements when I take magnesium l-threonate are amazing, however, which used to slow me down even more on a typical morning.
If you're interested in testing a further nutritional approach, I suggest the stack suggested by the late great Charles Poliquin.
The stack: https://www.facebook.com/StrengthSenseiInc/videos/anxiety-so... (sorry for FB link)
Background on Poliquin: https://tim.blog/2015/07/21/charles-poliquin/
The stack: https://www.facebook.com/StrengthSenseiInc/videos/anxiety-so... (sorry for FB link)
Background on Poliquin: https://tim.blog/2015/07/21/charles-poliquin/
The RDA on Magnesium is almost never there on multivitamin formulas and so should be added separatedly, I can't really feel that (significantly) it helps for anxiety or jittery though, same goes for theanine, in fact theanine makes my jittery/anxiety worse. Best for jittery/anxiety is taurine, at around 2 grams per each 100mg of caffeine, YMMV.
I've noted overall anxiety got noteacible better when I added DHEA, I'd guess due to changes in the cortisol to DHEA ratio.
I've noted overall anxiety got noteacible better when I added DHEA, I'd guess due to changes in the cortisol to DHEA ratio.
This NIH info may be useful for people looking for RDAs:
"Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Fact Sheets" [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-VitaminsMinerals/]
For example, the Mg page lists RDA's by sex and age: [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-Consumer/]
It recommends 400-420mg/d for adult males, 310-320 for women (matches the # on my MVM container)
(I found this quickly by starting at the MedlinePlus front page, recommended to me by an Info specialist at a major medical center. Well laid-out readable access to a lot of vetted info from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.)
[https://medlineplus.gov/]
"Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Fact Sheets" [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-VitaminsMinerals/]
For example, the Mg page lists RDA's by sex and age: [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-Consumer/]
It recommends 400-420mg/d for adult males, 310-320 for women (matches the # on my MVM container)
(I found this quickly by starting at the MedlinePlus front page, recommended to me by an Info specialist at a major medical center. Well laid-out readable access to a lot of vetted info from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.)
[https://medlineplus.gov/]
Oh that’s interesting! I bet that’s why I can’t tolerate coffee but the caffeine + taurine in Monster and Red Bull are fantastic for giving me energy.
Thanks for the taurine tip. I've always enjoyed the red bull sensation more than coffee. Never thought taurine would be neuro-active enough, but I'm revisiting that idea.
Theanine is great with caffeine also. I just spoon it in 200-400mg into my coffee.
Theanine is great with caffeine also. I just spoon it in 200-400mg into my coffee.
Chiming in to second this.
I've had anxiety problems most of my life, and when a death in the family shook everything it got really, really bad.
I tried everything I could think of except prescription meds (maybe should have, but I didn't like the side effects or addictive potential) and one day while lurking I read a random comment on HN about magnesium.
I decided, Why not, its cheap, and it has had a truly profound effect on my life, among the generally healthy choices I started to make. It took a little time, but it worked a LOT and the muscle spasms and cramps subsided too!
I can't believe sometimes how different my life has become.
I've had anxiety problems most of my life, and when a death in the family shook everything it got really, really bad.
I tried everything I could think of except prescription meds (maybe should have, but I didn't like the side effects or addictive potential) and one day while lurking I read a random comment on HN about magnesium.
I decided, Why not, its cheap, and it has had a truly profound effect on my life, among the generally healthy choices I started to make. It took a little time, but it worked a LOT and the muscle spasms and cramps subsided too!
I can't believe sometimes how different my life has become.
Yup, I started taking Mg supplements for cramping during climbing and it worked. It also stopped my depressive moods.
What type of muscle spasms were you having? My spouse has high anxiety, some depression, and a persistent issue of localized muscle spasms or twitches in her arm when their anxiety is extra high.
It was a twitching of muscles in my upper arm such as triceps usually, sometimes forearms, sometimes calf muscles and facial muscles around the eyes. It didn't cause pain but it was annoying and a little troubling. The light twitching would just go on an on for hours, every 5-15 seconds seemingly unending. I recall my cat batting at the back of my arm while sitting on my back balcony one morning. I think it was wiggling a loose thread on my shirt.
It didn't really seem to follow any logic, except I noticed alcohol made them worse. Alcohol also caused an increase in anxiety in the following days. I also experienced symptoms of depression. It was a very dark time.
There was definitely more going on than just magnesium but it wasn't until I tried the magnesium that I had any breakthrough.
Good luck. Another poster in these comments mentioned that you can get non-prescription testing for magnesium and other markers from Walk-In Labs ( https://www.walkinlab.com/ ) if you want to go that route. I also know there are doctors out there that will work with this kind of medicine, but I don't know too much about that. Magnesium is pretty safe, but I understand there is some possibility for problems with taking too much.
I genuinely wish you the greatest success, I'm confident that with careful, thoughtful effort along with your loving support, your spouse can start to feel better.
Maybe consider meditation too? Box breathing[0][1] is an often recommended technique for this sort of thing.
Dr. Andrew Huberman[3] recommends a breathing technique, I cant remember what he calls it, but is easily performed to counteract sympathetic nervous stress: Breath in sharply through the nose, quickly to about half capacity Once, brief pause, followed by a second sharp inhalation through the nose to mostly full capacity, brief pause, and then release the total breath through the mouth. He suggests doing this 2 or 3 times to engage the parasympathetic nervous response.
[0] - https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/
[1] - https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-box-breathing
[2] - Huberman Labs podcast available on RSS feeds - "Overcoming Anxiety" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z25f6qy361Y
It didn't really seem to follow any logic, except I noticed alcohol made them worse. Alcohol also caused an increase in anxiety in the following days. I also experienced symptoms of depression. It was a very dark time.
There was definitely more going on than just magnesium but it wasn't until I tried the magnesium that I had any breakthrough.
Good luck. Another poster in these comments mentioned that you can get non-prescription testing for magnesium and other markers from Walk-In Labs ( https://www.walkinlab.com/ ) if you want to go that route. I also know there are doctors out there that will work with this kind of medicine, but I don't know too much about that. Magnesium is pretty safe, but I understand there is some possibility for problems with taking too much.
I genuinely wish you the greatest success, I'm confident that with careful, thoughtful effort along with your loving support, your spouse can start to feel better.
Maybe consider meditation too? Box breathing[0][1] is an often recommended technique for this sort of thing.
Dr. Andrew Huberman[3] recommends a breathing technique, I cant remember what he calls it, but is easily performed to counteract sympathetic nervous stress: Breath in sharply through the nose, quickly to about half capacity Once, brief pause, followed by a second sharp inhalation through the nose to mostly full capacity, brief pause, and then release the total breath through the mouth. He suggests doing this 2 or 3 times to engage the parasympathetic nervous response.
[0] - https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/
[1] - https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-box-breathing
[2] - Huberman Labs podcast available on RSS feeds - "Overcoming Anxiety" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z25f6qy361Y
You could also try quinine. I recently discovered that drinking a glass or two of bitter lemon, bitter orange or tonic water a day helps with my muscle tremors.
Magnesium doesn't help much.
Side effect is the high sugar intake, which concerns me somewhat. I can't stand most artificial sweeteners, so drinking light products is no alternative.
Side effect is the high sugar intake, which concerns me somewhat. I can't stand most artificial sweeteners, so drinking light products is no alternative.
Ok, your comment is shocking to me: I've been having annoying muscle twitches lately (probably from drinking lots of coffee), and one thing I found online was that magnesium supplements could help. I eventually ended up trying it, but the twitches just keep getting worse and worse; I didn't realize until now the magnesium is probably what is worsening things. Could anyone ELI5 what' the relationship between calcium, magnesium and muscle twitches?
Your body has to move calcium ions in and out of (striated) muscles to trigger contractions. This is done through "calcium channels". Mg2+ is an antagonist to the activation of calcium channels.
You need enough calcium to achieve a strong reliable contraction, and enough magnesium to keep the channels "closed" when they should be closed (among very many other physiological uses).
In short, you need a balance of calcium and magnesium for reliable muscle function. A gross excess or lack of either is bad.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5652077/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315934/
You need enough calcium to achieve a strong reliable contraction, and enough magnesium to keep the channels "closed" when they should be closed (among very many other physiological uses).
In short, you need a balance of calcium and magnesium for reliable muscle function. A gross excess or lack of either is bad.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5652077/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315934/
Thank you, this is interesting. It's kind of weird, realizing I don't understand my own body at all.
Wow, I started magnesium recently because of migraines. I’ve been twitching occasionally and I’ve been wondering why. Might just need more calcium. Thanks for sharing.
Because Magnesium and Calcium are both divalent the primary mechanisms of absorption tend to compete if you take them both together. You'll get higher bio-availability if you separate them in time (e.g. one with breakfast, the other with dinner).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5652077/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5652077/
Thanks for the suggestion. I think my problem is I'm just not getting enough calcium now that I'm getting a lot more magnesium. My legs and arms occasionally have been twitching and I've been having terrible sleep starts, since I started taking magnesium.
You may want to add theanine to the mix in a 2:1 mag:theanine ratio. It will improve you anxiety even further
Just a warning to anyone on anti-seizure or mood stabilizing meds. Theanine can seriously fuck you up because it alters glutamate channels that your medication may also be altering.
[deleted]
I think the warning should be "If you're not a doctor, don't play at one".
Not everyone can afford a good doctor, so experimenting on their own might be the only way to fix something. People have been hacking their CPAP machines for awhile even though it could kill them.
I can afford good doctors. They are 90% waste of time. 10% life saving.
Good Support groups are far better for your health. Although it often boils down to cut carbs.
Good Support groups are far better for your health. Although it often boils down to cut carbs.
Mind sharing references for this ?
Personal experience. The easiest source to read is Wikipedia. Look at the mechanisms of action.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticonvulsant
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticonvulsant
I, too, wish to chime in here. I've seen people that are absolute wrecks unless they're on theanine, either alone or as an adjunct therapy. I suspect a surprisingly large number of people just have entirely screwed up glutamate/glutamine cycles, and theanine is an amino analogue of them (makes more sense when you realize the name is l-gamma-glutamylthelyamide).
Interesting, I am specifically taking magnesium to stop muscle twitches. In your case it is the opposite.
I too take magnesium in an attempt to stop muscle twitches (fasciculations). This was recommended to me by a neurologist after a couple of tests. My fasciculations started during a period of serious stress and anxiety (of the "I think I'm dying"-variety). They've never really fully gone away. Some nights I can't sleep because some muscle is randomly twitching all night. Magnesium helps, but so does staying away from caffeine and making sure to keep hydrated.
Damn this hits close to home. I've been convinced I have some debilitating neurological condition even since I saw my finger twitches a little with my arm stretched out. On top of that I've been having really bad sleep starts. Talked with neurologist and doctor who didn't seem worried at all.
Around this time I had a few migraines and was recommend to take magnesium. Not sure if that's what caused the sleep starts but I also noticed my leg started to occasionally twitch inwards when I'm sitting. The sleep starts have kept me up for hours at night. Going to try and add more calcium in my diet to see if that helps the problem.
Around this time I had a few migraines and was recommend to take magnesium. Not sure if that's what caused the sleep starts but I also noticed my leg started to occasionally twitch inwards when I'm sitting. The sleep starts have kept me up for hours at night. Going to try and add more calcium in my diet to see if that helps the problem.
It is commonplace for people to eat magnesium supplements before taking certain central stimulants to decrease yaw clenching and gurning, not sure if it helps or not, but it is a thing.
How much and which brand do you take?
Not sure what he’s doing but this should help:
http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Magnesium
http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Magnesium
I use this[0] not every day because I’ll get muscle spasms unless I eat a lot of calcium, but a few times a week seems to make a big difference.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZD7R4RF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZD7R4RF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
Weird I take magnesium to prevent muscle cramps. I don’t supplement calcium at all.
I was under the impression that cramps are from an imbalance of potassium, calcium and magnesium. Supplementing the one you are lacking generally resolves the problem, but its hard to know for an individual without trial and error unless you are 100% sure of your diet.
I mentioned in passing to a nurse at my gym that I get calf cramps from running. She told me to get a supplement from Amazon called Calm. It eliminated the cramps, and after an especially rough squat workout I used to get cramps, it also took care of that. Although you need to be very careful with the dosage, it is basically a laxative.
If you're getting muscle spams, are you really "supplementing"?
Yes.
Just like if you take some extra Zinc (30mg-50mg picolinate) for a variety of reasons - you have to take a bit of copper with it, or eventually your copper supplies will be drained and start causing issues.
Just like if you take some extra Zinc (30mg-50mg picolinate) for a variety of reasons - you have to take a bit of copper with it, or eventually your copper supplies will be drained and start causing issues.
I’m not 100% sure if it was zinc but I supplemented zinc for like a week then had the worst constipation of my entire life. Like, wife had to run to the pharmacy to resolve it while I cried in agony sort of bad. So yeah, be careful with how you supplement!
I'd like to hope most people are careful in how they supplement, and do due diligence as necessary.
Unfortunately, I know how people actually operate. It's quite depressing.
Unfortunately, I know how people actually operate. It's quite depressing.
Did the glycinate formulation have a markedly better effect than more common alternatives?
The glycinate is a well absorbed form of magnesium. Threonate is also well absorbed and is able to pass the blood-brain barrier.
Malate and citrate are pretty absorbable too, but I (am not who you were responding to but) use Magnesium bis-glycinate (TRAACS) form. It works well enough.
Keep in mind I am not a doctor or biologist, but many common forms of magnesium, commonly in multivitamins, are absorbed (slowly) via metal channels which require calcium to be taken as well or else the absorption slows and stops. As a result, it will pass through your GI instead of being absorbed into your body.
Malate and citrate are pretty absorbable too, but I (am not who you were responding to but) use Magnesium bis-glycinate (TRAACS) form. It works well enough.
