The Importance of Full Nutrition in Consumable Crops

Food is very important stuff! It drives everything we do; it’s the gasoline that our bodies run on. So, when growing crops that we intend to consume, giving them full nutrition is extremely important. Isn’t it?

We asked Randall Shapiro, a passionate exponent of organic growing, to shed some light on the importance of full nutrition when growing consumable crops.

The focus of commercial food production has shifted dramatically over the last 85 years from quality to quantity. The industrialization of food production may seem like a necessary step to cater for the huge rise in our population, but the health of our society has never been the same.

Take, for example, the tomato. If we could only compare a tomato today versus a tomato 100 years ago on a scale of nutrient density, we would see a dramatic difference in the two pieces of fruit; the 100 year old fruit being much more healthy and nutrient dense.

Today, we grow tomatoes to fit neatly into hamburger buns, not for their mineral content and nutrient density. The standard grocery store tomato is grown in a factory. The plant is fed the bare minimum of what it needs to grow and produce fruit. It’s all about fruit weight and dollars. The tomato is picked green and premature and shipped around the world. Slice into a grocery store tomato and you’ll see a white center and taste a tart piece of chalky cardboard. Grown for profit, this tomato contains little more than the 13-17 minerals that were used to grow it. So many of the sugars, amino acids, enzymes and free radicals that are created within a tomato when it is allowed to ripen on the vine are absent – they were never created! The quality and nutrition of the tomato is lost. The diet of the plant is so basic that it is unable to manifest the minerals to provide a nutrient dense fruit. With industrialized agriculture, we are not giving the tomato what it wants to grow and thrive; we are feeding the tomato the bare minimum necessary to produce fruit – quickly. 13-17 minerals is a true fast-food diet! What would happen if we gave the plant the entirety of minerals on earth, allowing it to take what it wants when it wants it?

The opposite end of the spectrum is a tomato grown with a conscious approach to nutrition; a tomato grown with MORE than just the ‘essential’ elements; a tomato grown organically, allowed to have a full life cycle with complete nutrition, and to ripen on the vine. This piece of fruit tastes sweet and has a strong, meaty texture. The center is a deep red. It’s bursting with flavor. All you need is a pinch of sea-salt and pepper and two slices of bread to create a tomato sandwich from heaven! This tomato eclipses the factory-farm tomato in every way; taste, quality, and nutrient density.

Allow me to introduce an old friend of mine – Rudolph Steiner. He was an Austrian scientist who created the principles for modern day organic agriculture. He created biodynamic farming, a premium style of organic horticulture emphasizing subtle energies and soil quality. Biodynamics looks at the farm as its own self-sustaining organism; an organism with the ability to heal itself. Biodynamic farmers emphasize ALL nutrients, not just the ‘primary’ minerals science deems essential. Biodynamic farmers use specific ingredients, called ‘preps,’ to fertilize their soils and crops. It incorporates the influence of our moon, the other planets in our solar system, and even the subtle forces of the stellar universe beyond our galaxy! Harnessing subtle energies to enhance the quality of crop and vitality of the soil are key to biodynamic principles. Obviously, in Steiner’s world, there was no place for chemical fertilizers, or the idea that science can somehow skip nature.

Steiner said, “Nutrition, as it is today, does not supply the strength necessary for manifesting the spirit in the physical life. A bridge can no longer be built from thinking to will and action. Food plants no longer contain the forces people need for this.” (Steiner, The Agriculture Course.)

Steiner said this almost 100 years ago … what! If food didn’t have the proper nutrition back then, we have only continued to decline in health, nutrition, and perspective. This is evident in our staggering incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, developmental disabilities, pharmaceutical sales, and on and on…

It all starts with what we put into our bodies. Thinking about it, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? We live in a world where food is grown for profit and yield, NOT quality and nutrient density. Therefore, we live in a world full of ‘empty food,’ a place where tomatoes have fewer nutrients than they ever had before. A place where a whole industry of ‘dietary supplements’ has been created over the past thirty years to deal with the fact that the food we eat has nowhere near the nutrient density of the food of our ancestors. It’s simple. Eat ‘empty food’ and your gut will be full, but your body will not be gaining the proper nutrition to be healthy.

We are what we eat, and we are eating empty food! Ouch, but the truth hurts. So when we eat empty food, our will is empty and our awareness of the world, of ourselves, is clouded and fragmented. We can be so much more conscious and awake; we can live to the fullest rather than exist from day to day if we are eating nutrient dense food. If we truly believe that we are what we eat (and we should), then we have to accept that our thoughts, our will, and our action are based on the food-fuel we put into our bodies. What we consume to energize our body, mind, and spirit largely dictates the quality and clarity of our thoughts and actions.

We can eat fast-food every day of our lives, and we will live. We won’t live long, however, and we won’t be healthy. If we grow our own nutrient dense food, if we eat nutrient dense foods, if we are conscious consumers who pay attention to what we buy at the grocery store, if we seek out farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture, if we support our local farms and buy the most nutritious foodstuff we can, we can create far more than a food movement – we can fundamentally change the world for the better.

I believe that nutrient-dense food production is the most under-discussed topic in our society today. Probably because if more people understood its importance, the whole way we produce food would have to change. By consciously improving our growing practices and harvesting crops grown for quality and nutrient density, then we will be healthy, balanced, and able to think in a way that is more potent and pure. Now that is a TASTY path to enlightenment!