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People are feeling confused about this ‘crops are less nutritious today’ claim.

I don’t blame them. Activists for a this idea insist the evidence is on their side. So who should one believe?

To help you out, here’s why we know that evidence is poor & not all evidence is equal!
The first studies to investigate this question started ~20 years ago.

Without a time machine, how do you compare crops across decades?

Well one way is to compare tables of nutritional data from the 1930s w those of today.

Some of these studies found some falls in some crops.
Individual stats from these studies cued dramatic headlines, with activists picking the greatest statistical falls from these studies and highlighting them. Largely choosing to ignore that their results were kinda mixed.

But here’s the REAL problem...
The design of these studies meant their results were of extremely limited reliability.

As crop varieties, measuring techniques, harvest & cooking methods have all dramatically changed since the 1930s. It’s really, really unreliable to compare these two sets of stats.
For example, in the 1930s we didn’t know that tiny traces of soil clinging to crops could contain more iron that the crop itself.

This means many early stats for iron are FAR higher than they should be.
Sadly, these very limitations were even flagged up by scientists 20 yrs ago at the time of publication, including the authors of these very studies.

Funny how activists (who make a living from this narrative) skim over this, right?
We now know that these apparent declines are not statistically relevant, and could easily be explained by these mitigating factors.

It’s still an impt research area tho & I for 1 can’t wait to see what else the geeks uncover.

But for now these bold claims just don’t hold water.
Moral of the story? Not all evidence is equal.

If you read activists quoting a single study from 20yrs ago, holding it up as incontrovertible ‘proof’, there’s a problem.

To do so would be to ignore everything else to the contrary, even in that same study.

That’s not science.
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