Keep in mind I am not a doctor or biologist, but many common forms of magnesium, commonly in multivitamins, are absorbed (slowly) via metal channels which require calcium to be taken as well or else the absorption slows and stops. As a result, it will pass through your GI instead of being absorbed into your body.
Not really sure, I heard that magnesium citrate can have laxative effects. I used to use cal-mag which helped anxiety but it never really “clicked” in my head that it was helping, I used it for muscle cramps.
Haven’t had any issues with citrate. I use natural calm (brand) and tend to take the minimum dose only as needed.
Ditto. I'm using mg orotate for that reason. Haven't tried mg glycinate.
Ive read people recommend glycinate because they find that salt has less laxative effects than the others
It’s not just vegetables either - chickens are a lot less nutritious than they used to be.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2005/may/15/foodand...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2005/may/15/foodand...
This article writes under the assumption that fat is bad for you (high fat = junk food), a false idea that still permeates much of society today.
If you live in the country you can fix that. Raising chooks is easy.
I raise my own sheep for food, heavily under-stocked so they can pick and choose what they want to eat (makes the meat taste much better than when they are forced to eat bitter stuff they don't want). I don't eat lamb, I let them mature to 2-3 years old first to develop a stronger taste which I prefer, but not so old that they get tough. Beef tastes bland to me now (unless it is charred and/or served with horseradish).
Soil tests show my soil is high in magnesium, low in phosphorus/sulfur, and normal for calcium/potassium, pH is low and I probably need to apply ag lime (nothing has been applied for at least 9 years).
I raise my own sheep for food, heavily under-stocked so they can pick and choose what they want to eat (makes the meat taste much better than when they are forced to eat bitter stuff they don't want). I don't eat lamb, I let them mature to 2-3 years old first to develop a stronger taste which I prefer, but not so old that they get tough. Beef tastes bland to me now (unless it is charred and/or served with horseradish).
Soil tests show my soil is high in magnesium, low in phosphorus/sulfur, and normal for calcium/potassium, pH is low and I probably need to apply ag lime (nothing has been applied for at least 9 years).
When my grandparents told me that chicken tastes less good nowadays I thought they were just old and had lost their sense of taste. Actually they were right though.
Everything tastes less good nowadays. When I was a kid, we used to eat tomatoes like apples, just biting into them, maybe with some salt. Nowadays supermarket tomatoes taste like water.
Anecdotally (though studies like [1] seem to confirm this), I've found that tomatoes are quite sensitive to transportation and storage. To me, garden tomatoes taste fantastic; the ones at the local farmers' market taste pretty good too; supermarket tomatoes are only good for making tomato sauce. I wonder whether the tomatoes you ate as a kid had been transported over long distances.
Also anecdotally, I haven't found any other fruit or vegetable that exhibits such a drastic contrast. Maybe persimmons, but I haven't had that many supermarket persimmons. For most fruits and veggies, I've found the supermarket ones tend to taste roughly the same as garden grown ones. Indeed, sometimes I prefer the supermarket version, e.g. for apples.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658077X2...
Also anecdotally, I haven't found any other fruit or vegetable that exhibits such a drastic contrast. Maybe persimmons, but I haven't had that many supermarket persimmons. For most fruits and veggies, I've found the supermarket ones tend to taste roughly the same as garden grown ones. Indeed, sometimes I prefer the supermarket version, e.g. for apples.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658077X2...
The varieties you see in a supermarket are optimized for industrial farming and yes, transportation is one of the things they optimize for. The tomato specifically, though, lost most of it's flavor purely for aesthetic reasons [1]. Consumers have an image of the perfectly round red tomato so all the farmers optimized for it, losing at least one critical gene that contributed significantly to flavor and sugar production.
Those varieties have mostly out competed everything else in farmers markets and supermarkets but if you buy seeds online from specialized stores and grow them yourself, you can unlock an entire universe of flavor. Personally, I've never found a supermarket fruit or vegetable that tastes as good as the ones I have grown or eaten in countries with less industrialized farming, with the exception of designer varieties like cotton candy grapes, cosmic crisp apples, or sumo mandarins (though their quality is rapidly falling as they go from coddled breeding labs to industrial scale). I don't think I've had a "proper" strawberry, blueberry, or raspberry since I moved to the United States.
[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1711.full
Those varieties have mostly out competed everything else in farmers markets and supermarkets but if you buy seeds online from specialized stores and grow them yourself, you can unlock an entire universe of flavor. Personally, I've never found a supermarket fruit or vegetable that tastes as good as the ones I have grown or eaten in countries with less industrialized farming, with the exception of designer varieties like cotton candy grapes, cosmic crisp apples, or sumo mandarins (though their quality is rapidly falling as they go from coddled breeding labs to industrial scale). I don't think I've had a "proper" strawberry, blueberry, or raspberry since I moved to the United States.
[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1711.full
Depends where you live, but heirloom tomatoes and such are very popular at farmers markets up here, and available at the better stores. (example image from a quick google: https://i1.wp.com/www.seedtopantry.com/wp-content/uploads/20... ) Berry season up here is awesome too even in the major markets, because there's such a glut of berries that won't transport out of the region.
I suspect this will be more of a trend across the US. Every time I visit back home in KS I see more people at the farmer's market there, more stuff in the supermarkets that's trying to regain some farm to table authenticity.
I suspect this will be more of a trend across the US. Every time I visit back home in KS I see more people at the farmer's market there, more stuff in the supermarkets that's trying to regain some farm to table authenticity.
As long as you're grocery shopping in the United States, it doesn't really matter. I've spent most of my life in suburban and exurban California with several years each in New York, Miami, and Seattle so I'm no stranger to farmers markets and co-ops. The difference between homegrown and farmers market is much greater than the difference between farmers market and supermarket.
If I had to quantify it, I'd wager that fruits and vegetables from farmers markets are from 10% to 20% better than what you'd find in a supermarket. Co-ops can be as much as 10-50% better but growing it yourself with proper varieties is easily 200-300% better, especially here in California. Tomatoes with so much flavor that you can taste them through a tablespoon of ranch dressing (not that you'd ever need anything more than a splash of olive oil and a dash of salt with home grown vegetables).
If I had to quantify it, I'd wager that fruits and vegetables from farmers markets are from 10% to 20% better than what you'd find in a supermarket. Co-ops can be as much as 10-50% better but growing it yourself with proper varieties is easily 200-300% better, especially here in California. Tomatoes with so much flavor that you can taste them through a tablespoon of ranch dressing (not that you'd ever need anything more than a splash of olive oil and a dash of salt with home grown vegetables).
I've also come across an article in a Swiss newspaper according to which supermarkets prefer tomatoes varieties that have a "consistent" taste all year round – and because you obviously don't get extraordinarily tasting tomatoes in winter, this then means mediocre-tasting tomatoes all year round instead.
(So are they afraid that if they start selling truly delicious tomatoes in summer, they will no longer be able to sell mediocre tomatoes in winter?)
(So are they afraid that if they start selling truly delicious tomatoes in summer, they will no longer be able to sell mediocre tomatoes in winter?)
Something similar happened to the Red Delicious apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Delicious#Selective_breedi...
It's because supermarket tomatoes are picked green, stored cold, and artificially ripened with ethylene gas.
You may be right, I recently (a few years ago) ate garden tomatoes that my mom had planted and they also tasted amazing, so that tracks.
Engineered genetic mutation that grants supermarket tomatoes mechanical properties of a tennis ball and making them always red (instead of normal green to red transition) is also responsible for the lack of normal tomatoe flavor.
Tomatoes are particularly egregious. There are still tomatoes that taste good, but you won't find them in most grocery stores. Scientists are working on some genetic engineering to make a tomato that's mechanically strong enough to withstand commercial growing and shipping, but still tastes good. In the meantime, you have to search for real tomatoes at specialty grocery stores and farmers' markets.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/why-do-uk-tomatoes-taste-bad
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/why-do-uk-tomatoes-taste-bad
I've found good quality tomatoes are widely available in standard grocery stores (they all seem to have the same kinds - I'm guessing they have the sam suppliers). Not as good as you get in France or Italy, but significantly better than you get in supermarkets. If you are stuck with supermarket tomatoes then the premium, small/cherry ones are usually the best and well worth the extra money.
Yes, I used to love tomatoes from the local greenhouse. The sorts we get now just taste and smell fresh cut grass. For the farmers it's about what species of tomatoes grows the fastest and largest, with least work. However this is usually the least interestingly tastewise.
The tasty plants still exist, you just have to find the right sorts. They won't be found in your local grocery though.
The tasty plants still exist, you just have to find the right sorts. They won't be found in your local grocery though.
Growing my own tomatoes this year has made grocery store made those grocery tomatoes seem like fake tomatoes that have no flavor. The small cherry ones in the plastic boxes are at least sweeter a lot of the time.
People I know who grew up in Asia remark consistently that the chicken here in the US is larger, softer, and tasteless. They are used to smaller chickens and toothier meat with a stronger taste.
It is probably breeding practices here, to promote attributes other than taste.
It is probably breeding practices here, to promote attributes other than taste.
Chickens have been bred in the US to maximize yield to feed ratios and breast size. This news article has a figure from a paper from the University of Alberta showing chickens breeds from different decades as well as their size given the same amount of feed: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/chickens-are-4-times-...
Here is the paper the article talks about: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003257911...
> It is probably breeding practices here, to promote attributes other than taste.
That's a factor, but also stronger flavor isn't considered a positive thing in chicken in the US.
That's a factor, but also stronger flavor isn't considered a positive thing in chicken in the US.
I love magnesium pills! I take two in the morning. It relieves brain fog, reduces lower back pain and makes you shit. (Those three are totally related, btw)
Can it be solved by simply adding more magnesium to the fertilizer?
Fertilizer is actually the problem. The soil is losing magnesium because we don't practice crop rotation anymore, so we load up the soil with fertilizer, 90% of which runs off into our watersheds, wreaking havoc.
It can be solved by using less efficient / more complex farming practices which aren't amenable to mass production of monocultures. But that makes a lot less money, so it will never happen.
A different solution would be to pass legislation specifically to protect the nutritional value of our food. But that would just prompt the ag sector to pump the soil full of so much crap to meet the law's requirements that it'll speed up the collapse of ecological systems (in addition to possibly poisoning us).
It can be solved by using less efficient / more complex farming practices which aren't amenable to mass production of monocultures. But that makes a lot less money, so it will never happen.
A different solution would be to pass legislation specifically to protect the nutritional value of our food. But that would just prompt the ag sector to pump the soil full of so much crap to meet the law's requirements that it'll speed up the collapse of ecological systems (in addition to possibly poisoning us).
> It can be solved by using less efficient / more complex farming practices which aren't amenable to mass production of monocultures. But that makes a lot less money, so it will never happen.
“Makes less money” is certainly one point of view. Another is “makes the food too expensive to afford for many, and shifts more land usage to farming, to make up for the reduced productivity per acre”. It is not even clear that it would reduce the profits of food producers: it depends on the shapes on supply curves. If every food producer is forced to produce food using expensive methods, and people are forced to buy food anyway (as they ultimately must eat), it is very well possible that the profits could actually increase: if demand for food is inelastic, people will just pay higher prices to get the same amount of food, which would only increase the total profits of agricultural industry.
“Makes less money” is certainly one point of view. Another is “makes the food too expensive to afford for many, and shifts more land usage to farming, to make up for the reduced productivity per acre”. It is not even clear that it would reduce the profits of food producers: it depends on the shapes on supply curves. If every food producer is forced to produce food using expensive methods, and people are forced to buy food anyway (as they ultimately must eat), it is very well possible that the profits could actually increase: if demand for food is inelastic, people will just pay higher prices to get the same amount of food, which would only increase the total profits of agricultural industry.
Agricultural policy in the US shapes a lot of this, though, via subsidies. The financial system also shapes this through its lending policies. The implements of industrialized farming are what the ag lending sector is designed around; try to step out of that mainstream and you will have trouble accessing capital.
Wheat, corn, and soybeans are heavily subsidized by the US gov't and vegetables are not at all. Every little tiny program to subsidize vegetable growers is picked at every year (happening right now in my state legislature) -- it's always a fight to preserve.
The agricultural lending system in the US is fascinating. Look up Farm Credit Administration. We have a weird and unique system of paragovernmental financial institutions in the US that do farm lending, and even though it's not technically government-backed lending, everyone sees it as such, and so there are some interesting distortions in the market (compared to a more "free-market" system). It does seem quite centered around US gov't subsidies and farm/ag policies.
Wheat, corn, and soybeans are heavily subsidized by the US gov't and vegetables are not at all. Every little tiny program to subsidize vegetable growers is picked at every year (happening right now in my state legislature) -- it's always a fight to preserve.
The agricultural lending system in the US is fascinating. Look up Farm Credit Administration. We have a weird and unique system of paragovernmental financial institutions in the US that do farm lending, and even though it's not technically government-backed lending, everyone sees it as such, and so there are some interesting distortions in the market (compared to a more "free-market" system). It does seem quite centered around US gov't subsidies and farm/ag policies.
That's because wheat, corn, and soybeans are staples, while vegetables are luxury food items, especially fresh ones. At no point in history, regular people in agricultural societies ate as much vegetables as we do right now. The diets has always been based in overwhelming majorities on grains, roots and beans, and in places with lactose tolerance, also on dairy.
A single bell pepper today costs something between $1 and $2 where I am. Imagine the government subsidizes bell peppers so that they cost $.50. As a single bell pepper has less than 50 calories, you couldn't base your diet on it, you would still need some more calorie-rich food to actually give you required energy. Since vegetables (except root vegetables) are not calorie-dense, you'd need to eat seeds (e.g. grains) or oils anyway.
