Sick Soil
“Sick soils mean sick plants, sick animals, and sick people.”
United States Senate Document #264
Our soil in the US has become depleted and deficient in nutrients. It has been known since 1936 that we are eating an empty harvest.
“Most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come are brought into proper mineral balance. The alarming fact is that foods, fruits and vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat!”
“Countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil of America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements essential to human nourishment and health!”
Download: United States Senate Document #264 (.pdf file)
Printed in US Congress in 1936
Scientific studies show that there has been a dramatic reduction or elimination of critical and essential minerals from fields due to over harvesting, chemical pollution, pesticides and other harmful farming practices; stripping soils of minerals. Mineral deficiencies in the diet have been identified as the cause of many modern diseases including cancer, heart disease and obesity.
“You can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency”-Dr. Linus Pauling, two time Nobel Prize winner
A 1997 US Department of Agriculture chart clearly shows the correlation between decreasing soil borne minerals coincidental with the increase of mineral deficient disease in people.
Research conducted at major Universities and government agencies offer compelling findings that indicate an overall mineral deficiency condition in the soil of the nation’s croplands:
University of Texas. Donald Davis, a senior researcher at the University of Texas, performed research into the disappearing nutrients in food. He compared Agriculture Department figures on nutrient content for 43 common fruits and vegetables. Davis says historical data spanning 50 to 70 years show apparent declines of 5 percent to 40 percent or more in minerals, vitamins and proteins in vegetables.
Washington State University Professor Stephen Jones and researcher Kevin Murphy. Research showed that today’s modern wheat has less nutritional value concluding that grains have been developed for baking qualities that are related to protein, not related to iron and zinc and selenium and other essential vitamins and minerals. “You would have to eat twice as many slices of modern bread as you would of the older variety to get the same nutritional value.”
2001. The Journal of Complimentary Medicine pointed out that the US and UK Government statistics show a decline in trace minerals of up to 76% in fruit and vegetables over the period 1940 to 1991.
2003. News Canada reported that today’s fruit and vegetables contain far fewer nutrients than they did 50 years ago. Potatoes, for example, had lost 100 % of vitamin A content, 57% of vitamin C and iron, and 28% of calcium. The report examined data from the US Department of Agriculture involving vegetable quality. Over the entire 20th century the average mineral content in cabbage, lettuce, spinach and tomatoes, declined from 400mg to less than 50mg.
2004. The Journal of the American College of Nutrition examined food composition changes from 1950 to 1999 recorded in the USDA food composition tables. Forty-three crops were examined showing statistically reliable declines for 6 nutrients. The declines were observed in protein, calcium, phosphorous, iron, riboflavin and ascorbic acid; 6% in the case of protein and 38% for riboflavin.
2008. The UK publication Food Magazine. Analysis of food quality changes in the UK over the period 1940-2002. In an analysis of milk: iron content had fallen 62%; magnesium was down 21%; copper content had disappeared completely. Parmesan cheese had a 70% decrease in magnesium. The calcium and iron content of all the foods examined was reduced dramatically. Beef rump steak iron content fell 55%.