Month: September 2022

FROM ALAGE TO COWS. “What struck me is that its application is wider,” Loladze recalled in an interview. Could the same problem affect grass and cows? What about rice and people? “It was kind of a watershed moment for me when I started thinking about human nutrition.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

CO2 AND LIGHT. “In the outside world, the problem isn’t that plants are suddenly getting more light: It’s that for years, they’ve been getting more carbon dioxide. Plants rely on both light and carbon dioxide to grow. If shining more light results in faster-growing, less nutritious algae—junk-food algae whose ratio of sugar to nutrients was out of whack—then it seemed logical to assume that ramping up carbon dioxide might do the same.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

CO2 IMPACT ON PLANTS. “It was already well documented that CO2 levels were rising in the atmosphere, but he was astonished at how little research had been done on how it affected the quality of the plants we eat.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

EXTRAPOLATION. “Loladze scoured the scientific literature for any studies and data he could find. The results, as he collected them, all seemed to point in the same direction: The junk-food effect he had learned about in that Arizona lab also appeared to be occurring in fields and forests around the world.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

HISTORIC EVENT. “Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising. We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history―[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

NUTRIENT COLLAPSE. “Measurements of fruits and vegetables show that their minerals, vitamin and protein content has measurably dropped over the past 50 to 70 years. Researchers have generally assumed the reason is fairly straightforward: We’ve been breeding and choosing crops for higher yields, rather than nutrition, and higher-yielding crops—whether broccoli, tomatoes, or wheat—tend to be less nutrient-packed.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

BROAD-SCALE REDUCTION. “In 2004, a landmark study of fruits and vegetables found that everything from protein to calcium, iron and vitamin C had declined significantly across most garden crops since 1950. The researchers concluded this could mostly be explained by the varieties we were choosing to grow.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

THE CO2 FACTOR. “Before the industrial revolution, the earth’s atmosphere had about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Last year, the planet crossed over the 400 parts per million threshold; scientists predict we will likely reach 550 parts per million within the next half-century—essentially twice the amount that was in the air when Americans started farming with tractors.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

THE MANTRA. “A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere would aid photosynthesis, which in turn contributes to increased plant growth. This correlates to a greater volume of food production and better quality food.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn

CARBO FLOODING. “Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on, like protein, iron and zinc.” https://lnkd.in/eq-SAGC View in LinkedIn