Where's The Goodness Gone?

We are what we eat, so they say.

So we should all be alarmed by new research that suggests that the nutritional value of modern foods isn't just declining, it's collapsing. And we're not talking about processed foods – the salt laden, E- number drenched evils which are well known. We're talking about basic foodstuffs, such as beef, milk, chicken and cheese.

According to an analysis published by the Food Commission, the levels of iron­- a vital mineral for good human health- in the average rump steak have plummeted by 55 per cent over the last 60 years. The iron content of milk has dropped by 60 per cent over the same period, while levels of calcium have fallen by 2 per cent and magnesium by 21 per cent.

Even Cheddar cheese, the mainstay of so many a lunchtime sandwich has seen it's iron content drop by 47 per cent, while magnesium and calcium levels have fallen right across the cheese-board.

Predictably, the new findings have been attacked by the food and farming industries. But the new findings, are totally in keeping with other research and taken together can lead to only one shocking conclusion. Chemically dependant, intensive modern farming methods do not produce good, nutritious food and for one good reason:- they are simply not designed to.

Even the U.K government admits it. Five years ago the Soil Association quoted figures from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) showing that trace mineral levels in U.K fruit and vegetables had fallen by 76 per cent. Similar figures from the United States Department of Agriculture indicated it wasn't just a British problem, but a modern day farming problem.

What profit-driven modern farming is good at is producing lots of food that looks good on the supermarket shelves and can be left in storage for a year. If the nutritional values fall in the process, too bad.

Down on the commercial farm, quantity now triumphs over quality at every turn and, in their desperation to make a halfway decent living, too many of today's farmers, pushed by their supermarket masters to produce high yields at low cost, have forgotten there was a reason why their grandfathers farmed in a different way.

By growing things at a slower pace and harnessing nature rather than constantly fighting it, the farmers of the Forties and Fifties produced food that was nutritious and tasted good- just as nature intended. In today's modern world there is no time for that.