That's why, if your goal is to enable the nation to feed itself, you should rather subsidize the staples, not luxury consumption.
A single bell pepper today costs something between $1 and $2 where I am. Imagine the government subsidizes bell peppers so that they cost $.50. As a single bell pepper has less than 50 calories, you couldn't base your diet on it, you would still need some more calorie-rich food to actually give you required energy. Since vegetables (except root vegetables) are not calorie-dense, you'd need to eat seeds (e.g. grains) or oils anyway.
That's why, if your goal is to enable the nation to feed itself, you should rather subsidize the staples, not luxury consumption.
Corn and soy are not staples for humans, they're staples for industry. What doesn't get exported is used for livestock feed, ethanol, and filler for unhealthy foods. It makes a very small sector of our economy rich, it destroys huge swaths of our nation's ecology, and that result damages the health of animals (including us).
Feeding the nation isn't hard. We could feed this nation five times over with the amount of food we produce. The problem is, we'd probably shrivel up and die, because wheat, corn and soy aren't enough to keep a population healthy. We could actually produce more nutrition and calories with a fraction of the land just by switching from corn to oats. But then you'd be producing less, and hence selling less. That's not as profitable!
And vegetables are luxuries in the same sense that "nutrition" is a luxury. Just because humanity has historically had a shit diet (since the adoption of agriculture) doesn't mean it's a great idea to stop eating vegetables, or produce less of them. We get plenty of calories already - too many in fact. And most of the ones we do get are more harmful than good.
It would be better to get people to eat more of those low-calorie vegetables as it would help stem the American obesity crisis. And as we've seen in this report, vegetables already contain fewer nutrients than they did before - a reason to consume more of them, not less!
Feeding the nation isn't hard. We could feed this nation five times over with the amount of food we produce. The problem is, we'd probably shrivel up and die, because wheat, corn and soy aren't enough to keep a population healthy. We could actually produce more nutrition and calories with a fraction of the land just by switching from corn to oats. But then you'd be producing less, and hence selling less. That's not as profitable!
And vegetables are luxuries in the same sense that "nutrition" is a luxury. Just because humanity has historically had a shit diet (since the adoption of agriculture) doesn't mean it's a great idea to stop eating vegetables, or produce less of them. We get plenty of calories already - too many in fact. And most of the ones we do get are more harmful than good.
It would be better to get people to eat more of those low-calorie vegetables as it would help stem the American obesity crisis. And as we've seen in this report, vegetables already contain fewer nutrients than they did before - a reason to consume more of them, not less!
Rich nations don't have problems supplying calories. In fact they have the opposite problem, people eat too many calories. There is an obesity crisis underway.
A couple of years ago where was a very long draught in northern europe. The only fields that weren't burned brown was the new ecological farms that reinvented farming the old way. Their soil is kept alive deeper into the ground and can hold water much longer. So while their neighbours had to buy feed for their cows, the eco farmers could keep using their grass for feeding.
I suspect it can be solved in many different ways, but when you sell food by the pound, it's much more advantageous to distribute your limited quantity of nutrients in as much produce as possible.
This seems really, really hard to regulate.
This seems really, really hard to regulate.
When reading comments like this, which are good-natured, and a natural response, do you ever think “wouldn’t be great if we as humans had more trust built into our systems, and people actually making a best-effort attempt at honouring that trust”? Instead of everything being a scam until proven otherwise, and even then the scam is probably just one level deeper in what triggered the interest in that product in the first place.
Related to your question, I found the ideas in this long and winding essay to be quite interesting: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...
Terrible as it sounds trust is in computer terms a gaping security vulnerability. If anothet clever actor can take advantage of it they can gain all sorts of things at cost to you.
Distrust is like an immune system - it has costs and can occasionally hurt you but it developed and is ubiquitous for a reason.
Distrust is like an immune system - it has costs and can occasionally hurt you but it developed and is ubiquitous for a reason.
Sadly human nature is what it is. It seems like it would take a long time for evolution to make humans not naturally lazy, greedy, jealous and xenophobic. It's also not clear that, even in a world where resources are abundant, there would be any evolutionary pressure to not be this way.
This comment was triggered by the essay “The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams” by Jia Tolentino in the book Trick Mirror, the essay also being available in audio form online. So the scam here was to get you to google that book, I wonder if my scam will convert anyone?
Frankly, it seems to me like it's rather relatively simple thing to regulate. We already mandate things like adding vitamins to milk or flour. Extending this to vegetables really doesn't seem like big problem: farmers would just have to buy magnesium-enriched fertilizer.
Why pour it in your diet when you can put it in a pill to eat directly along with 30 other vitamins?
Diet is quite more complicated that just taking a multivitamin, unfortunately. Some nutrients compete for absorption (Zn and Ca, for example) and shouldn’t be taken together. There’s also debate about the need for phytonutrients that also come along with plants. The data is mixed enough that the US Preventative Services Task Force isn’t yet willing to endorse supplements as a means of reducing cardiovascular or cancer risk.
My personal opinion is that the human body may be too complex to say we fully understand a seemingly straightforward solution like just taking a multivitamin. We evolved over an awfully long time before industrialized agriculture and supplements. I’m not trying to demonize them because they have solved the number 1 concern humans had for the last 10,000 years of not getting enough calories, but I think it’s wise to temper the hubris of thinking we understand the human body well enough to expect a simple fix from a pill.
My personal opinion is that the human body may be too complex to say we fully understand a seemingly straightforward solution like just taking a multivitamin. We evolved over an awfully long time before industrialized agriculture and supplements. I’m not trying to demonize them because they have solved the number 1 concern humans had for the last 10,000 years of not getting enough calories, but I think it’s wise to temper the hubris of thinking we understand the human body well enough to expect a simple fix from a pill.
For all of the things we know are present in food and necessary for nutrition, I suspect there are still a lot we don't know of.
Biodynamic farmed food seems like the best bet if you have access to it. At least you're avoiding the worst of the mega-farming shortcuts.
Biodynamic farmed food seems like the best bet if you have access to it. At least you're avoiding the worst of the mega-farming shortcuts.
Vitamin absorption via pills doesn't seem to work very well.
This. It's actually very hard to get enough Mg from pills. Your body needs a lot.
Then the issue is to remember to take the pill. Much easier to forget than to forget to eat.
Also, can be hard to reach out to everyone and let them know that they need these pills. Many might not know what "magnesium" is?
It's simpler to add iodine to salt -- and maybe magnesium to the soil
It's simpler to add iodine to salt -- and maybe magnesium to the soil
Another issue is that the effect of a nutrient can sometimes differ based on what it is consumed alongside. Pills are not necessarily as effective as supplemented food.
Because anybody with sense prefers eating food to popping pills.
This is an instance of the orthogonality thesis, by the way. Your assertion is that "increased ability to think" should cause "increased desire to eat Traditional Food (tm)", which is no more true than the assertion "increased ability to think causes increased desire to consume Renaissance art". Desires are, by and large, orthogonal to the generalised ability to achieve desires (the ability which you label "sense"). Some desires are not orthogonal - the desire to survive and be healthy, for example, which is instrumental in achieving many other desires - but to argue your assertion on those grounds, you must prove that Traditional Food is sufficiently dramatically better for achieving some instrumental goal.
Come on, this is a bit too aggressive of a statement. On the other hand, there is some anecdotal evidence that nutrients in pills are not absorbed by our gut as well as more "naturally" delivered nutrients.
I wouldnt say anecdotal nutrient bioavailavilty is quite well-known and studied.
"Why do we need to drink water anyway? Why can't we all get our fluids from an IV?"
Why stop there? If you are getting fluids via IV, may as well add in nutrients.
I'm down. Add a glucostat for optimal blood sugar level too. Just get a waterproof Ergodox, wrap around 8k monitor, and a sensory dep tank (with optional high-tech minimal techno piped in).
I call it The Precog. It'll be a hit in SV.
I call it The Precog. It'll be a hit in SV.
This sounds grand, but I Googled, and couldn't find a provider/source, where do you buy?
Why regulate when you can market? If I knew that a brand of zucchini had high mineral content and flavor, I'd buy it at a premium
Sounds like a good way to have every milk container say "rBST free, from cows raised without hormones!" Which could also be stated "farmed in accordance with California law."
Yeah, in this case, I'd rather have the former... Since I'd assume the latter? Maybe that's me.
And, to be clear— I don't want to be dismissive of the importance of govt regulation! It's just that working out the marketing opportunities can happen much faster than effective regulation.
And, to be clear— I don't want to be dismissive of the importance of govt regulation! It's just that working out the marketing opportunities can happen much faster than effective regulation.
Veritasium did a video on this topic of vegetables becoming less nutritious
https://youtu.be/Yl_K2Ata6XY
He argues that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is making the plants grow faster. This is making the plants produce more carbs wet to other nutrients, making the plant less nutritious compared to the past
https://youtu.be/Yl_K2Ata6XY
He argues that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is making the plants grow faster. This is making the plants produce more carbs wet to other nutrients, making the plant less nutritious compared to the past
I was wondering what foods would have high levels of magnisium and https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/15650-magnesi...
Looking at those foods and daily intake, I'm wondering how many people are not hitting their daily intake.
Looking at those foods and daily intake, I'm wondering how many people are not hitting their daily intake.
Sounds like a soil engineering problem!
I wonder if that's specific to the US and other western nations.
One thing I've noticed is that vegetables are rather tasteless in the US. Vegetables in Asia are packed with flavor, and maybe they are also packed with nutrients as well?
One thing I've noticed is that vegetables are rather tasteless in the US. Vegetables in Asia are packed with flavor, and maybe they are also packed with nutrients as well?
I understand this seems mostly to be about soil depletion. I'm curious more generally if vegetables are also less nutritious because they are selectively bread for high water content and size. For example, its appeared to me for years that you vegetables you get on a Subway sandwich must have almost no nutritional content. They are all way paler than you'd normally see, and super watery.
Thinking about it, I suppose the vegetables may get that way from growing in poor soil, and Subway et al just buy those ones because they're cheaper
Thinking about it, I suppose the vegetables may get that way from growing in poor soil, and Subway et al just buy those ones because they're cheaper
Home grown tomatoes are typically much better tasting/more flavorful than the store bought ones, so I think there is probably something to this.
Although this can mostly be attributed to ripeness. Ripe tomatoes degrade extremely quickly so store bought ones are almost exclusive picked unripe and then artificially ripened at locations closer to where they are intended to be sold.
This is also why canned tomatoes are generally considered superior for making tomato soups and sauces. Tomatoes harvested with the intention to be conserved are picked much riper since they can be processed and packaged almost immediately after.
This is also why canned tomatoes are generally considered superior for making tomato soups and sauces. Tomatoes harvested with the intention to be conserved are picked much riper since they can be processed and packaged almost immediately after.
This is why, countrary to common belief, vegetables that are sold frozen are higher quality than fresh ones. My brother works in the industry and says if you can buy whole (with certain exceptions) and frozen, you have the best.
Does it need to be whole?
Does not need to, but the whole variety is usually highest quality because the producer cannot hide the defects. Think about tea or tomatoes: the more you grind it down, the more you can mix in lower quality tiers. One exception I know of is porcini mushrooms: the most expensive are whole halfs, because you can actually see there's no worms in it.
Also for mushrooms dried is really good, but obviously the texture is a little bit different when you eat it.
Also for mushrooms dried is really good, but obviously the texture is a little bit different when you eat it.
yes this. i used to be able to buy canned tomatoes that came out whole, nowadays it's ALL diced. I know their tricks but they won't even sell it hahah
I grew up swearing off frozen vegetables as a bad thing - saw ads on TV and assumed it was something poor (?!) and time-poor people would buy. We'd grow fresh or buy whole, but almost never had frozen vegetables. Then my brother went through an intensive athletic program that had a nutritionist - that guy put him onto frozen and he passed it on to me. Fresh, there is a risk you'll let it go to crap before using it, you're paying for bits you'll trim off, etc. Frozen, it's there for months as you need it, ready to go, and was snap frozen fresh. So, odds are, there's less waste and less effort. We still grow and buy as before, but I try to have some frozen staples around, especially for quick stir-fries, fried rice for the kids, etc.
I would actually argue no. Stuff you grow at home is never looking as good as from the store because worms, rain and so on. Strawberries or cherries that have been picked by birds, wasps or slugs are usually fully ripe. Although I agree, whole fruit make it harder to hide bad ones in there
Since I just finished making jam from it let me tell you a secret: bird netting exists. No wasps or slugs in them and mostly no worms.
In this case, sour cherries. Sour cherries are great because almost no worms (only in the variety I have that has the highest sugar content and not many either). The bird netting really helps. Last year no crop, today about 7 pints of jam and I can probably get the same again in a few weeks when the rest ripe s. This is from 3 trees that are about 4 years old now. They're the University of Saskatchewan types (Romeo, Juliet, Crimson passion etc.).
I would say at least 90% of the crop looks saleable. Of course they're sour cherries and they're much smaller than the sweet cherries everyone knows and buys at the store. Other than the bird netting these are completely hands off. No chemicals, completely organic. All they get is compost from all the leaves (the city trucks will not get mine ever!) and guinea pig poop (basically nicely processed grass/hay).
In this case, sour cherries. Sour cherries are great because almost no worms (only in the variety I have that has the highest sugar content and not many either). The bird netting really helps. Last year no crop, today about 7 pints of jam and I can probably get the same again in a few weeks when the rest ripe s. This is from 3 trees that are about 4 years old now. They're the University of Saskatchewan types (Romeo, Juliet, Crimson passion etc.).
I would say at least 90% of the crop looks saleable. Of course they're sour cherries and they're much smaller than the sweet cherries everyone knows and buys at the store. Other than the bird netting these are completely hands off. No chemicals, completely organic. All they get is compost from all the leaves (the city trucks will not get mine ever!) and guinea pig poop (basically nicely processed grass/hay).
