Simply, no, and allow me to explain.
Questions like these often come up when people see the small bag of pills I take with every meal because it shocks them to see a person of my age and health taking so many pills. Pills are reserved for sick or “old” people. Often they ask, “What are those?” and “Are you OK?” After these questions I spend the next few minutes telling them that our food is filled with nutritional holes, covered in poisons, our bodies are under more stress than ever before, and I’m getting old.
Let me elaborate in this blog a single point. Future blogs will cover the others.
“Our food is filled with nutritional holes.”
After reading through the Merck Manual and having, “Foods alone may provide suboptimal amounts of some vitamins” burned into my brain I decided to look back in time at the nutritional value of food as recorded by the United States Department of Agriculture. So far the oldest data I could find was from 1975, the newest from 2007, and then I compared them. This US Government data recorded values of macronutrients (fats, protein, carbs), vitamins (A, the B’s, etc), and minerals (Ca, etc) and now we can see a massive decline of our food in precise data points.
Let us take broccoli for example. We all know broccoli is good for you, you should eat more of it, yet how did it stand up over that 22 year period. If we compare a pound of raw broccoli in 1975 to a pound of raw broccoli in 2007, the below table is a summary what we get.
1975 values/ 2007 values/ Percent Change
- Protein 16.3 g / 12.69 g / – 22%
- Carbohydrates 26.8 g / 29.88 g / + 10%
- Calcium 467 mg/ 212 mg / – 55%
- Sodium 68 mg / 148 mg / + 217%
- Vitamin C 513 mg / 401 mg / – 22%
- Vitamin B2 1.04 mg/ 0.52 mg / – 49%
- Vitamin A 11,340 iu / 2804 iu / – 75%
It looks like everything that we didn’t want to have happen did. More carbs, more salt, less protein, less calcium, and less of all the vitamins too. A 75% loss of vitamin A is outrageous.
You may be asking yourself right now, “Really?” Yes, our food has been destroyed over the last 25 years by farming practices and processes, genetic engineering, picking and ripening times, etc. Now take a second and think about the possible difference over the last 50 years or even the last 100 years. What was our food like back then? I’ll keep digging and let you know what I find.
Dr. Garrett Wdowin
Dr. Garrett Wdowin is co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Bodhi Body Integrative Medical Centers. Dr. Wdowin is a licensed Naturopathic physician who specializes in environmental medicine, specifically chronic disease and its relationship with environmental toxins. Dr. Wdowin is a member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and the American College for Advancement in Medicine. Dr. Wdowin received his BA from Brown University, his medical degree from the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, and has spent the last few years working in the valley with an integrated team of D.O.'s, N.D.'s, and an M.D.(H).
Latest posts by Dr. Garrett Wdowin (see all)
- Breast Thermography – A “Heated” Discussion About Your Breasts - November 27, 2009
- Why All the Fuss About Bisphenol A (BPA)? - October 26, 2009
- Breast Cancer and your Environment: There is a Connection. - October 7, 2009
