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Comment by hansonkd | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn't say those minerals degrade, however it also fails to reiterate the linked paper's reason:

> The high rate of magnesium deficiency now postulated [5–8] can be attributed in part to a steady decline in general magnesium content in cultivated fruits and vegetables, a reflection of the observed depletion of magnesium in soil over the past 100 years

> Increasing demand for food has caused modern farming modern farming techniques to impact the soil’s ability to restore natural minerals such as magnesium. techniques to impact the soil’s ability to restore natural minerals such as magnesium. In addition, the use of phosphate-based fertilizers has resulted in the production of aqueously insoluble use of phosphate-based fertilizers has resulted in the production of aqueously insoluble magnesium phosphate complexes, for example, further depriving the soil of both components

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It does mention those reasons and others, however all those reasons directly contradict the article's next point "If all you care about is nutrient content, SPEED is the only factor that matters". Seems like all these other factors should matter too! Surely not every farm is equal in these respects...

> It does mention those reasons

whoops you're right, I somehow skipped that part.

I guess it is kind of weird article with contradicting points of view and the author could have communicated that improving soil quality and pairing it with speed to consumption is the best combination.

My read is that the author is taking the view of consumers. Not regulators and producers.

> Seems like all these other factors should matter too!

The way I read it was that there are some minerals that are no longer there to begin with because they're simply not in the soil. For nutrients (like vitamin C) created as part of the growing process, speed is the only factor that matters.

So yes, it does matter but unless you have a way of knowing which farm(s) the produce came from and what their soil mineral content is, that's not something you can factor into your purchasing decision.

But you don't typically have any reliable info about how fresh produce is either?

Smell, look and touch. You can even taste in some cases.

The article explicitly dismisses those as unreliable

> The way I read it was that there are some minerals that are no longer there to begin with because they're simply not in the soil. For nutrients (like vitamin C) created as part of the growing process, speed is the only factor that matters.

That's exactly the problem, fertilisers don't necessarily fully replenish the soil in every single micro nutrient so if you cultivate corn on the same parcel for 60 years you might very well have completely depleted the soil of some of them

You can grow very nice fruits and veggies on NPK fertilisers alone without caring for any of the other nutrients, nobody buys tomatoes because they're nutritious, we buy them because they're big and red. And that's why most taste like water and have no nutritional values today

One of my unorthodox views is that the popular blue light obsession is exacerbated by magnesium deficiency, given how hard it is to get enough in our diets.

Yes, blue light disrupts melatonin and makes it harder to get to bed. But magnesium disrupts sleep quality and deregulates melatonin production in the first place and makes one particularly sensitive to blue light.

Melatonin production is influenced at least also by: Zinc, iron, calcium, copper, P5P (active B6), and tryptophan. Selenium, iodine, and manganese are involved in indirect ways. Many people are deficient in most, or all of those.

To be fair, some of these, like iodine and selenium, have always been problematic in some regions, like Switzerland (lots of goiters). But I find it less than ideal that only some minerals are fortified in bread and milk etc, because their deficiency is very obvious. While all the other minerals are not fortified because their deficiencies are less obvious or less well understood.

A healthy human body contains quite a few minerals in greater abundance than iodine: copper, bromine, strontium, rubidium, gallium, silicon, zinc, iron, and the electrolytes. Some of them don’t even have lab tests (not that blood tests work well for minerals, which is another issue - blood is short term transport for most minerals, not storage).

Also Lithium, proven in studies.

Magnesium is also a mineral that is under supplied by multivitamins due to the bulk required. This is why I take a magnesium supplement on top of a multivitamin. Given the state of vegetables today it seems wise and I feel much better with it.

Well that quote appears to contradict the article's claim that speed to market is the most important factor.

Now I don't know what to think..

Here is a way to look at it.

You read the article, and by the end you have actionable items, that you can execute today, literally.

Many piece published on the topic go on and on about how agricultural methods should do this and that. Sure, and in the meantime what do we do?

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