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Climate Change Will Affect Nutritional Value of Foods [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-15
This story below was published today on ScienceDaily. I followed through to the Society for Experimental Biology — www.sebiology.org. It isn’t currently published on either their website or journals. I expect that it might appear in one of their upcoming Journals.
Bigger crops, fewer nutrients: The hidden cost of climate change —
www.sciencedaily.com/…
Summary: Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens like kale and spinach. This shift could spell trouble for global health, particularly in communities already facing nutritional stress. Researchers warn that while crops may grow faster, they may also become less nourishing, with fewer minerals, proteins, and antioxidants raising concerns about obesity, weakened immunity, and chronic diseases.
Most research into the impact of climate change on food production has focused on crop yield, but the size of the harvest means little if the nutritional value is poor. “Our work looks beyond quantity to the quality of what we eat,” says Jiata Ugwah Ekele, a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. … Preliminary results from this project suggest that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 can help crops grow faster and bigger, but certainly not healthier. “After some time, the crops showed a reduction in key minerals like calcium and certain antioxidant compounds,” says Ms Ekele.
This will affect not only those foods purchased in grocery stores or farmers’ markets but any we might choose to grow ourselves outdoors .
Based on the reporting, it seems that we ARE at the point where yield is up but haven’t yet hit the degradation to nutrition.
H/T to strawbale for the image.
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