Decline in food's nutrient content since 1930

From Discover magazine, May 2005, page 56:

"In 1997 a British study compared the mineral content of fruits and vegetables grown in the 1930s with the mineral content of produce grown in the 1980s. It found that several nutrients had dropped dramatically, including calcium (down nearly 30 percent), iron (down 32 percent), and magnesium (down 21 percent)."

One of my earlier posts showed how nutrients in food had declined from 1975 to 1998, according to US Department of Agriculture surveys. Putting those study results together with the British study, it is likely that the nutritional decline of fruits and vegetables from 1930 to the present is quite dramatic, by any standard.

It has become increasingly hard to get adequate nutrition from food, even if a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables is consumed. But we are not all the same. Persons at the end of the Bell Curve requiring greater than normal amounts of nutrients to maintain good health may find it not merely hard, but impossible to obtain the nutrients they need from diet alone.