Nearly all of the minerals in our diet originate from the soil. That thin brown layer under our feet is the basis of our survival. And it’s in trouble. So even though we may be diligently eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, we still may not be getting all the nutrients we need.It’s as if there’s a flaw in our design. Minerals, which are essential to our functioning, cannot be made by the human body. We have to rely on our food to obtain them. And minerals can only be present in our food, if they’re physically in the soil for plants to take up. Farmers who apply manures and composts, as opposed to artificial fertilisers, to their soils increase the likelihood of this happening. A kind of deal is then brokered beneath our feet – micro organisms free up the minerals and in return get fed by the plants. In this beautifully balanced way, plants can nourish themselves by tapping into the mineral bank.
However, worrying evidence shows during the half century, vegetables have lost an average:
49% of their sodium content
46% of their
calcium content
27% of their iron content
24% of their
magnesium content
16% of their potassium content
76% of their copper content
Fruits are suffering too, for example, you need to eat three apples or oranges to supply the same iron content as one in 1940. Recent studies (2002) have shown that the mineral content of milk and popular meats have also fallen significantly. The levels of iron recorded in the average rump steak have dropped by 55%, while magnesium fell by 7%. Looking at fifteen different meat items, the analysis found that the iron content had fallen on average by 47%. Furthermore, the iron content of milk had dropped by more than 60%, lost 2% of its
calcium, and 21% of its
magnesium.
So why is this happening?
Ultimately, experts believe it’s down to the way we’re producing food. Justus von Liebig discovered early in the 1900s that nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium
were the main minerals required for growing plants. As these could be manufactured artificially, natural methods of building fertility like crop rotations and applying composted manure (which provides a vast range of minerals) declined, and allowed farmers to grow arable crops year after year. However plants need more than three minerals to grow. Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association – the main organic food and farming organisation – explains, “When you use nitrogen fertiliser you
actually depress the biological activity of the soil. That means robbing the plant of its capacity to nourish itself with all the trace elements and minerals it needs… if you use nitrogen fertiliser you are reducing the nutrition to a very simple level which makes the plant very vulnerable to pest disease and fungus attack.” Nutrition is a complex area. And when we try to simplify it, we, like plants, run into trouble. It’s an unfortunate paradox that today many of us are overfed, (46% of men and 32% of women in the UK
are overweight) but undernourished – 70% of which goes unrecognised and untreated. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that these statistics match the exponential
rise in chronic diseases of both our minds and bodies.
So what can we do?
The good news is that scientific studies over the last four decades have confirmed that organic fruit and vegetables contain higher levels of minerals such as iron and zinc and 40% more antioxidants compared to non-organic foodstuffs. In fact, no food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food. This is because organic farmers feed the soil, using crop rotations, growing clover and applying composted manures – encouraging the biological life of the soil to release the nutrients that plants need. In total, six studies have now found that organic milk has more fat-soluble nutrients – omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin E and beta-carotene – than non-organic milk, as well as a healthier omega 3:6 ratio
(skimmed milk does not have these nutrients). The most recent and scientifically robust study is by Glasgow and Liverpool Universities, which found that UK (whole) organic milk has on average 68% higher levels of the essential fatty acid omega 3 and a healthier omega 3:6 profile than non-organic milk. So eat and drink as much organic produce as possible. However, even though we may be eating our five portions of organic fruit and vegetables a day, a number of scientific studies are showing that to maximise our health, some of us need more nutrients than we can get from diet alone. “Eat the best food you can get – organic” advises Shane Heaton, a nutritionist. “And because the world around you is getting more polluted every day, take additional
supplements as nutritional insurance.
Selenium, for example, is very low in some
UK soils – Norfolk has the highest levels in its soil and also the highest numbers
of people reaching the age of 100.” His advice was backed up by the prestigious
American Nutrition Journal in 2007, which published studies showing health comparisons between those taking multiple dietary supplements and those not.
It demonstrated illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure were less likely when supplements were taken. These findings echo earlier studies published in the Journal of American Medical Association and represented a huge shift in orthodox thinking. But don’t just take any old supplement, as there are varying qualities on the market. Professor of Nutritional Medicine at the University of Surrey, Margaret Rayman, advises a good quality supplement would contain 400 micrograms of folic acid, 10 micrograms of Vitamin D and between 30 and 50 micrograms of selenium. She also encouraged eating plenty of meat, chicken, fish and eggs. All in all, it would seem that together with a good quality daily multivitamin, spending a little extra on organic food and changing the way you shop and cook could make a huge difference to your health. Lady Eve may have been right that many people didn’t realise that their health depended on the soil. At least you’re not one of them.
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