Generally the finer specimens go to the whole products.
They are entirely different strains when it comes to tomato cultivation at industrial scale. A tomato that ends up in a sauce or frozen never had the option to make it to the store while whole.
I was talking about e.g. whole tomatoes vs. crushed tomatoes vs. diced tomatoes vs. tomato sauce.
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That's a good point. I was thinking about similarity between tomatoes and eggs, where a free range egg, especially where the farmer let's the chickens have the run of the farm, have much brighter and deeper colored yolks. I had understood this to relate to the chickens diet and the nutrition of the egg. So I imagined deeper brighter red tomatoes to be similarly more nutritious. It could be different mechanisms though, or maybe neither is more nutritious, they just look nicer.
It is common to add sources of yellow and orange to chicken feed, for both free range and caged chickens.
Two quotes from an internet page:
"The yolks in my certified organic birds vary in colour. Because the public expect deep yellow/orange yolks in free range eggs I supplement mine with organic vege scraps. You don't need very much to make a difference. Just toss them the odd pumpkin."
"The intensity of yolk colour may be measured against standards such as the DSM Yolk Colour Fan. Most egg marketing authorities require deep-yellow to orange-yellow yolk colours in the range 9 to 12 on the DSM Yolk Colour Fan. Yolks of more intense colour may be required for specific markets. The most important sources of carotenoids in poultry feed are maize (corn), maize gluten, alfalfa (lucerne) and grass meals; these sources contain the pigmenting carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, which, together with other oxygen-containing carotenoids, are known by the collective name of xanthophylls."
And an article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3457452/amp/How-sec...
Two quotes from an internet page:
"The yolks in my certified organic birds vary in colour. Because the public expect deep yellow/orange yolks in free range eggs I supplement mine with organic vege scraps. You don't need very much to make a difference. Just toss them the odd pumpkin."
"The intensity of yolk colour may be measured against standards such as the DSM Yolk Colour Fan. Most egg marketing authorities require deep-yellow to orange-yellow yolk colours in the range 9 to 12 on the DSM Yolk Colour Fan. Yolks of more intense colour may be required for specific markets. The most important sources of carotenoids in poultry feed are maize (corn), maize gluten, alfalfa (lucerne) and grass meals; these sources contain the pigmenting carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, which, together with other oxygen-containing carotenoids, are known by the collective name of xanthophylls."
And an article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3457452/amp/How-sec...
I actually don't make that much difference in taste between free range eggs, even home grown, and the industrial kind.
The yolk is usually brighter, but not always. The real difference is usually the shell, which is much thicker and harder for free range eggs.
Home grown tomatoes on the other hand are way better tasting.
I don't know about nutrition value.
Home grown tomatoes on the other hand are way better tasting.
I don't know about nutrition value.
No. I harvest tomatoes for 4 years now, about 30-50 plants per year. The taste of a half-green-left-on-shelf-because-i-dont-wanna-throw-it-out fruit is better than anything you can get in a shop. You can tell just by the smell, no need to taste it. Sun and soil brings more to the table than led lamps and chemical fertilizers.
I agree but think its also the variety. I once bought semigreen tomatoes in a supermarket in December in Italy and those turned out great after some ripening at home. But they were not the standard red tomatoes you would get everywhere else but real italian flesh tomatoes. Last year my grandma had only standard red ping-pong ball tomatoes and those were almost like store bought, although grown like you described. The other grandma had old varieties and the leftovers in February were still awesome. There are also rumors that grafting while increasing yield decreases flavour, though I haven't tested that
Can that happen, or is color change the same as ripening? I thought ripening requires the fruit to be attached to the plant and exchanging nutrients/waste with the roots?
Not at all. Given my climate and growing season here for some reason I can almost never get tomatoes to properly ripe on the vine. However, if I just harvest them when they are the right size but still green or half green and let them ripen on the kitchen counter in complete darkness they will soften up, redden up and taste amazing (just add salt and pepper).
Canned tomatoes are also a different variety than what you would buy in a store fresh. Canned tomatoes are bred for a much higher amount of solids and flavor, while fresh has to worry more about color and presentation (I.e. bruising is bad).
It seems we selected for one trait and influenced another. In the case of tomatoes, we selected for uniform ripening because of the aesthetic appeal and it also caused unwittingly selecting fruit with lower sugar content[1]. I’ve also heard similar regarding selecting fruit that is hardy enough to survive transport without damage but the same genes make the fruit taste like cardboard.
[1] https://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-trouble-with-tomatoes
[1] https://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-trouble-with-tomatoes
Supermarket breeds of vegetables are optimized for good looks and long shelf life.
Farmer market vegetables are optimized for flavor, because this is what differentiates them from the supermarket vegetables.
This makes the contrast all the more stunning.
Farmer market vegetables are optimized for flavor, because this is what differentiates them from the supermarket vegetables.
This makes the contrast all the more stunning.
Supermarket tomatoes also have thick/hard outsides so they don't turn to mush on the shelves.
… and also supposedly a "consistent" taste all year round – and since you don't get extraordinarily delicious tomatoes in winter, this then means mediocre-tasting tomatoes all year round instead.
There was a Good Eats episode or perhaps I came across it somewhere else, but tomatoes undergo a change when refrigerated and lose flavor. Due to this tomatoes should never be refrigerated.
This always explains why store bought tomatoes taste tasteless, while home green ones have actual flavor.
This always explains why store bought tomatoes taste tasteless, while home green ones have actual flavor.
Some of the products the company I work for develops are specifically for the Ag seed research industry. We develop instruments like on combine weigh systems used to measure weight, moisture and yield of various grain hybrids as they are harvested.
From my limited perspective, it appears that for decades this industry has cared most (almost entirely) about breeding hybrids that increase yield in various climates. There has been very little attention paid to other constituents and characteristics of the seed.
It’s only been in the last few years that our ag research customers have been interested in breeding for other characteristics. I think in large part this is because it’s not been very cost effective to collect this data (primarily through things like near-infrared spectroscopy mounted on harvesters and drones)
Which is kind of silly, because apple varieties demonstrate that people are willing to pay a premium for strains with good taste/texture.
With the exception of selling to industrial food makers, it seems perhaps that marketing—or lack thereof—is the major problem, here.
With the exception of selling to industrial food makers, it seems perhaps that marketing—or lack thereof—is the major problem, here.
Yes, those seed companies are breeding for what the _market_ is demanding. As the market is currently constructed, for better or worse, farmers are more successful when they can sell more gain (e.g. higher yield). There is _no_ reward for quality traits on most agricultural crops except for wheat.
I’ve been learning about regenerative organic farming and those folks would make the claim that conventional fertilizer and biocide intensive farming is responsible for those bad veggies. Conventional agriculture destroys soil health and this leads to depleted crops. There’s just no nutrition left in soil that has been doused with chemicals. Places like subway buy that produce because it’s cheap.
I recall someone complaining about this at one point. Their model was this:
Most of the nutrients in the fruit come from the plant, not the ground. Since we are breeding for a higher ratio of fruit to plant size (dwarf plants, supersized fruits, sometimes both), there is less to put into the fruit.
Also fungi provide most of the nutrients to plants, and tilling slowly destroys the soil life, leaving mineral soils, in which some nutrients may not be bioavailable.
Most of the nutrients in the fruit come from the plant, not the ground. Since we are breeding for a higher ratio of fruit to plant size (dwarf plants, supersized fruits, sometimes both), there is less to put into the fruit.
Also fungi provide most of the nutrients to plants, and tilling slowly destroys the soil life, leaving mineral soils, in which some nutrients may not be bioavailable.
Isn't it bacteria that provides most of the nutrition a plant needs. Fungi contributes in a wide variety of ways but plants can thrive without a fungi presence.
interestingly when I worked at Jack-in-the-box in the early 80s their produce seemed much better than what I saw at the supermarket.
The BBC more or less episode with James Wong is making me wonder if this is true (shorter summary of what James said on the podcast: https://mobile.twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/984708381507276... )
Anyway, from the paper here:
>> with estimates that vegetables have dropped magnesium levels by 80–90% in the U.S. (Figure 2) and the UK [11,12,13,32,33]
Reference 11 doesn’t support this claim.
Ref 12 doesn’t directly mention Mg but does say some nutrients have dropped between 5-40% which is NOT 80-90%
Ref 13 does mention mg specifically on page 3 but states under 20%.
…
I think i’m being fleeced by this paper.
Anyway, from the paper here:
>> with estimates that vegetables have dropped magnesium levels by 80–90% in the U.S. (Figure 2) and the UK [11,12,13,32,33]
Reference 11 doesn’t support this claim.
Ref 12 doesn’t directly mention Mg but does say some nutrients have dropped between 5-40% which is NOT 80-90%
Ref 13 does mention mg specifically on page 3 but states under 20%.
…
I think i’m being fleeced by this paper.
Looked into this myself and you're absolutely correct. Reference 11 doesn't even come close.
I wonder what the source of the nutrition information on FDA labels is. They're not assessing every batch of produce. Is the information we're told about the vitamins and minerals in our broccoli based on crops from last year? A decade ago? A century ago? Is it possible we think we're eating twice as many nutrients as we actually are?
This is a very important question, in my opinion. I am going to check how the amounts are calculated.
Please report back!!
Terrible availability of information regarding this. For some countries in Europe there is this regulation: https://ec.europa.eu/food/food/labelling-and-nutrition_en
but it does not say how or where this information is taken from.
but it does not say how or where this information is taken from.
See https://thecounter.org/nutrition-labels-meet-recipal/ and https://consolidatedlabel.com/label-articles/how-to-get-a-nu....
The TLDR is not every food needs to be lab tested as long as they can take their ingredients and compare them against national databases (e.g. NCCDB) to estimate nutritional info. And yes, some of the data in those databases is old and perhaps overly general - it's totally reasonable to suspect that vegetables grown in one area, as part of a specific breeding line, in a certain manner, have totally different nutritional info compared to the same generic vegetable grown elsewhere in a different manner.
However keep in mind a lot of food does not list all micronutrients as part of their labelling. This actually kinda drives me nuts and I have no idea why e.g. frozen vegetables don't list things like Vitamin K, magnesium, and zinc when they're often actually good sources of many nutrients.
The TLDR is not every food needs to be lab tested as long as they can take their ingredients and compare them against national databases (e.g. NCCDB) to estimate nutritional info. And yes, some of the data in those databases is old and perhaps overly general - it's totally reasonable to suspect that vegetables grown in one area, as part of a specific breeding line, in a certain manner, have totally different nutritional info compared to the same generic vegetable grown elsewhere in a different manner.
However keep in mind a lot of food does not list all micronutrients as part of their labelling. This actually kinda drives me nuts and I have no idea why e.g. frozen vegetables don't list things like Vitamin K, magnesium, and zinc when they're often actually good sources of many nutrients.
It appears the FDA breaks the label down into “mandatory” and “voluntary” categories based on the association of certain nutrients with specific diseases. From your list, vitamin K and magnesium are both voluntary and zinc isn’t included on the standardized label. I assume it’s a business decision by the manufacturer to not include them.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2012-N-1210-0875
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2012-N-1210-0875
Thanks for linking that, there is a lot of interesting information in that document. They provide a rationale for why each nutrient is mandatory or voluntary as well as public comments and rebuttals.
>One comment suggested vitamin D fortification should be viewed as hormone replacement therapy
Found that particularly humorous
>One comment suggested vitamin D fortification should be viewed as hormone replacement therapy
Found that particularly humorous
If I remember from a Dr. Rhonda Patrick podcast, vitamin D is unique because your body converts it to calcitriol which is a steroid hormone used to treat hyperthyroidism among other diseases.
From that angle, I can understand how they arrive to that conclusion, while perhaps still disagreeing. The interplay within the human body is almost mind-blowingly complex to me
From that angle, I can understand how they arrive to that conclusion, while perhaps still disagreeing. The interplay within the human body is almost mind-blowingly complex to me
When we moved to the Bay Area, I started going to the farmers markets and was blown away by the quality of the vegetables. Peas grown at Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay were crisp and sweet. Zuckerman's Farm grew a special kind of squash bred specifically for flavor (honeynut squash). Fresh plums pulled off of trees in San Francisco were just bursting with juice. Mashed potatoes made from La Ratte potatoes. And Delta asparagus — wow.
Now that we've left the Bay Area, I find that I'm even more disappointed by grocery store vegetables than I used to be. The vegetables are dry, wilted, flavorless — repugnant even. No wonder children don't want to eat them. Seriously considering setting up a miniature green house and growing my own stuff at this point.
Now that we've left the Bay Area, I find that I'm even more disappointed by grocery store vegetables than I used to be. The vegetables are dry, wilted, flavorless — repugnant even. No wonder children don't want to eat them. Seriously considering setting up a miniature green house and growing my own stuff at this point.
A good example of this is "good" Tomatoes versus the slimy, gooey, tasteless thing you find in supermarkets. It's like a completely different vegetable.
Personally, i feel like something is "unbalanced" or missing in me as i get these flashes of "waking up" not to some euphoria or bliss but just clarity that feels "normal" that sometimes lasts for hours.
I'm pretty sure most people are deficient in various "hard to measure" nutrients - i myself for example have felt completely changed after megadosing B12, but as with most supplements the effects rarely lasts. The culprit i suspect is mostly soil depletion and diet that despite being more varied often is grown from "diluted" soil, and with most calories from incredibly refined and therefore nutrientlesss fats and carbohydrates.
Gut biome is probably another important mirror aspect in this system.
Personally, i feel like something is "unbalanced" or missing in me as i get these flashes of "waking up" not to some euphoria or bliss but just clarity that feels "normal" that sometimes lasts for hours.
