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Vitamin A content of food in Japan vs USA
The differences in animal products wasn't nearly as pronounced as the difference in plant based sources of vitamin A. The vitamin A content of American fruits and vegetables was nearly 3 times higher than Japanese variants. Some fruits and vegetables register even higher than four times as much.
Vitamin A in New Food Composition Tables From Japan
Wow that's huge difference in the vegetable food. How is it that they have that much lower VA ?
Quote from Guest on January 2, 2019, 5:11 pmWow that's huge difference in the vegetable food. How is it that they have that much lower VA ?
The real question is how does the USA have so much beta carotene in it's crops. The answer is the crops are cultivated and selected to produce higher levels, in order to "improve" nutrition.
Might have something to do with humans manipulating crops to increase their nutritional value. Its very easy to find this stuff, it seems crops are continuously being manipulated. So when the levels of beta carotene were measured in crops at one point in time, does it mean they are continually being re-measured and updated every year ? Did the carrot of 10 years ago have i.e. 20,000IU of beta carotene and now has 60,000 IU? How can we trust the levels of carotenoids in crops unless they are being measured regularly and this info made accessible ?
https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1924&context=honors_capstone
"To assess the benefits of AMF on crop nutritional value, I designed a greenhouse
experiment that tested the effect of AMF inoculation on carrots planted in nutrient deficient sand.
I used two AMF species, Rhizophagus clarus and Rhizophagus intraradices and compared the
effect of carrots grown with these AMF species individually, both together, and without AMF. I
examined above- and belowground biomass as well as the levels of beta-carotene and a suite of
minerals. The results showed that carrots grown with both AMF species had increased biomass,
aluminum, phosphorous, and zinc levels and showed trends of increased beta-carotene. This
suggests that AMF application in agriculture could increase the availability of nutrient dense
crops and help sustain the global food supply. "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3120150/
Using genetic engineering, they introduced a gene from daffodils (which make carotenoids, the pigment that gives the flower its yellow color) and two genes from a bacterium into rice (Ye et al. 2000). The resulting geneticially engineered golden and carotenoid-rich rice plants were named “Golden Rice.”
seed iron-dense rice in the Philippines; and b-carotene-rich sweet potato in Latin America have been released for cultivation, with more nutritionally enhanced lines in pipeline forrelease, mostly in developing countries. Exceptionally large variations in b-carotene have been reported in temperate maize germplasm, which have been transferred into tropical maize hybrids, being evaluated prior to their release in Mexico and in some countries in Africa. The high b-carotene trait in ‘Golden Rice 2’ is being introgressed into several Asian rice cultivars. At CIMMYT, molecular markers for LycE and HydB are fully implemented, have accelerated breeding by one season, and substantially enhance efficiency and effectiveness of high-provitamin A maize breeding. Marker-assisted selection has been successfully employed to transfer low phytate into improved soybean cultivars. Biofortified crops are being investigated for efficacy with human and animal systems. Transgenic rice containing AtNAS and Pvferritin have increased seed iron several folds, while transgenic maize containing phyA2
hi YH - fascinating comparison. Thanks for posting that. I had no idea. It might help further convince my wife.
hi jobo - that's interesting stuff. I wonder how much faster this "pushing/forcing" of altered plant characteristics will be, versus our body's ability to adapt to these changing levels of chemicals, particularly the beta-carotenes. I've been reading and watching the BioNutrient Food Assoc. (BFA) folks for a few years. They promote Regenerative Agriculture concepts. They just unveiled a limited-quantity, for members-only version of a hand-held spectrometer, that functions as a refractometer, and which eliminates the need to squeeze juice out of the vegetable being measured for nutrient content.
They're building an open-source database with multiple variables, that will hopefully, expand considerably over time, yet provide a relatively useful app once the consumer model is ready in 2019. I'm hoping their tech and app database are capable of drilling down to the specific light signatures of molecules like Retinol, and can give some sense of quantity per gram of produce. It's kind of ironic to think that just as processed food labels won't be required to specify Vit A content, shoppers will at least have a potential means to check the fresh produce for same.
At their yearly conference in December, Dan Kittredge, who started the BFA, mentioned that within 3-5 years he expects the spectrometry sensor to be incorporated in cell phones. I'll be asking him a lot of specific questions in a few days. Thanks for your input above. Those are great questions you're asking and the breakout of details from papers is really helpful.
An interesting panel discussion of the Regenerative Ag subject is on YouTube. It's from the 2017 conference of ACRES USA with Dr. Vandana Shiva, Ronnie Cummins and André Leu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIFBcsdnqLQ
The title is: Acres U.S.A.: Regenerative Organic Agriculture — Connecting the Dots 1
I've met some of the ACRES folks from my years in Austin, TX. It would be cool if they added a few articles in their monthly magazine on subclinical retinol toxicity. They were perhaps the first to warn of the glyphosate dangers to human and animal health. Charles Walters, their founder, editorialized about it so far back I'd have to dig through the archives to confirm dates.
Anyway, just thought I'd chime in here a bit. I've been meaning to post something on InfraRed LED therapy and a few clues I've unearthed at PubMed on how it might help resolve retinol toxicity. I'll try to get at that today. Thanks again, y'all.
This is really huge. I remember in Grant's book that people would get better once they went for treatment in their third world countries and they would get better. No wonder since most of the fruits and vegetables have much lower VA.
Another curious thing is that many raw vegans would promote moving to Thailand or south America claiming fruits are more ripe or some bullshit. I am sure now that the positives they see are due to the low VA intake.
Quote from Guest on January 4, 2019, 2:15 pmThis is really huge. I remember in Grant's book that people would get better once they went for treatment in their third world countries and they would get better. No wonder since most of the fruits and vegetables have much lower VA.
Another curious thing is that many raw vegans would promote moving to Thailand or south America claiming fruits are more ripe or some bullshit. I am sure now that the positives they see are due to the low VA intake.
Not every single thing is about vitamin a.
Not every single thing is about vitamin a
I used to think it's because of the sun on the equator line. I think it's more likely vitamin a since Grant didn't move anywhere to heal his condition.
Quote from Guest on January 4, 2019, 6:42 pmNot every single thing is about vitamin a
I used to think it's because of the sun on the equator line. I think it's more likely vitamin a since Grant didn't move anywhere to heal his condition.
The sun is a great healer and is helpful to degrade vitamin A.
Exactly but the way I look it at its more linked to VA than the sun increasing vit D.
Whatever way you look at it the fact thar beta carotene to be 3x higher in US vegetables is hard to ignore. If that's not strong evidence I don't know what is.