The Dirt

More than three hundred nutritional studies showing the health benefits of supplemental nutrition have been published in peer-reviewed medical journals in the last three years. The evidence is clear, nutritional supplements are quickly moving from option to necessity.

When people see the sociological health studies done by the United States Department of Agriculture, they are stunned by how little nutrition is actually in the food we consume and consequently, how far from optimum health we may be. For instance, a USDA study in 1992 stated that only about 4% of over 22,000 people in the study were getting all of their recommended daily allowance.

The main reason for this lack of nutrition is that the nutrients in our soil have become drastically depleted over the past five decades due to the use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides. The destruction of nutrients in the handling, processing, cooking and storage of foods is a well-known fact, but the declining nutrient value of our soil is another, albiet obscure, reason that so many of us are now considered nutrient deficient.

More than a half-century ago, researchers studying the declining nutrient values in our foods found the answer in the soil. Farming techniques changed after WWII when many farmers began shifting from natural fertilizers to alternative chemical fertilizers.

"Today you would need to eat 60 portions of spinach to get the same amount of iron that a single portion of spinach would have given you in 1948."

USDA tests showed spinach in 1948 with 158 milligrams of iron per 100 grams. By 1965 the iron content had fallen to just 27 milligrams per 100 grams. According to the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory, the iron content of raw spinach today is only 2.7 milligrams per 100 grams. (1)