I'm pretty sure most people are deficient in various "hard to measure" nutrients - i myself for example have felt completely changed after megadosing B12, but as with most supplements the effects rarely lasts. The culprit i suspect is mostly soil depletion and diet that despite being more varied often is grown from "diluted" soil, and with most calories from incredibly refined and therefore nutrientlesss fats and carbohydrates.
Gut biome is probably another important mirror aspect in this system.
Growing up, money was tight so we shopped at Aldi. American and European Aldi are a bit different, US is more budget conscious and it’s reflected in product quality. So I always thought I just didn’t like vegetables. In my early 20’s I realized vegetables vary in quality, and that I in fact did like a lot of vegetables! Tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, love it if it’s the good quality stuff
I actually got a blood test this week checking various nutrients and vitamins (due to some tingling in my toes and fingers). Turns out that, while I wasn't deficient, I was on the extremely low end of B-12. Hoping it'll make me feel better in other ways since I've been given a supplement to help fix that.
You were previously buying family-farm vegetables and switched to industrialized, grocery store produce. You can definitely walk into a Safeway in SF and get garbage produce.
Hopefully your local ecosystem supports some native farming that you can make use of.
Hopefully your local ecosystem supports some native farming that you can make use of.
More people should grow some food in their yard. There's quite a few benefits to it in addition to getting a small amount of produce like better understanding of natural cycles and more of a connection to the environment that sustains us.
Steve Solomon is the go-to guy for how to grow nutrient-dense backyard produce.
Check if a farmer market is held near where you live. It may be seasonal, but it's still better than dull vegs around the year.
Around here its the same brands and same cardboard boxes at the farmers market, the upscale supermarket, and the organic supermarket, although they mark the price up at the farmers market because of the extra labor and substantial fees the market charges, also its sort of a hipster tax. In addition to paying to park at the farmers market.
Which farmers market? Not all farmers markets here are equal, so curious.
Vertical farming is replacing green houses these days.
And less tasty. One of my in-laws started an organic garden solely to supply a local hotel down the country and she gave us a big box of vegetables when we were leaving after a visit.
It was very revealing. Everything she gave us had distinct and powerful tastes that were blatantly lacking from their supermarket equivalents (including the ones that say Organic on the label). The garlic blew my mind: I used the usual number of cloves in a recipe and ... well ... we were reeking.
It was very revealing. Everything she gave us had distinct and powerful tastes that were blatantly lacking from their supermarket equivalents (including the ones that say Organic on the label). The garlic blew my mind: I used the usual number of cloves in a recipe and ... well ... we were reeking.
Lots of foods selected for shelf life.
Used to be mostly winter crops that needed that proviso. To wit: one of the two garlics I grow has a 4 month longer shelf life than the other. The one has to be planted in the fall or you risk losing most of your seed cloves by late spring. The other, I just planted a second crop, from garlic harvested last fall. They were not in awesome shape, but about 80% went in the ground.
Used to be mostly winter crops that needed that proviso. To wit: one of the two garlics I grow has a 4 month longer shelf life than the other. The one has to be planted in the fall or you risk losing most of your seed cloves by late spring. The other, I just planted a second crop, from garlic harvested last fall. They were not in awesome shape, but about 80% went in the ground.
I know geeks love Norman Borlaug, but there was a catch: the new high-yield varieties are dependent on fertilizers made from fossil fuels. These plants grow fast and have more carbs and less of everything else. There needs to be a second Green Revolution, this time sustainable.
It's not a necessity that nitrogen fertilizer comes from fossil fuels.
Some of the first massive deployments of hydrogen electrolyzers are fir making ammonia fertilizer, replacing natural gas with solar-driven processes.
Also, I don't think that Borlaug is super closely associated with the fertilizer, as much as with breeeding hardier strains or shorter stalks, to prevent loss of wheat crops or rice crops, for example. For that matter, manure could ne used as fertilizer for the Green Revolution, there's no dependency on the Haber process, that was an entirely different revolution both in time and geography.
Some of the first massive deployments of hydrogen electrolyzers are fir making ammonia fertilizer, replacing natural gas with solar-driven processes.
Also, I don't think that Borlaug is super closely associated with the fertilizer, as much as with breeeding hardier strains or shorter stalks, to prevent loss of wheat crops or rice crops, for example. For that matter, manure could ne used as fertilizer for the Green Revolution, there's no dependency on the Haber process, that was an entirely different revolution both in time and geography.
There is a reason nerds love Normal Borlaug, and that is he probably saved tons of people. Sure, maybe the food is less nutritious (a nebulous term, anyway) but we do have food.
Put another way, one might say he borrowed from the future to save the present.
I wouldn't put all the blame on him. Wouldn't be first or last time the narrowly efficiency-minded nerds and businessmen took a good idea and optimized it into a monster.
The supposed alternative, changing distribution of food rather than production of food, was a political decision that was fraught with problems. Any nation without food security soon finds that it can lose all of its other security too.
So for a lot of the criticism of the Green Revolution, which comes from a place of wanting a different political structure, but not yet being sure what that structure is, nerds like me see the "alternative" as not a real one. Politics could have saved India, but it did not, it was basic biotech and giving Indian farmers more productivity. If this is a "monster" I'd really like to see a less monstrous alternative proposed, with all the details specified. Because any alternative path sounds too monstrous to be considered by a humane being.
So for a lot of the criticism of the Green Revolution, which comes from a place of wanting a different political structure, but not yet being sure what that structure is, nerds like me see the "alternative" as not a real one. Politics could have saved India, but it did not, it was basic biotech and giving Indian farmers more productivity. If this is a "monster" I'd really like to see a less monstrous alternative proposed, with all the details specified. Because any alternative path sounds too monstrous to be considered by a humane being.
I don't understand your political argument at all.
Example of what I mean from Wikipedia: "Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a means to curb deforestation." This did not happen as the overproduction ended up as cattle feed and biofuel. And it isn't Borlaug's fault.
Example of what I mean from Wikipedia: "Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a means to curb deforestation." This did not happen as the overproduction ended up as cattle feed and biofuel. And it isn't Borlaug's fault.
Norman Bourlag's primary breakthrough was to cross-breed to increase yields of wheat. Wheat was never supposed to be where people get their micronutrients; wheat provides a baseline of carbs and a moderate amount of protein (to supplement some other primary protein source).
Right, but around the world the green revolution crops displaced more nutritious staple foods like millet and sorghum.
Or, just have 2 billion people on the planet, instead of 8.
You're welcome to take the lead and do your part to move the planet one step closer then.
I've done exactly that. I've done my part by actively deciding to not have children. By doing so I've stopped the creation of an entire tree of exponential human population growth in the form of my (lack of) descendents. It's unquestionably the most effective way an individual can reduce the negative impact of humans on the planet.
Your humorous implication that suicide would be effective has some merit, but only for individuals who have not reproduced already.
Your humorous implication that suicide would be effective has some merit, but only for individuals who have not reproduced already.
Why do people always arrive at "cull the herd" before "our way of life should change"?
Because reducing each human's consumption by X% is always going to be less effective than flattening the exponential curve of population growth. It's not even close. Especially when the global trend is towards higher per capita consumption rather than the reverse. Reusing grocery bags in the US (hey I do it too) is nothing compared to the mass modernization going on in huge areas of the world.
And "culling" (I assume you mean through violent means) isn't necessary. Simply reducing birth rates achieves the same solution.
And "culling" (I assume you mean through violent means) isn't necessary. Simply reducing birth rates achieves the same solution.
Such obvious truths are unfortunately incompatible with individual instincts to procreate.
Research who pollute/consume to most. One average American has the impact of many Africans, so some may have many children if they continue not to ruin the planet. And please compare the impact of top 10% richest US households vs the bottom 50%.
Quality > quantity.
Quality > quantity.
Look at the lives of people who live in the large cities of Africa surviving on $3 a day. They consume less because they can't afford to do otherwise. They live in poverty. Their reduced per capita consumption does not stem from, as is subtly implied by these arguments, some simpler way of life that we could try to get back to if only we strived for simplicity. They just can't afford to replace their (for example) broken, hacked, and welded 30 year old bicycle rim that serves them poorly. When the opportunity arises to afford a new rim, they do it. They consume by the same processes we do.
An average American consumes more resources than the average African, but when measured against the science/economic output they create, the average American is still multiples of times more efficient.
Its also much easier to transition Western societies to renewable energy and EVs, which wipes out a lot of carbon emissions for example.
Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.
Its also much easier to transition Western societies to renewable energy and EVs, which wipes out a lot of carbon emissions for example.
Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.
> Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.
Its going then to come as a shock to your world-view to learn that the UK, a nuclear power, with a permanent seat at the UN, and a card-carrying member of the West, had to receive food aid as recently as December 2020 from the UNICEF to feed their children [1].
So go turn your aircon off.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-55348047
Its going then to come as a shock to your world-view to learn that the UK, a nuclear power, with a permanent seat at the UN, and a card-carrying member of the West, had to receive food aid as recently as December 2020 from the UNICEF to feed their children [1].
So go turn your aircon off.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-55348047
[deleted]
My youngest daughter struggled mightily with constipation for the first six years of her life. Hours on the toilet crying, day after day.
At some point when she was six or maybe seven, I read a blurb somewhere about the importance of magnesium for smooth muscle operation. That day I added a teaspoon of epsom salt to some juice and gave it to her. The next day her constipation disappeared.
We all now take cheap 400 mg Mg supplement daily, and in the five years since she hasn't been constipated even once. Closest thing to a "miracle cure" I've ever encountered.
We're all vegetarians and do pretty well on fiber, but increasing my daughter's insoluble fiber intake when she was little was difficult, and resulted only in more bloating. But a little magnesium, whatever the mechanism, fixed her right up.
At some point when she was six or maybe seven, I read a blurb somewhere about the importance of magnesium for smooth muscle operation. That day I added a teaspoon of epsom salt to some juice and gave it to her. The next day her constipation disappeared.
We all now take cheap 400 mg Mg supplement daily, and in the five years since she hasn't been constipated even once. Closest thing to a "miracle cure" I've ever encountered.
We're all vegetarians and do pretty well on fiber, but increasing my daughter's insoluble fiber intake when she was little was difficult, and resulted only in more bloating. But a little magnesium, whatever the mechanism, fixed her right up.
> We're all vegetarians and do pretty well on fiber
Thank you for not making your kids be vegan. It's extremely hard to get kids proper nutrients on a vegan diet.
Related: Milk has good magnesium content, more so if grass-fed. If you can get raw milk from a local small farm, it's worth it.
Thank you for not making your kids be vegan. It's extremely hard to get kids proper nutrients on a vegan diet.
Related: Milk has good magnesium content, more so if grass-fed. If you can get raw milk from a local small farm, it's worth it.
I've imposed some dietary restrictions on my kids, but they're mostly glycemic in nature.
- No sugary drinks; absolutely no soda pop, ever, and very little fruit juice, which is really no better than pop.
- No sugary breakfasts. Breakfast cereal is fucking poison, especially the sweetened varieties.
- No kids-menu food. When we eat out, they've always ordered off the adult menu. No pizza, chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, french fries, PB&J, grilled cheese on white bread, etc.
Everywhere I look I see people who have let their kids turn into kids-menu kids-- kids who tolerate only pizza, deep fried food, breakfast cereal, etc. And everywhere I look now, I see fat kids and teens with the beginnings of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Any pediatrician will gladly talk about the growing crisis of metabolic syndrome in kids.
My kids went vegetarian completely of their own accord, likely copying me, but they've stuck with it. The main thing is that they've always eaten what we eat. It took a little training, but their tastes developed rapidly (as all kids' do) and from a young age they could enjoy a full range of healthy adult food with few very few aversions.
For example, my youngest still doesn't love blue cheese, but she can tolerate it. My older teen eats blue cheese from a bowl like ice cream.
- No sugary drinks; absolutely no soda pop, ever, and very little fruit juice, which is really no better than pop.
- No sugary breakfasts. Breakfast cereal is fucking poison, especially the sweetened varieties.
- No kids-menu food. When we eat out, they've always ordered off the adult menu. No pizza, chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese, french fries, PB&J, grilled cheese on white bread, etc.
Everywhere I look I see people who have let their kids turn into kids-menu kids-- kids who tolerate only pizza, deep fried food, breakfast cereal, etc. And everywhere I look now, I see fat kids and teens with the beginnings of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Any pediatrician will gladly talk about the growing crisis of metabolic syndrome in kids.
My kids went vegetarian completely of their own accord, likely copying me, but they've stuck with it. The main thing is that they've always eaten what we eat. It took a little training, but their tastes developed rapidly (as all kids' do) and from a young age they could enjoy a full range of healthy adult food with few very few aversions.
For example, my youngest still doesn't love blue cheese, but she can tolerate it. My older teen eats blue cheese from a bowl like ice cream.
And you are a responsible parent for doing that.
I have a friend who was raised on a kids-menu diet, and the poor guy still doesn't like burgers or steak. I'm working on introducing him to the good stuff, but the damage has been done.
I have a friend who was raised on a kids-menu diet, and the poor guy still doesn't like burgers or steak. I'm working on introducing him to the good stuff, but the damage has been done.
I know people like this too; grown up adults with crippling food aversions. Combining it with a sedentary lifestyle is a great way to cut a decade or two off a person's life, not to mention the pain and disability of diabetes.
sometimes a pizza or a coke is not a bad thing you know.
if you put all the bad stuff away, there might just come the time when your kids have enough of your rules and rebel and then begin to compensate and overuse those stuff.
been there, done that
been there, done that
Just don't normalize shitty food as something you eat casually, teach your kids to enjoy it like alcohol. A little every so often is fine, too much too often is bad.
precisely.
