“Red meat plays vital role in diets” claims expert in fightback against veganism:
Personally I think the simple sounding (yet hard to follow) concept of “everything in moderation” is the ideal solution to eating both healthy and satisfyingly.
Organic veg 
Even Lidl sell organic, although it is not likely to be locally grown in soil with a reasonable nutrient content.
We get super tasty veg delivered from the grower
Agree with Peter. German consumer protection organisations tested the “organic” vegetables and fruit offered by various supermarket chains and in most tests Lidl and Aldi actually came out on top or near the top in terms of quality.
If we can, we always but organic (labelled “bio” in Germany) from regional producers.
Veg today reportedly has about 40% of the micronutrients of what it had say 50 years ago.
That means you need to eat more of it, but there are definite benefits in eating all that fibre
But not all soil is depleted. There are growers who look after the soil.
Organic veg is a start but organic veg can be legitimately grown in poor soil.
I thought the main issue was with new varieties of fruit and vegetables which have been developed to be sweeter and less bitter, whatever soil they are grown in. For example there are several new varieties of grapes which are pure sugar bombs. Scarred fruits contain higher salicylate levels etc…
I don’t think it’s the soil, plants synthesise most of the stuff we find more important from stuff that’s common. I’d agree that selective breeding for sweentess and ‘good lookingness’ is almost certainly a factor that dwarves soil quality.
Plants won’t synthesise the minerals, AFAIK.
That’s why if a farmer just keeps growing stuff and the only thing he ever puts back is a load of commercial fertiliser (which is basically what happens in most farming in the world) the soil becomes progressively poorer. It will still “grow stuff” and the tomatoes will still be red, but they won’t be as good for you.
Some stuff here.
Peter wrote:
That’s why if a farmer just keeps growing stuff and the only thing he ever puts back is a load of commercial fertiliser (which is basically what happens in most farming in the world) the soil becomes progressively poorer. It will still “grow stuff” and the tomatoes will still be red, but they won’t be as good for you.
Woah there…Im a farmers son, and that is so far wide of the mark wrt farming (at least in 98% of the UK), that I wouldnt know where to start…
My understanding is that commercial fertilizer will include micronutrients.
Many crops are grown on contract, and by the specified method, for the major supermarkets. They may be harvested when the supermarket needs them, rather than for best yield.
When people ate only locally grown produce, there were nutrition problems. “Derbyshire neck” was an enlarged thyroid gland due to a lack of iodine in the local soil. There were plans to add iodine to salt, but the condition disappeared with greater food mobility, before they were implemented.
Some crops may be safer grown with inorganic fertiliser. Look at some of the US foodpoisoning recalls.
I have finally got around to putting a load of pics of Justine’s wonderful plant based food here.
Given the near total absence of sauces (which are traditionally used to cover poor quality ingredients) you can work out what most of it is.
And anybody can do this
Why bother?
Your Class 2 will last a whole lot longer
