Fruits, vegetables not as nutritious as 50 years ago, according to Donald Davis:

Donald Davis, a biochemist at the University of Texas, said that of 13 major nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked by the Agriculture Department from 1950 to 1999, six showed noticeable declines — protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C. The declines ranged from 6 percent for protein, 15 percent for iron, 20 percent for vitamin C, and 38 percent for riboflavin.

“It’s an amazing thing,” said Davis, adding that the decline in nutrient content has not been widely noticed.

Davis … suspects the trend in agriculture toward encouraging crops that grow the fastest and biggest is a reason for the decline. The past five decades have been marked by the “Green Revolution,” which has seen a marked increase in U.S. production and yields as farmers have turned to the fastest-growing and greatest-producing plants.

The tradeoff is that the faster-growing plants aren’t able to acquire the nutrients that their slower-growing cousins can, either by synthesis or from the soil. He said there also are differences in the amounts of nutrients lost in differing varieties of wheat and broccoli.
[link]

Via Dave’s Picks

Which remind me: flowers have been losing their fragrance, over decades, because breeder have selected for big color flowers, and color are manufactured by plants from the same precursors which would otherwise go to scent production. Purdue researcher Natalia Dudareva summarizes the problem:

A large number of cut flowers have lost their scent during the selection and breeding processes due to, on the one hand, a focus on maximizing post-harvest shelf-life, shipping characteristics, and visual esthetic values (i.e., color, shape), and on the other hand, to the lack of selection for the scent. trait. This loss of scent has long been recognized as a major problem in the floriculture industry.

[link]

Makes me think of organic fruits and vegetables: small compared to commercial produce, but infinitely richer in flavor. As for organic eggs … compare one with a commercial egg some time, I mean crack them and pour them in a bowl … the comparison has a way of diminishing one’s appetite for commercial eggs.