Yeah, this is an excellent point. You're absolutely right, oppressive rules can definitely backfire. We thought this through early on, and we seem to have successfully threaded the needle. My kids are now teen and tween-aged, with no signs of rebellion (so far!)
The sugary soda pop rule is fucking law-- completely set in stone. Believe it or not, neither of my kids has ever consumed a significant amount of sugary soda pop in their entire lives. However, they're allowed to drink diet soda, and my younger kid does so fairly regularly. My older kid doesn't really like sweet drinks.
The sugary breakfast rule is never broken at home, but I've always allowed sugary breakfasts as a treat when on vacation or when the grandparents take us to breakfast, which happens once or twice a month. The only requirement on these mornings is that they eat their protein first-- usually eggs. This ordering is an important life skill.
The kid's menu is strictly forbidden, whether or not the grandparents are buying. This was a bit of a fight with my younger kid, but we figured out how to negotiate using desert. This made desert a treat that could be earned, which seems to have bred some discipline in her.
At home, I keep the kitchen stocked with sugar substitutes. For years we used Truvia-type erythritol/stevia sweetener, but we've recently started using erythritol and monk fruit (Lakanto brand), which is nearly indistinguishable from sugar in taste. I also keep a jar of the stuff mixed with cinnamon, which we cryptically call cinnamon-sugar.
We make a lot of sweet stuff at home using the sugar subs, and I encourage the kids to cook. Mostly what they make is toast with butter and cinnamon-sugar, but sometimes we get into some crepes, pies, brownies, etc.
We still eat quite a bit of starchy and fruity stuff. Lots of pasta in particular. But I really treat sugar as poison, especially "naked" sugars like sodas. There's research coming out continually about the the deadly effects of the high glycemic load and high glycemic "velocity" of the Standard American Diet.
I know there's debate about the health of sugar substitutes, but it's a tool that I've chosen to use to keep our diet less sugary to the extent possible, while hopefully minimizing the possibility of the rebellion you speak of.
We'll see if it works.
EDIT:
Fuck pizza. If I had my way we'd never eat pizza, but my wife allows it occasionally. I complain about it, and make a big show of refusing to eat it, and the wife and kids all side-eye me while they talk about how good it is. Fucking traitors.
But, to your point, maybe my wife is smarter than me.
The sugary soda pop rule is fucking law-- completely set in stone. Believe it or not, neither of my kids has ever consumed a significant amount of sugary soda pop in their entire lives. However, they're allowed to drink diet soda, and my younger kid does so fairly regularly. My older kid doesn't really like sweet drinks.
The sugary breakfast rule is never broken at home, but I've always allowed sugary breakfasts as a treat when on vacation or when the grandparents take us to breakfast, which happens once or twice a month. The only requirement on these mornings is that they eat their protein first-- usually eggs. This ordering is an important life skill.
The kid's menu is strictly forbidden, whether or not the grandparents are buying. This was a bit of a fight with my younger kid, but we figured out how to negotiate using desert. This made desert a treat that could be earned, which seems to have bred some discipline in her.
At home, I keep the kitchen stocked with sugar substitutes. For years we used Truvia-type erythritol/stevia sweetener, but we've recently started using erythritol and monk fruit (Lakanto brand), which is nearly indistinguishable from sugar in taste. I also keep a jar of the stuff mixed with cinnamon, which we cryptically call cinnamon-sugar.
We make a lot of sweet stuff at home using the sugar subs, and I encourage the kids to cook. Mostly what they make is toast with butter and cinnamon-sugar, but sometimes we get into some crepes, pies, brownies, etc.
We still eat quite a bit of starchy and fruity stuff. Lots of pasta in particular. But I really treat sugar as poison, especially "naked" sugars like sodas. There's research coming out continually about the the deadly effects of the high glycemic load and high glycemic "velocity" of the Standard American Diet.
I know there's debate about the health of sugar substitutes, but it's a tool that I've chosen to use to keep our diet less sugary to the extent possible, while hopefully minimizing the possibility of the rebellion you speak of.
We'll see if it works.
EDIT:
Fuck pizza. If I had my way we'd never eat pizza, but my wife allows it occasionally. I complain about it, and make a big show of refusing to eat it, and the wife and kids all side-eye me while they talk about how good it is. Fucking traitors.
But, to your point, maybe my wife is smarter than me.
> Magnesium deficiency can be attributed to common dietary practices, medications, and farming techniques, along with estimates that the mineral content of vegetables has declined by as much as 80–90% in the last 100 years.
This is why, when people defend GMOs with the argument that we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for hundreds of years by selective breeding, that I don't think that argument leads to the conclusions they're looking for which is that its all perfectly harmless.
This is why, when people defend GMOs with the argument that we've been genetically modifying plants and animals for hundreds of years by selective breeding, that I don't think that argument leads to the conclusions they're looking for which is that its all perfectly harmless.
I make that argument, but I would never say "It's all perfectly harmless." The point is that the technique used to produce an organism isn't its self harmful. The question is whether the organism is harmful. Resistance to disease is good. Lower nutrient density is bad. It really doesn't matter whether we got here by selective breeding or modifying genes directly.
We didn't set out to lower nutrient density, though, that was a side effect of ignoring it and focusing on other things which we thought were good.
Yup, that's true. And the things we were focussing on are good. They're just not everything.
That's what they said back when butter would kill you and margarine was the solution.
But it does help focus the discussion on whether the changes are harmful, away from “it's a change, and change is bad”.
No, its deployed as a club to argue that all change is good.
Change in complex system is risky. Some people are risk averse.
Is lack of change in complex systems safe? I'd guess it's more that complex systems are inherently risky.
In such arguments, it is assumed that the current sate of things is already acceptable. That's exactly why people don't want to change them.
The current state of things isn't very stable though, especially when there's already a bunch of other parts of it we're intentionally or unintentionally modifying.
Most anti-GMO sentiments I encountered are appealing to nature. In which case pointing out that it’s more of the same is a valid response.
There might be other arguments against GMOs, like the one you put forth, that require different responses.
There might be other arguments against GMOs, like the one you put forth, that require different responses.
GMO's are not perfectly harmless, but nor are they as different from other forms of human manipulation as we have been lead to believe.
I've long taken the stance that the bigger issues are agricultural monoculture and proprietary genetics. We should require all to have copyleft genomes and use our large agricultural subsidies to promote genetic diversity in our food supply.
I've long taken the stance that the bigger issues are agricultural monoculture and proprietary genetics. We should require all to have copyleft genomes and use our large agricultural subsidies to promote genetic diversity in our food supply.
What does this have to do with GMOs though?
The idea being that maybe our selective breeding has already had a negative affect in terms of nutrient content.
So if we’ve messed things up with selective breeding we could be similarly messing things up with genetic modification.
So if we’ve messed things up with selective breeding we could be similarly messing things up with genetic modification.
The drop in magnesium levels is related primarily to depletion in over-worked farmland.
The paper shows that it is essentially impossible for an adult male to get the recommended DI of magnesium (420 mg/day) by eating vegetables alone. As far as I can see, the paper does not resolve whether that target is too high, or whether it can be reached by eating meat or taking supplements.
Seeds are a great source of magnesium. Pumpkin seeds in particular have a lot of it and are inexpensive and tasty.
The paper says "The highest food sources of magnesium are leafy greens (78 mg/serving), nuts (80 mg/serving), and whole grains (46 mg/serving)..."
So five servings every day of nuts and/or leafy greens would do it, but that doesn't sound like anybody's typical diet.
So five servings every day of nuts and/or leafy greens would do it, but that doesn't sound like anybody's typical diet.
The same paper also says "[...] foods containing phytates, polyphenols and oxalic acid, such as rice and nuts, all contribute to magnesium deficiency due to their ability to bind magnesium to produce insoluble precipitates, thus negatively impacting magnesium availability and absorption."
A typical serving of leafy greens is quite small, an adult can easily eat 2-4 servings at a time after they've been cooked.
one big potential problem with simply adding magnesium to fertilizers is that its is extremely hydrophilic and will lock to water and become impenetrable. My suspicion is that one of the larger issues that aren't even discussed is the role of fungi in the soil. Usually there is a symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi whereby the fungi breaks down minerals in the soil and hands off these precious ions to the plant in exchange for sugars. By giving readily digestible nutrients to the plants via artificial fertilizers, we rob the fungi of its role. The plants stop working with the fungi and they soon die off. This in turn robs us of nutrients the plant would have attained as a result of the symbiotic relationship. Magnesium being among them.
Cool that you brought up fungi.
It seems to be a very poorly understood field of study. I think it was an accepted part of the ecosystem for ancient farm technologies, however our modern world of compartmentalizing, nutrients, minerals, pests, etc is missing many of the inter locked natural systems. There have been interesting studies in the last 15-20 years revealing more and more about the micro life in soil. The interplay of bacteria, fungus, nutrients, biology and chemistry, can be quite fragile and using mono crops, selected fertilizers, selected pesticides can screw up that ecosystem. Think about old farmers spreading cow shit everywhere in the garden, composting with other animal manure, which all came from animals fed a wide range of food stuffs.
I'd expect the same deficiencies to show up downstream in grain and soy fed cows, pigs and chickens. For meat eaters, that's an argument to spend more for grass fed beef, lamb, buffalo, and pastured chicken eggs.
I don't know if such regenerative agriculture can scale up enough to feed everyone, but it can become a lot more affordable and accessible than it is now.
I don't know if such regenerative agriculture can scale up enough to feed everyone, but it can become a lot more affordable and accessible than it is now.
It can't scale up if it still needs to be produced in the same quantities. It takes a lot of farmland, about 80% in fact, to produce feed for livestock (especially for cattle) even with calorie-dense feed like cereals. You'd have to cut down a lot of forest to make pastures.
Permaculture techniques can often support significantly greater density than monoculture, but are often not conducive to machine harvest, so end up being much more labor intensive
In Australia and New Zealand practically all beef is grass fed. I don't think I've ever had corn-fed in my life.
And yes, it is very expensive (more so in NZ than AU)
And yes, it is very expensive (more so in NZ than AU)
[deleted]
I had sleep issues for years, including periodic limb movements[1]. My sleep doctor said to try 500mg plus of magnesium supplements. That was probably one of the most significant steps to (mostly) resolve the issue.
1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_limb_movement_disor...
PS full TMI story here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PelvicFloor/comments/kq089v/my_25_c...
1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_limb_movement_disor...
PS full TMI story here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PelvicFloor/comments/kq089v/my_25_c...
I know we’re all talking about the supplements we take, which fixes the issues for the individual, but what of the actual problem ?
I’m starting to feel like the USA is doomed in the long run because there’s too many corrupt influences in politics and science.
We’re constantly told x is good for us. Until we all find out it really wasn’t and now we're in trouble.
I’m starting to feel like the USA is doomed in the long run because there’s too many corrupt influences in politics and science.
We’re constantly told x is good for us. Until we all find out it really wasn’t and now we're in trouble.
Magnesium solved two problems for me: stiff muscles and insomnia.
Scientific information about how magnesium works is hard to come by. Here's what I have been able to gather from various sources: The cells in your body need calcium to go into "on state". To go into "off state" magnesium has to go in and displace calcium.
When your body is low on magnesium your muscles can't go into "off state" and your muscles become stiff. To relax you need an Epsom salt bath (it contains magnesium) or just take magnesium supplements.
When your brain cells can't go to "off state" you can't sleep. You need magnesium to help your brain cells go into off state. However the "blood brain barrier" (look it up) prevents magnesium from easily entering the brain. Magnesium l-threonate (that's a compound of magnesium, not a brand name) can pass through this barrier and help you sleep.
I have had sleep issues for many years. I saw many doctors including sleep specialists but all they wanted to do is put me on prescription meds. But these meds are addictive and you have to take it for the rest of your life. I didn't want that. These are "quick fixes". As a software developer I was interested in finding the underlying problem and fix that, as opposed to the quick fixes that the medical community was offering me.
A breakthrough came when I saw a naturopathic doctor for my stiff muscles and she advised me to take Epsom salt baths. That seemed to help. I investigated more and found out that the ingredient in Epsom salt that helped me is magnesium. Then I found out that you can actually get magnesium pills and tried that. That worked remarkably well. But the big surprise was that I slept better the night I tried the magnesium pill. Since then I have been researching how it is that magnesium helped me sleep.
Stress depletes magnesium in your body. If you are a software developer you are stressing your brain all day when you do your job and you are depleting magnesium. Low magnesium levels causes muscle issues as well as sleep issues. Magnesium supplements solve the problem.
It is very unfortunate that medical doctors don't seem to be very knowledgeable about this topic. When I see doctors I mention that I am taking magnesium for muscle and sleep issues and they seem surprised, but no doctor has yet told me that I am wrong.
Note that magnesium is a natural mineral, not a drug, essential for your body, and found in many foods. Excess amounts of magnesium can cause a laxative effect, but this is very temporary.
Scientific information about how magnesium works is hard to come by. Here's what I have been able to gather from various sources: The cells in your body need calcium to go into "on state". To go into "off state" magnesium has to go in and displace calcium.
When your body is low on magnesium your muscles can't go into "off state" and your muscles become stiff. To relax you need an Epsom salt bath (it contains magnesium) or just take magnesium supplements.
When your brain cells can't go to "off state" you can't sleep. You need magnesium to help your brain cells go into off state. However the "blood brain barrier" (look it up) prevents magnesium from easily entering the brain. Magnesium l-threonate (that's a compound of magnesium, not a brand name) can pass through this barrier and help you sleep.
I have had sleep issues for many years. I saw many doctors including sleep specialists but all they wanted to do is put me on prescription meds. But these meds are addictive and you have to take it for the rest of your life. I didn't want that. These are "quick fixes". As a software developer I was interested in finding the underlying problem and fix that, as opposed to the quick fixes that the medical community was offering me.
