All Blown Up and No Place To Go:

The Fraud of Chemical Fertilizers

by Jock Doubleday

That strawberry you're eating . . . It's so big!

That red monster between your lips must be one of the products of our amazing modern Agribusiness Industry-- what "Diet for a New America" author John Robbins calls, "The Great American Food Machine" [1] -- and it must taste really good and be really good for you, right?

Not necessarily. Here's why.

Soil Quality and Chemical Fertilizers

A strawberry, or any other plant, can be only as good tasting and nutritious as the soil it grows in allows. Today most American farming soil is fertilized with "high-nitrogen" chemical fertilizers. These fertilizers--collectively known as NPK fertilizers--typically contain only nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

Plants absorb these three minerals quickly, resulting in big spurts of growth and high yields for farmers. But the resulting plants do not necessarily absorb a balanced mixture of nutrients.

Dr. William Peavy and Warren Peary, in their book, Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food, write:

"Plants grown with nothing but nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium from concentrated chemical fertilizers overconsume these nutrients at the expense of all other nutrients in the soil. Absorption of these three nutrients actually displaces or crowds out the proper absorption of other nutrients in the soil, even if the other nutrients are abundant." [2]

Composting expert David Hall writes:

"Chemical fertilizers rely on an assumption that plants only need three elements to survive and thrive. . . . This is the equivalent of saying that we need protein, fat, and sugar to live. While this may be mostly true, pure protein, pure fat, and pure sugar do nothing to supply the vitamins, minerals, and diverse supply of bacteria and fungi in our diets." [3]

NPK Overkill

Oddly, nitrogen is usually applied by agribusiness farmers at rates approximately seven times greater than the plants can use. [4] This "force-feeding" of nitrogen doesn't give the plant time to convert all of the nitrogen into amino acids. Much of the nitrogen accumulates in the plant as nitrate nitrogen instead of protein nitrogen. This is called being "blown up" with nitrogen. [5]

Peavy and Peary write:

"This "blowing up" of crops with non-protein forms of nitrogen displaces the absorption of other elements with nitrate, which is not good to be ingesting to begin with. The displacement of trace elements reduces the amount of protein that is made from the nitrogen, because plants need iron, copper, and molybdenum to transform nitrogen into amino acids. . . . [H]eavy nitrogen fertilization particularly blocks the proper uptake of copper in plants." [6]

Chemical fertilizers also increase carbohydrate formation in plants, which accounts for the higher yields ("big strawberries") at the expense of minerals and other nutrients. [7]

The high doses of phosphorus in NPK fertilizers is also a problem for plants. Excess phosphorus in soil suppresses plants' uptake of zinc, copper, and iron, even if those elements are already present in the soil in adequate amounts. [8]

Potassium is also a problem. NPK fertilizers promote deficiencies of non-trace elements, because excessive amounts of potassium suppress plants' uptake of calcium and magnesium. [9]

Eat More, Get Less

So what does all of this mean? It means that when we're eating a strawberry grown in soil that has been compromised by chemical fertilizers, we are eating a nutrient-deficient fruit. It may be twice as big as one grown in nature's soil, but it will have fewer nutrients that human beings can use.

Peavy and Peary write, "Chemical fertilizers . . . artificially [boost] yields in the face of what would otherwise be declining productivity due to massive nutrient losses from the topsoil. Modern technology has allowed us to keep getting big yields despite depleted soils. But we have paid a price with depleted foods. Some people think soil depletion is no problem, believing that if a plant will grow then it has enough nutrients. Those people don't know what they're talking about. Plants frequently grow well without accumulating mineral nutrients in their tissues in sufficient amounts to meet the long-term health needs of humans or animals. Trace elements do not increase a plant's yield . . .; therefore, they are ignored even though they would improve the overall health of the plant, which would reduce the need for chemical sprays." [10]

J.L. Rodale, founder of Organic Gardening Magazine, stated fifteen years ago that "we are a malnourished country in spite of eating more calories per person than any other country in the world" and that "it's just no longer possible to depend upon the food you buy in the stores to get all the proper nutrients." [11]

