Re: Facts

Chrisb1,

I don't have time to chase up on everything, but one of the problems I have with Curezone is that anyone can post here, and it contains a huge diversity of opinions, not all of which are correct. Dylan99 is an example, when I disagreed with him on the debate forum I got an abusive email from him.

I don't neccesarily disagree with things you say, but I tend to spend a lot of time checking facts, and don't like to comment unless I am sure of them.

My problem is when someone quotes facts, I need to check them all before I debate. This takes hours, and there are only 24 in the day, and I need to work and sleep. I simply cannot afford the time.

Just as a simple example, you stated:
"Well, it is mostly our fault. As consumers, we want picture-perfect produce. The food industry focuses on developing food that ship well, not on food that is nutritious. Tomatoes and lettuce are picked green and shipped in cold storage in order to appear picture perfect on the store shelves. Unfortunately, peak nutrition is achieved by letting the fruit ripen on the vine. Vine ripened tomatoes are proven to contain higher levels of beta-carotene, lycopene and soluble fiber than green picked fruit. Lettuce loses up to 46% of certain nutrients within 7 days of cold, dark storage. Most fruits and vegetables contain fewer nutrients today than in the past. Research by CTV, published in the Globe and Mail in 2002, reports that broccoli contains 62% less calcium, potatoes have lost almost all their vitamin A, and apples nearly half of their iron as compared to vegetables grown before the 1950's.

In fact, among the majority of fruits and vegetables tested, there was a 68% loss of Vitamin A, a 76% loss of Iron and an 80% loss of Calcium. Even if we were to eat our five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, we still are not guaranteed of getting the nutrients that we need for optimal health."

But this text seems to have come from http://www.howtoadvice.com/Preview/Zoozghr/
- I quote:

"The food industry, thus, focuses on developing food that ships well, not on food that is nutritious. Tomatoes and lettuce are picked green and shipped in cold storage in order to appear picture perfect on the store shelves. Unfortunately, peak nutrition is achieved by letting the fruit ripen on the vine. Vine ripened tomatoes are proven to contain higher levels of beta-carotene, lycopene and soluble fiber than green picked fruit. Lettuce loses up to 46 of certain nutrients within 7 days of cold, dark storage. Most fruits and vegetables contain fewer nutrients today than in the past. Research by CTV, published in the Globe and Mail in 2002, reports that broccoli contains 62 less calcium, potatoes have lost almost all their vitamin A, and apples nearly half of their iron as compared to vegetables grown before the 1950's. In fact, among the majority of fruits and vegetables tested, there was a 68 loss of Vitamin A, a 76 loss of Iron and an 80 loss of Calcium. Even if we were to eat our five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, we still are not guaranteed of getting the nutrients that we need for optimal health. Main cause The main cause of the decline in nutrients in our food is the conventional farming methods used to grow most of our foods. Conventional farming methods deplete the nutrients in the soil which also diminishes the amount of nutrients in the plants that are grown. Soil can be depleted of most minerals in as few as five years of growing crops using pesticides, herbicides, and only minimal fertilizer. Conventional farming replaces only those nutrients that are needed for plant growth. No attention is given to replacing the many trace minerals that are essential for animal health. Modern livestock producers understand this lack of minerals in the crops and always have mineral blocks available for their animals."

The problem is, from the latter quote:
"About the Author
Susan Bernau is owner of the web site, http://www.nutritionalsupplementsforhealth.com
which is dedicated to finding absorbable and affordable nutritional supplements for your health needs."

She's on linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/susan-bernau/7/286/417
and she is interested in marketing deals and new ventures.

This is the problem I have. I need to differentiate between Science and marketing hype. Anyone can state anything on the internet, and if it is good news for people's bad habits they love it, and copy and paste it anywhere, then it becomes a kind of truth that is accepted. I could not find the original article on http://www.theglobeandmail.com/,
but even if I did I would want to read the original research paper, or at least an abstract. I can't find it anywhere.

One thing about the Cornell Course I did was it is all Science based, and facts are checked thoroughly. In fact on one of the assignments I did, I looked into all the original documents that T Colin Campbell quoted and found a discrepancy. They published an apology and changed the content. That is how thorough they are. Curezone standards are not quite as high, though I do value the diversity of opinion here. And I am not neccesarily disagreeing with you or the article by Susan Bernau, it's simply that I have so many hours in a day, and I need to prioritise them. Clearly Dr Ledernam agrees that there is depletion of soil nutrients, but in his opinion this is not a factor that means we need supplement. I therefore tend to fall on the side of Dr Lederman rather than Susan Bernau, unless it is proved to the contrary. Tweet