A breakthrough came when I saw a naturopathic doctor for my stiff muscles and she advised me to take Epsom salt baths. That seemed to help. I investigated more and found out that the ingredient in Epsom salt that helped me is magnesium. Then I found out that you can actually get magnesium pills and tried that. That worked remarkably well. But the big surprise was that I slept better the night I tried the magnesium pill. Since then I have been researching how it is that magnesium helped me sleep.
Stress depletes magnesium in your body. If you are a software developer you are stressing your brain all day when you do your job and you are depleting magnesium. Low magnesium levels causes muscle issues as well as sleep issues. Magnesium supplements solve the problem.
It is very unfortunate that medical doctors don't seem to be very knowledgeable about this topic. When I see doctors I mention that I am taking magnesium for muscle and sleep issues and they seem surprised, but no doctor has yet told me that I am wrong.
Note that magnesium is a natural mineral, not a drug, essential for your body, and found in many foods. Excess amounts of magnesium can cause a laxative effect, but this is very temporary.
How much magnesium are we talking about here?
I actually have magnesium in my supplement drawer : "Magnesium Carbonate from natural sources" - it says take 2 grams, max 4 grams and let it "sit in cold water for 10 minutes, or warmer water for 10 seconds" before drinking.
Is that the range you are taking and is the l-threonate form much better, ie. is carbonate useless?
Interested in trying this out later this night..
I actually have magnesium in my supplement drawer : "Magnesium Carbonate from natural sources" - it says take 2 grams, max 4 grams and let it "sit in cold water for 10 minutes, or warmer water for 10 seconds" before drinking.
Is that the range you are taking and is the l-threonate form much better, ie. is carbonate useless?
Interested in trying this out later this night..
The l-threonate works better for sleep. I take two 50mg tablets per day. In addition I take 400 to 600mg of "magnesium lysinate glycinate chelate" per day to help with muscles.
Thanks this is really helpful information. In your experience, is it a waste of time taking magnesium oxide for sleep?
For me it solved insomnia. I've tried various forms, the important part is the magnesium. It is taken up by bones so magnesium status in blood isn't the best metric to use here. Really you should pay attention to how you feel. Magnesium is depleted by stress as well. It's the only drug along w/ vit D that I take, and I don't take caffeine.
Anecdotal, but I personally would get ocular migraines pretty frequently for years. They started when I was a teenager, but I was always told by doctors that it was nothing to worry about.
A few years ago I read about magnesium deficiency and migraines, figured it was worth a shot to try supplementing it, and now I rarely get those ocular migraines. The only time I get them now is when I run out of magnesium supplements, forget to buy more, and end up going a few weeks without them.
I really can’t say that it’s the magnesium, but as long as I’m not getting the ocular migraines anymore I’ll continue to supplement it. A bit of a warning though, it can act as a laxative for some people and cause digestive issues. Liquid based forms are gentler. Mineral water tends to have high magnesium content as well (e.g. Gerolsteiner brand).
A few years ago I read about magnesium deficiency and migraines, figured it was worth a shot to try supplementing it, and now I rarely get those ocular migraines. The only time I get them now is when I run out of magnesium supplements, forget to buy more, and end up going a few weeks without them.
I really can’t say that it’s the magnesium, but as long as I’m not getting the ocular migraines anymore I’ll continue to supplement it. A bit of a warning though, it can act as a laxative for some people and cause digestive issues. Liquid based forms are gentler. Mineral water tends to have high magnesium content as well (e.g. Gerolsteiner brand).
I’m not arguing against these findings but the whole subject of nutrition leaves me frustrated at times.
Ever tried to have 100% daily recommended intake of every nutrient? I suspect almost nobody achieves that.
And yet, despite this, and magnesium issues among likely many other issues, our species has never lived longer, grown taller, survived infancy, etc. more than we have now.
That being said, as we understand and overcome specific issues, I imagine we can become even healthier.
Ever tried to have 100% daily recommended intake of every nutrient? I suspect almost nobody achieves that.
And yet, despite this, and magnesium issues among likely many other issues, our species has never lived longer, grown taller, survived infancy, etc. more than we have now.
That being said, as we understand and overcome specific issues, I imagine we can become even healthier.
> Ever tried to have 100% daily recommended intake of every nutrient?
I take soylent (that is, a European fork of it) with some regularity. Mainly out of laziness, but also I hope that it's good for whatever I might have been deficient in when eating other foods. It doesn't reduce how healthy I try to eat, but with a picky partner and semi-picky self, it probably helps. It's also just convenient. Would recommend. The flavored versions, that is, not the cardboard variant.
In case anyone wants to get started and isn't sure what to try first, some of the variants I tried or know people that tried it:
- Jimmy Joy (previously: Joylent), their Plenny Shake powder: I like all flavors that I tried (that is chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and banana).
- Nano: not a big fan of it, and neither is friend A that gave it to me iirc.
- Huel: friends B and C liked it a lot better than JJ, but the Huel Black (B,C didn't try that one) is absolutely disgusting to me as well as to friend D. I and friends A,D never tried the regular Huel.
Not sure how close each is to the original Soylent, but Joylent as a name probably says enough. If you read their blog, the updates to the powder seem to be about things like "uptake was found not to be great for X so we increased that" and some such. I also liked SoylentLife which iirc was closer to Soylent than Joylent was at the time, but they went out of business.
One interesting data point is that I am much less vitamin D deficient than my girlfriend who doesn't eat any soylent variants (she doesn't like any). We eat many meals together / the same stuff, and if anything she sees more sunlight than I do, so that might say something or nothing. There have also been a lot of people that do Jimmy Joy only (eating nothing else) for months and then have their blood checked and it comes back clean. From what I've been able to find, it's quite fine as a food replacement, but of course you don't have to (and I don't) use it that way. Other brands probably have similar tests done on them but I didn't look into those as I only ever ate them experimentally.
I take soylent (that is, a European fork of it) with some regularity. Mainly out of laziness, but also I hope that it's good for whatever I might have been deficient in when eating other foods. It doesn't reduce how healthy I try to eat, but with a picky partner and semi-picky self, it probably helps. It's also just convenient. Would recommend. The flavored versions, that is, not the cardboard variant.
In case anyone wants to get started and isn't sure what to try first, some of the variants I tried or know people that tried it:
- Jimmy Joy (previously: Joylent), their Plenny Shake powder: I like all flavors that I tried (that is chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and banana).
- Nano: not a big fan of it, and neither is friend A that gave it to me iirc.
- Huel: friends B and C liked it a lot better than JJ, but the Huel Black (B,C didn't try that one) is absolutely disgusting to me as well as to friend D. I and friends A,D never tried the regular Huel.
Not sure how close each is to the original Soylent, but Joylent as a name probably says enough. If you read their blog, the updates to the powder seem to be about things like "uptake was found not to be great for X so we increased that" and some such. I also liked SoylentLife which iirc was closer to Soylent than Joylent was at the time, but they went out of business.
One interesting data point is that I am much less vitamin D deficient than my girlfriend who doesn't eat any soylent variants (she doesn't like any). We eat many meals together / the same stuff, and if anything she sees more sunlight than I do, so that might say something or nothing. There have also been a lot of people that do Jimmy Joy only (eating nothing else) for months and then have their blood checked and it comes back clean. From what I've been able to find, it's quite fine as a food replacement, but of course you don't have to (and I don't) use it that way. Other brands probably have similar tests done on them but I didn't look into those as I only ever ate them experimentally.
The issue I have with soylent and some of their competitors is that they get to their RDA amounts by directly adding vitamins and minerals, some of which have low absorption depending on how they are bound - for example zinc and magnesium oxides have poor absorption compared to other zinc and magnesium salts - and which is not substantially better than just taking a multivitamin as far as I can tell.
> they get to their RDA amounts by directly adding vitamins and minerals, some of which have low absorption
Do read the blogs from these companies. This is taken into account, and updated when new studies come out. From what I know, the reference intake was a starting point and they're definitely reading the research on real uptake from supplements. (Like, even you and I know about uptake issues, and it's these people's jobs to know about it. They're not stupid.)
Not sure if you saw, since I've been editing the post a bit, but also people that eat only this for months still have normal blood values, so either they're not measuring what they're deficient on or uptake is good. Last I checked was a while ago, probably they were on Jimmy Joy powder version 1 or maybe 2.
> not substantially better than just taking a multivitamin
I wasn't arguing that eating healthily can't be done via other ways. Waterluvian was asking about matching the reference intake, this would just be one way to do it. If you already do it with supplements or even just a lot of vegetables, power to you!
Do read the blogs from these companies. This is taken into account, and updated when new studies come out. From what I know, the reference intake was a starting point and they're definitely reading the research on real uptake from supplements. (Like, even you and I know about uptake issues, and it's these people's jobs to know about it. They're not stupid.)
Not sure if you saw, since I've been editing the post a bit, but also people that eat only this for months still have normal blood values, so either they're not measuring what they're deficient on or uptake is good. Last I checked was a while ago, probably they were on Jimmy Joy powder version 1 or maybe 2.
> not substantially better than just taking a multivitamin
I wasn't arguing that eating healthily can't be done via other ways. Waterluvian was asking about matching the reference intake, this would just be one way to do it. If you already do it with supplements or even just a lot of vegetables, power to you!
Oh, I think I started writing my reply before you added that. Will take a look.
>Even you and I know about uptake issues, and it's these people's jobs to know about it. They're not stupid.
Sure, but their primary goal is to get people to buy their product, not necessarily to be as nutritious as possible. You could apply this same argument to the myriad vitamin and supplement companies which use the cheapest possible mineral salts even if the absorption is trash.
>Even you and I know about uptake issues, and it's these people's jobs to know about it. They're not stupid.
Sure, but their primary goal is to get people to buy their product, not necessarily to be as nutritious as possible. You could apply this same argument to the myriad vitamin and supplement companies which use the cheapest possible mineral salts even if the absorption is trash.
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Yes, I've done it [0]. It's not too hard, surprisingly affordable and not bad-tasting, but you are limited in what you can eat, and it takes some research/optimization that I think is too much for 90% of people.
First you need to learn how to get complete nutritional info. A lot of packaged food does not have a full nutritional profile on its packaging, and will omit many vitamins and minerals that could even be abundant in that particular food. To work around this you should use software like Cronometer [1] that allows you to look up nutritional info against various databases. In my experience the most comprehensive data source is the NCCDB, which has all important vitamins and minerals plus amino acid profiles. You can then estimate full nutritional info for most whole foods you buy in a store by converting the store-bought brand's nutritional info to the NCCDB info. For example if you buy oatmeal that says it has 150kcal per 0.5 cup, and the NCCDB info says 100kcal per X grams, you track your store-bought oatmeal as 1.5X grams per 0.5cup you eat. Note this only works for whole/single-ingredient foods, for processed foods with multiple ingredients the ratios of ingredients will vary too much from product to product for the NCCDB to be useful.
You should also get a food scale so that you can properly measure food that has its nutritional info based on mass rather than by volume. They're pretty cheap, and you can do before/after measurements to make it less tedious to measure small things.
Now that you can get full nutritional info for each whole food, the rest is an optimization problem across macros, micros, amino acids (important if you get a lot of protein from plant-bases sources), price/availability, and your personal preferences.
Here is an example of a set of foods I eat almost every day which gives you a very strong macro/micro base: 80g (1 cup) rolled oats, 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 container Oikos Triple Zero yogurt, 0.5 oz pumpkin seeds, 0.5 oz sunflower seeds, 2 mandarin oranges. Try entering that to Cronometer, you'll see it's about 800kcal and makes good progress in a lot of vitamins and minerals - relevant to the article, it already has 84% of the RDA of magnesium. You can easily max all other micros by eating a dinner consisting of fish, rice and beans, 1 carrot, and some broccoli - and still have room left over for additional macros (which will of course themselves contain extra micros) if you exercise.
Of course, this is much more cognitive work than the majority of people want to put in, and because it only works when you buy most of your food in the form of single-ingredients that you then prepare yourself, it's not compatible with a lifestyle of eating lots of prepared foods or dining out. However once you invest the up front time in learning how to do all this, it's not very hard to do, especially if you eat a consistent diet or combine things into set meals you can mix and match [2].
[0] The major exception is I usually don't hit 100% of the RDA for dietary Vitamin D. Dietary vitamin D in non-supplemental form (as found in milk and milk substitutes) is only present in very few foods - oily fish and sun-exposed mushrooms. I do eat these somewhat regularly but not enough to hit 100%. But I think as long as you get adequate sun exposure it's not a big deal.
[1] cronometer.com
[2] For example, in the example set of foods I provided, the rolled oats + soy milk + chia seeds are eaten together in the form of overnight oats almost every morning.
First you need to learn how to get complete nutritional info. A lot of packaged food does not have a full nutritional profile on its packaging, and will omit many vitamins and minerals that could even be abundant in that particular food. To work around this you should use software like Cronometer [1] that allows you to look up nutritional info against various databases. In my experience the most comprehensive data source is the NCCDB, which has all important vitamins and minerals plus amino acid profiles. You can then estimate full nutritional info for most whole foods you buy in a store by converting the store-bought brand's nutritional info to the NCCDB info. For example if you buy oatmeal that says it has 150kcal per 0.5 cup, and the NCCDB info says 100kcal per X grams, you track your store-bought oatmeal as 1.5X grams per 0.5cup you eat. Note this only works for whole/single-ingredient foods, for processed foods with multiple ingredients the ratios of ingredients will vary too much from product to product for the NCCDB to be useful.
You should also get a food scale so that you can properly measure food that has its nutritional info based on mass rather than by volume. They're pretty cheap, and you can do before/after measurements to make it less tedious to measure small things.
Now that you can get full nutritional info for each whole food, the rest is an optimization problem across macros, micros, amino acids (important if you get a lot of protein from plant-bases sources), price/availability, and your personal preferences.
