Food Becoming More Calorific But Less Nutritious Due To Rising Carbon Dioxide (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180423353
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1533240/food-becoming-more-calorific-but-less-nutritious-due-to-rising-carbon-dioxide
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/19/higher-carbon-dioxide-food-more-calorific-less-nutritious-study
> Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and other researchers at the institution created a method to compare multiple studies on plants' responses to increased CO2 levels. The results, she said, [2]were a shock : although crop yields increase, they become less nutrient-dense. While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase.
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> "Seeing how dramatic some of the nutritional changes were, and how this differed across plants, was a big surprise," she told the Guardian. "We aren't seeing a simple dilution effect but rather a complete shift in the composition of our foods... This also raises the question of whether we should adjust our diets in some way, or how we grow or produce our food."
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> While scientists have been looking at the effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere on plants for a decade, their work has been difficult to compare. The new research established a baseline measurement derived from the observation that the gas appears to have a linear effect on growth, meaning that if the CO2 level doubles, so does the effect on nutrients. This made it possible to compare almost 60,000 measurements across 32 nutrients and 43 crops, including rice, potatoes, tomatoes and wheat.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/19/higher-carbon-dioxide-food-more-calorific-less-nutritious-study
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.70568
Interesting (Score:2)
Interesting.
For much of the world, avoiding starvation is the principle goal, so for these areas, higher crop yields are beneficial despite lower nutrient density.
For most of the developed world, getting enough calories to avoid starvation is not a big deal, and lower nutrients in food is undesirable.
Another thing to keep in mind, of course, is that increased carbon dioxide is going to play havoc with existing farms and fields due to climate change, with areas currently producing high crop yields becoming l
Re: (Score:2)
> For much of the world, avoiding starvation is the principle goal, so for these areas, higher crop yields are beneficial despite lower nutrient density.
As Slicher Bath remarks in his book about the agricultural history of Western Europe, "Starving people do not eat less. On the contrary." They eat anything they can. It is the nutritional value that is the problem.
What happened to evolution? (Score:1)
"This also raises the question of whether we should adjust our diets in some way, or how we grow or produce our food." If we truly believe in evolution, survival of the fittest, etc then we really shouldn't need to do anything. We will continue to evolve even as our sources of food change.
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Not if the assorted cancers and heart disease kills the average person after around age 40.
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Sure, mankind isn't going extinct over this. But nature operates in a very brutish manner. If I can avoid health problems by popping a multivitamin or something, I want to know that.
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That's too fast though, it's related to climate change itself when chuds bring out the "oh you think the climate on Earth has never changed?!?" but no regard for time being a thing to consider.
Some changes will eventually happen for sure but at the current rate the climate will be outpacing those changes, humans are relatively slow to evolve. We've also used the very technology that has changed to climate to insulate ourselves from evolutionary pressures.
Re: What happened to evolution? (Score:2)
"chuds bring out the "oh you think the climate on Earth has never changed?!?" but no regard for time being a thing to consider."
How about margins of error on assertions that this is the fastest ever climate change? How fast did climate change after the famous asteroid impact and did birds weather it?
Come back, zinc! (Score:2)
You said you wanted to live in a world without zinc, Jimmy! Now your bean salad is contaminated with lead!
Re: (Score:2)
[1]"Dear god, what have I done?!" [frinkiac.com]
[1] https://frinkiac.com/img/S03E16/54682.jpg
Wait? (Score:2)
I was always told plants crave CO2.
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Sure, like people crave sugar. But change the balance of nutrients and you change the body composition.
That's curious (Score:1)
I've been reading a lot about this and for the last 20 years largely the agw global warming advocates have INSISTED that food crops wouldn't flourish in higher CO2 environs (despite obvious logical and ample evidence - cf greenhouses commonly run at higher co2 concentrations for just this reason).
www.purdue.edu/newsroom/archive/releases/2017/Q1/rising-co2-due-to-climate-change-may-not-improve-agriculture,-model-shows.html
Rising CO2 due to climate change may not improve agriculture, model shows
[1]https://yalecl [yaleclimat...ctions.org]
[1] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/10/fact-checking-a-trump-administration-claim-about-climate-change-and-crops/
Re: (Score:2)
> I've been reading a lot about this and for the last 20 years largely the agw global warming advocates have INSISTED that food crops wouldn't flourish in higher CO2 environs (despite obvious logical and ample evidence - cf greenhouses commonly run at higher co2 concentrations for just this reason).
I'm guessing I should avoid greenhouse grown crops now because of the higher lead levels? Probably not.
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That's a different unrelated problem. This is a separate issue that plants that receive more CO2 are less nutrient dense. It makes sense if you consider that CO2 is basically food for plants and that they grow more when exposed to it. However if the other molecular components that make up nutrients in those plants don't increase, then it's unsurprising that the nutrition density goes down. Of course that also means that the problem isn't too difficult to fix if the crops can be fertilized with the various c
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Then can you explain the increase in lead content; that was what surprised me. Calories come from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
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I mean, from a horticultural perspective, there is some potential to gain more of other nutrients, in that if you have more energy, you can develop a larger root system, or generally more effectively, better feed mycorrhizal associations (fungal hyphae are much finer than root hairs, so can get into smaller cracks, and fungi can "acid mine" nutrients out of mineral grains - as an example, here's a microscopic image showing [1]what they did to a garnet [researchgate.net])
That said, yeah, in general if you can provide more energy,
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/NB-pyropes-A-Photograph-of-a-garnet-crystal-with-distinct-tubular-structures-B_fig1_326909777