{"id":921467,"date":"2026-10-09T05:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921467\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T05:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:08:14","slug":"fruits-and-vegetables-50-less-nutritious-than-in-the-1960s-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921467\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruits and vegetables 50% less nutritious than in the 1960s, new study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Be sure to drink your ovaltine. <\/p>\n

Fruits and vegetables are only half as nutritious<\/a> as they were 60 years ago, a new study revealed.<\/p>\n

US produce harvested today is lacking in crucial nutrients, including vitamin C, calcium and iron due to drastically declining soil quality, researchers at the UK-based Deep Science Ventures<\/a> found.<\/p>\n

\"AAccording to researchers, American fruits and vegetables are only half as nutritious as they were 60 years ago. PaeGAG \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

Consumers need to eat twice the number of many fruits and veggies<\/a> just to get the same level of minerals \u2014 like copper, magnesium or potassium \u2014 as in the 1960s. Bread, cereals, apples, peas and carrots also lost between 20-50% of several key nutrients.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sixty years we\u2019ve measured food security in calories \u2026 and on those measures we\u2019ve done remarkably well,\u201d wrote Will Summers, one of the authors of the damning report. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve been quietly hollowing out what\u2019s inside our food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the Green Revolution of the 1960s, agricultural systems were able to successfully increase the global food supply and cereal yields. <\/p>\n

But the movement neglected nutritional quality, causing \u201chidden hunger\u201d \u2014 micronutrient deficiencies despite consuming adequate calories \u2014 for 2 billion globally, according to researchers.<\/p>\n

\"FarmersThe lack in nutritional value is due to declining soil quality. Boston Globe via Getty Images<\/p>\n

With the rise of ultra-processed foods masking a drop in critical nutrients over the last 60 years, per-capita calorie intake has increased worldwide<\/a> \u2014 but it\u2019s led to what researchers call \u201ctriple burden,\u201d where obesity coexists with hidden hunger.<\/p>\n

Researchers were able to show a systematic 20-50% mineral and protein density decline in many key foods by using historical food datasets and long-term crop archives, including wheat samples spanning 160 years. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Those micronutrient deficiencies run countries up to 3% of GDP annually in lost productivity and healthcare burdens \u2014 while increasing risks for chronic disease, poor maternal health and child development, according to the study.<\/p>\n

And higher atmospheric carbon dioxide, widespread soil degradation, and yield-focused agricultural policies threaten to worsen the nutrition crisis in the decades to come.<\/p>\n

To resolve the crisis, researchers suggest reframing talk of food security around nutritional security and creating nationwide nutrient-monitoring networks. They also propose scaling farming practices such as soil organic matter enhancement to improve farm profitability and crop quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Be sure to drink your ovaltine. Fruits and vegetables are only half as nutritious as they were 60…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[64,63,37911,23940,14942,465825,137,532,3780,29510],"class_list":["post-921467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fast-food","tag-food-drink","tag-fruit","tag-global-studies","tag-health","tag-nutrition","tag-us-news","tag-vegetables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}