Nutritional content of food - how accurate is it ?

On virtually every food product in a grocery store today is printed a list of the nutritional content. Vitamins, fat, calories, etc. This is determined by laboratory tests and presented on labels to assist us in making health choices. There are even recipe sites now that take the list of ingredients and produce a nutritional content computation of the entire recipe. This sounds very helpful, and many people rely on it to guide their nutritional intake. But, a question arose in my mind.


The question is... is the nutritional content of a particular food truly static ? Does the end product have the exact same nutritional content regardless of manner of production and processing? Is, for instance, a chicken egg always the same ?


It would appear that the answer is an emphatic NO. Using the egg as an example, ever notice that there are eggs in the store sold as "higher in Omega3" and "Lower in cholesterol" ? Well, obviously an egg is not just an egg regardless of how it's history. In fact, a study by independent laboratories over 5 years ago proved that the nutrition inside the egg depends greatly in how the egg was produced. Truly free range, pasture fed, humanely raised chicken eggs are different from the factory produces counterpart.  Here is the original article:


http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2005-08-01/Free-Range-Eggs.aspx


As you can see in this article, free range eggs, truly free range eggs, are significantly different from factory produced eggs.  Now lets take a step back and consider this. If the egg is different based on production methods, then so must other foods - meats, produce - etc. There is nothing unique about an egg over the meat of the chicken or the produce of a garden. It has long been said that organically grown vegetables are healthier for us than factory farmed veggies.  So, it would appear that there is not one nutritional content list per food, but many possible depending on how that food was raised.


That brings us to consider some additional points. How far does this go? Does the nutrition of produce depend on the water used and the soil in which it grows? Does the fertilizer type used affect nutrition ? Where do we look to find out for sure?


Not the government. Several years ago the government asked this question and it was studied in America's universities. I relate the story second hand, which I sincerely apologize for, but if anyone can find the original story please comment and offer it here.  As the story goes, the government wanted to see if fertilizer affected the nutritional content of food. They divided a plot of land into two sections, one received fertilizer and the other didn't. They grew identical crops on both pieces and then tested it for nutritional content. In the end, there was no significant difference in nutrition between the crops.


But wait. What isn't told in this story is that the land used for the experiment was typical "worn out" farm land that had already lost the ability to produce good food. Another significant point is that they only used commercial, chemical fertilizer (NPK) on the fertilized ground. Therefore they did NOT test whether good ground produced better produce. Nor did they test whether organic farming produces better produce. What they tested and proved in reality is "chemical fertilizer has the ability to increase yield without increasing nutritional content when applied to exhausted mis-treated soil". Ok.. based on that.... lets stop using chemical fertilizer! This speaking nothing to the benefit or not of organically grown foods. It seems a little silly to reach that conclusion. Nevertheless, that is the conclusion that was published after that study, that since fertilizer didn't help in this case, organic methods must also be of no value. How sad.


What angers me is the extrapolation done in this sort of pseudo science. The experimenters are already so far gone down the road of accepted "facts" that they truly cant conduct an experiment properly to answer a question. The public that reads the results assumes these guys know what they are doing, and assumes it was done properly, and blindly accept the conclusions. The result is a complete misunderstanding of the facts and further testing and conclusions based on faulty foundations. It's a never ending cycle until we wake up and realize that "this just doesn't make sense".


How to stop this trend? We need to introduce a age old notion that has lost modern day appreciation: common sense. Today we rely on fact without wisdom. Instead we should evaluate the facts of today (if they be true) with the wisdom of the ages. Knowledge without wisdom is more dangerous than ignorance. It is only wisdom that makes knowledge useful and beneficial.

The bottom line is, chicken eggs can either be a health benefit or a detriment, based on how they are produced. We are often encouraged to "give up" certain foods based on belief of health risks, such as giving up eggs because they raise cholesterol. Well, the truth is, factory eggs can raise cholesterol, but true naturally raised eggs can LOWER cholesterol. Its not the egg, but how it is produced that matters. Think about that for a second. This same truth applies to many meats, and fats we have today, even spices such as salt. To me, this is simply proof that we have corrupted our food supply to the point that as of today, many historically healthy foods in the grocery store are to be avoided due to inherent health risks.

As consumers, we need to be aware that the labels on foods in the store are only accurate for factory produced food. The numbers measure the nutritional content of the factory farming methods. Those numbers do NOT reflect the nutritional content of foods in their native form.

The answer? its actually quite simple. the danger today is from one primary source, factory foods. If you reject factory produced food and return to farm raised foods, the whole picture changes.It is an incredible journey with nothing but better things at the destination. better health, better taste, better life experiences. I challenge you to test this for yourself. Find a local farm that does not use factory methods (another concern) and use them as your primary food supplier for a few months, then evaluate. I am confident you will find positive changes in many ways for you and your family's life.