Here is an example of a set of foods I eat almost every day which gives you a very strong macro/micro base: 80g (1 cup) rolled oats, 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 container Oikos Triple Zero yogurt, 0.5 oz pumpkin seeds, 0.5 oz sunflower seeds, 2 mandarin oranges. Try entering that to Cronometer, you'll see it's about 800kcal and makes good progress in a lot of vitamins and minerals - relevant to the article, it already has 84% of the RDA of magnesium. You can easily max all other micros by eating a dinner consisting of fish, rice and beans, 1 carrot, and some broccoli - and still have room left over for additional macros (which will of course themselves contain extra micros) if you exercise.
Of course, this is much more cognitive work than the majority of people want to put in, and because it only works when you buy most of your food in the form of single-ingredients that you then prepare yourself, it's not compatible with a lifestyle of eating lots of prepared foods or dining out. However once you invest the up front time in learning how to do all this, it's not very hard to do, especially if you eat a consistent diet or combine things into set meals you can mix and match [2].
[0] The major exception is I usually don't hit 100% of the RDA for dietary Vitamin D. Dietary vitamin D in non-supplemental form (as found in milk and milk substitutes) is only present in very few foods - oily fish and sun-exposed mushrooms. I do eat these somewhat regularly but not enough to hit 100%. But I think as long as you get adequate sun exposure it's not a big deal.
[1] cronometer.com
[2] For example, in the example set of foods I provided, the rolled oats + soy milk + chia seeds are eaten together in the form of overnight oats almost every morning.
extending quality of nutrition to lifespan is adding another layer of abstraction... maybe it's the taoism stuff talking but my intuition is these two things are not related and can possibly hinder.
That was 20 years ago. Life spans are falling, as is height.
Not everywhere is USA. In most developed countries, lifespans were going up until start of Covid, even though our vegetables are watery too.
If I had to guess, I would say that life expectancy in USA would start climbing again if all the obese people managed to shave, say, 5 points off their BMI. Morbid and supermorbid obesity is horribly widespread there.
Of course, it is more likely that the rest of the world catches up than that the US slims down.
If I had to guess, I would say that life expectancy in USA would start climbing again if all the obese people managed to shave, say, 5 points off their BMI. Morbid and supermorbid obesity is horribly widespread there.
Of course, it is more likely that the rest of the world catches up than that the US slims down.
In the United States?
Average height in Central America quite a bit lower than the US, which is where most migrants to the US come from.
Average height in Central America quite a bit lower than the US, which is where most migrants to the US come from.
A good article I read on a similar angle:
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
I was wondering when someone was going to bring up climate change. And this article is the only thing that’s brought it up in this thread so far, meanwhile everyone else seems to be talking about taking magnesium pills.
This is just another sign that climate change is making this planet uninhabitable for us.
This is just another sign that climate change is making this planet uninhabitable for us.
Should vitamin and mineral levels be checked during yearly checkups as standard practice? It seems like it would give us a lot of useful data and help people live healthier lives.
I know Weston A. Price is a bit of a controversial topic, but his work does show the demineralization of the western world quite effectively. I think supplementation alone is simply a patch on the larger issue, which is the degradation of our land and farming practices.
Vitamin D deficiency is fairly common, it would make sense to check for it.
Coincidence?
"Vitamin D is currently the only Essential Vitamin or Mineral which appears to have deficiency rates at a similar level to Magnesium"
https://examine.com/supplements/magnesium/research/#nutrient...
Dai (2018): Magnesium status and supplementation influence vitamin D status and metabolism: results from a randomized trial https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/ "Our findings suggest that optimal magnesium status may be important for optimizing 25(OH)D status. "
So it might well be that general deficiency in Vitamin D is caused by the deficiency in magnesium status. This would also be an explanation why we see Vitamin D deficiency in sunny Africa: https://theconversation.com/think-vitamin-d-deficiency-is-no...
"Vitamin D is currently the only Essential Vitamin or Mineral which appears to have deficiency rates at a similar level to Magnesium"
https://examine.com/supplements/magnesium/research/#nutrient...
Dai (2018): Magnesium status and supplementation influence vitamin D status and metabolism: results from a randomized trial https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/ "Our findings suggest that optimal magnesium status may be important for optimizing 25(OH)D status. "
So it might well be that general deficiency in Vitamin D is caused by the deficiency in magnesium status. This would also be an explanation why we see Vitamin D deficiency in sunny Africa: https://theconversation.com/think-vitamin-d-deficiency-is-no...
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965771
If you ever travel in a developing nation like Nepal and eat the vegetables in a rural region there, and then return to the US/Canada, the difference is immediately noticeable.
yes reading your comments took me back to Peru and their corn and potato. Even chicken, I ate simplest food but had enjoyed them so much.
Magnesium and other minerals don't disappear when consumed, it comes out again with sewage. Hence, soil depletion could be addressed by turning sewage into fertilizer.
I see a lot of discussion of nutrient content of farmed vegetables here. A cheap and easy alternative to farmed greens lies in foraging wild weeds. Reports from scientists at UC Berkeley have found that toxins like heavy metals, PCBs, etc don't bioaccumulate in these wild greens, so that's great. They rival kale and spinach in their nutritive value. And they're free! Learn to reliably identify the weeds around you and you'll find tons of joy in weeding your backyard or foraging at a park and getting a dinner salad (or bathua ka saag, or quelites, or horta, or minestrella soup) out of it. And it's incredibly unlikely someone's going to be pissed at you for picking their dandelions/purslane/cat's ear/goosefoot/plantain. (Do avoid areas that have had pesticide applied.)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/weeds-growing-in-poor-cit...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/385864v1
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/weeds-growing-in-poor-cit...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/385864v1
The must-read book The Dorito Effect covered this years ago. De-nutrification of food has been decades in the making.
That's right. If you want magnesium you need to eat Cool Ranch Doritos … they have twice as much magnesium as the Nacho Cheese variety.
Seriously though a handful of Doritos has as much magnesium as a raw carrot. Vegetables just aren't a concentrated source of metals. Nuts are more reliable.
Seriously though a handful of Doritos has as much magnesium as a raw carrot. Vegetables just aren't a concentrated source of metals. Nuts are more reliable.
Plants in the wild are in a continuous battle against insects, molds and fungi and herbivores. They excrete assorted defensive chemical and build others into their tissues.
A 'pet' plant is protected against a large number of these attacks = it makes less of them. A number of these affect taste and flavor as the herbivore defences are turned off. Caterpillars are herbivore BTW.
So these pet plants become more pure pulp.
These are my speculations. but I think they are worth studying. Loss of Magnesium is a known decline caused by over use of magnesium by the plants grown and there has not been selective magnesium fertilisation. They should study some of the common rocks to see which ones are suitable to be ground up and added to the soil.
Meta comment on this thread so forgive me. There are only 40 comments and 3 of them are top level comments stating that taking magnesium supplements cured their health issue. One is anxiety, one is sleep issues, and one is migraines.
These are some of the same claims I hear from the marijuana enthusiasts on Reddit frequently.
I don’t have any points to make about the observation, just noticed it and felt compelled to share.
These are some of the same claims I hear from the marijuana enthusiasts on Reddit frequently.
I don’t have any points to make about the observation, just noticed it and felt compelled to share.
For anyone taking magnesium supplements that have found it helpful, did you ever get a blood test to look at your magnesium levels and did they say you were deficient based on the reference ranges?
Unfortunately, that is what lots of people do not do. Noticed it recently with Vitamin D where everyone was like: "There is much deficiency, there are no down sites, let's all take it." And I was like: "Sure, there are probably benefits, but for people with actual deficiency. There is a test for that, why don't you do that?" But at that point, it was too late because you can't test for a deficiency once you supplement it.
As much as 90% of the US population may be deficient in vitamin D, so you have a good chance of it. That said, I agree that testing is good, either before or after supplementation.
https://www.grassrootshealth.net/document/grassrootshealth-p...
https://www.grassrootshealth.net/document/grassrootshealth-p...
I don't disagree with anything you wrote except to say that in Canada & USA the medical system (insurance, etc.) presumes everyone is vitamin D deficient, and so usually testing is not covered unless there is some other pressing concern. So, most people don't get tested.
Ironically, supplementing vitamin D can cause a magnesium deficiency.
You can’t overdose magnesium orally if you have healthy kidneys. The worst that can happen is a bit of diarrhea.
I'll add the quiet part: it is off-topic, non-scientific, and all too typical when any discussion edges too close to health and exercise.
Medicine solves some medical problems, if you're taking the right medicine. (I think this is all a layperson can take away from the observation.)
Oh, an observation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOs7YjSLEMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOs7YjSLEMk
One thing I have noticed over the years is that I am addicted to the taste of Costco’s Kirkland signature bottled water (similar to Dasani but nothing like bottled “spring water”)
One hypothesis I have is that my body is craving magnesium, which is one of the “minerals added for taste”.
One hypothesis I have is that my body is craving magnesium, which is one of the “minerals added for taste”.
I had a similar craving for Magnesia, a Czech mineral water high in magnesium.
Once I started supplementing magnesium by other means, I can go without Magnesia for weeks.
Once I started supplementing magnesium by other means, I can go without Magnesia for weeks.
I wonder how nutritious edible weeds are? I assume a lot of the loss of nutrients comes from rigorously farming the same monoculture land for things like shitty iceberg lettuce. Maybe a little unfair to single that out when corn and tomatoes are especially greedy plants.
As I watch the edges of the woods get overtaken with garlic mustard and tearthumb, I'm thinking why not eat them? I realize this isn't going to work for those in a city but I do wonder about the nutrition of things growing wild on land that isn't typically farmed.
As I watch the edges of the woods get overtaken with garlic mustard and tearthumb, I'm thinking why not eat them? I realize this isn't going to work for those in a city but I do wonder about the nutrition of things growing wild on land that isn't typically farmed.
This is awfully technical, but in practical terms: Magnesium citrate is yummy. So should we all be taking it or is it useless as a substitute for the kind in vegetables?
If you are interested in this topic and want to know more, I highly recommend the book The Dorito Effect - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476724237/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm...
I never believed in getting nutrients (besides the calories) from the actual food. Supplementation is necessary.
Even if this was true, which it is not, if you have nutrient deficiencies you need supplements not better food.
In present day Western society if you don't get everything you need, which will be from disease, alcoholism, age, lack of sun or specific diets like Vegan, food cannot accurately help.
In present day Western society if you don't get everything you need, which will be from disease, alcoholism, age, lack of sun or specific diets like Vegan, food cannot accurately help.
Jigsaw SRT Magnesium twice a day has solved my anxiety, muscle cramps, and heart palpitations. It’s one of the only “slow release” formulas out there. Magnesium normally can cause a laxative effect.
Another argument against the senseless, detrimental addition of Fluoride in water supply:
"In addition, fluoride, found in 74% of the American population’s drinking water, with ~50% of drinking water having a concentration of 0.7 mg/L, prevents magnesium absorption through binding and production of insoluble complexes."
"In addition, fluoride, found in 74% of the American population’s drinking water, with ~50% of drinking water having a concentration of 0.7 mg/L, prevents magnesium absorption through binding and production of insoluble complexes."
The title of the article is “Challenges in the Diagnosis of Magnesium Status”
Changed now—thanks. Submitted title was "Vegetables have become far less nutritious".
But it does cover more than that and the current title is pretty close.
The guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ask to use the original title unless it's linkbait or wrong.
I get it's there in the guidelines (notably not called rules) however when the title isn't informative I'd rather have the modified title personally.
But in practice, even dang(/team) themselves sometimes change the title away from the original, to be more indicative of the article content, even when it isn't exactly linkbait or wrong per se.
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seaorg(11)
[deleted]
Funny, that there is a big push to have plant based meat replacements and promotions of vegetarian or vegan diets in the media.
It stands to reason that meat is probably also becoming less nutritious, since the animals are being raised on those same less-nutritious plants. Especially with respect to micro-nutrients and trace minerals... being short on these causes subtle problems which get worse as you age, but the meat animals don't get very old anyway, so these deficiencies stay hidden.
Don’t meat animals concentrate nutrients and toxins?
Matter cannot be created, just reformed. There were 100,000 humans at one point and now there are 7 billion. All that matter came from somewhere. To be fair, we have killed a lot of animals but also created a lot more in the form of farm animals.
It seems reasonable to me that this is unlikely to be sustainable even if we found a way to send humans off planet. Maybe that missing magnesium gets pulled out of the soil into crops, then into our bellies, and then into a wooden box that sits as far away from our arable land as we can get it.
I of course have no scientific background or idea what I’m taking about, just a fun pop science theory that came to mind when reading this.
It seems reasonable to me that this is unlikely to be sustainable even if we found a way to send humans off planet. Maybe that missing magnesium gets pulled out of the soil into crops, then into our bellies, and then into a wooden box that sits as far away from our arable land as we can get it.
I of course have no scientific background or idea what I’m taking about, just a fun pop science theory that came to mind when reading this.
Total living biomass has 550 billion tons of carbon. Of that, 60 million are in human bodies.
Most of it's plants, but plants very much need magnesium and other nutrients too.
Most of it's plants, but plants very much need magnesium and other nutrients too.
The easiest of those references to link to is https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1... :
"Three kinds of evidence point toward declines of some nutrients in fruits and vegetables available in the United States and the United Kingdom: 1) early studies of fertilization found inverse relationships between crop yield and mineral concentrations—the widely cited “dilution effect”; 2) three recent studies of historical food composition data found apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables and perhaps fruits; one study also evaluated vitamins and protein with similar results; and 3) recent side-by-side plantings of low- and high-yield cultivars of broccoli and grains found consistently negative correlations between yield and concentrations of minerals and protein, a newly recognized genetic dilution effect. "