Peavy and Peary write that "The problem of declining nutritional food quality is now being acknowledged by the medical community, which is recognizing that many of us are chronically deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. Medical researchers Steven Davies, M.D., and Alan Stewart, M.D., tell us that 'the quality of food is often so poor that the actual nutrient intake in terms of vitamins [and] minerals . . . is inadequate and can produce disease' and that while we get plenty of calories 'what we suffer from is malnutrition.' " [12]

So agribusiness farmers, and all farmers who use chemical fertilizers, are fooling the American public by growing large "high-yield" crops that don't fill us up or give us the proper trace minerals or energy that nature intended.

It Gets Worse

Medical researcher Dr. David G. Williams reports that "as many as 59 percent of the patients hospitalized in the U.S. are thought to be malnourished" [13] and furthermore, "many of the so-called degenerative diseases associated with aging are now being linked to nutritional deficiencies." [14]

Unfortunately, it is probable that much more than 59 percent of Americans are malnourished, since the vast majority of Americans eat mostly food that has been produced by the Great American Food Machine, which depends on chemical fertilizers to make food "look good" while allowing a steady decline in nutrient absorption.

So if you're eating a strawberry right now, and it seems unnaturally large or amazingly tasteless, you may be right to blame it on chemical fertilizers.

--------

Footnotes

1 Foreword by John Robbins, William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food" viii.

2 William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 15[??].

3 faq.gardenweb.com/faq/ lists/organic/2002085416013761.html

4 National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, John Pesek, et al., Alternative Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989), 40-42.

5 Bear, Firman E., "The Inorganic Side of Life," reprint from Better Crops with Plant Food, march 4, 1952; Buckman, Harry O. and Nyle C. Brady, The Nature and Properties of Soils (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1969), 437-443); Hocman, Gabriel, "Prevention of Cancer: Vegetables and Plants," Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 93B (2) (1989):201; National Research Council, John Pesek, et al., Alternative Agriculture, 127; Rodale, J.I., et al., The Complete Book of Minerals for Health (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 1976), 608; White, Philip L., Sc.D. and Nancy Selvey, R.D., Nutritional Qualities of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables (Mount Kisco, NY: Futura Publishing, 1974) 140; William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 21-22.

6 William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 21-22; Buckman, Harry O. and Nyle C. Brady, Nature and Properties of Soils, 520; Tisdale, Samuel L., Werner L. Nelson and James D. Beaton, Soil Fertility and Fertilizers (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 386-387.

7 William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 15-16.

8 Buckman, Harry O. and Nyle C. Brady, Nature and Properties of Soils, 520; Tisdale, Samuel L., Werner L. Nelson and James D. Beaton, Soil Fertility and Fertilizers (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 386-387; William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 21-22.

9 Hodgson, J.F., R.M. Leach Jr., W.H. Allaway, U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Micronutrients in Soils and Plants in Relation to Animal Nutrition," Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemicals 10 (3) (1962):171-174.

10 Albrecht, Dr. William A., Soil Fertility and Animal Health (Webster City, IA: Fred Hahne Printing, 1958), 152; William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 15-16.

11 The Complete Book of Minerals for Health, Rodale Press, 1972.

12 Davies, Stephen, M.D. and Alan Steward, M.D., Nutritional Medicine (New York: Avon Books, 1987), xxiv.

13 Alternative Medical News 85 (5):31.

14 Williams, Dr. David G., Health Secrets You Were Never Supposed to Have, from Alternatives for the Health Conscious Individual, copyright 1989 by Mountain Home Publishing, P.O. Box 829, Ingram, TX 78025; William S. Peavy and Warren Peary, "Super Nutrition Gardening: How To Grow Your Own PowerCharged Food," 21-22.

Jock Doubleday

Director

Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.

http://www.GentleBirth.org/nwnm.org

http://www.SpontaneousCreation.org

director@spontaneouscreation.org