Amy Scott

Yeah.

So some researchers in the Netherlands did what's called a meta-analysis last year, and they found that dozens of nutrients across dozens of different crops are all being affected.

So that includes everything from really essential staples like rice and wheat and soybeans to lettuce to potatoes to sweet peppers to canola to

And one of the really interesting things is that every plant seems to be affected a little bit differently.

So, for example, chickpeas, like you mentioned, you know, between the 1980s and 2040, zinc in chickpeas is expected to decline almost 40%.

Wow.

But, you know, really it is across the board.

Most nutrients in most plants are seeing some kind of decrease.

Across the board, this research, I think, found that nutrients fell by a little over 3% since the late 1980s.

But you're right that that's actually, it sounds small, but it's pretty significant in terms of the potential health impacts.

Yeah, and that's because nutrient deficiency is a huge public health problem around the world.

And a lot of people live kind of on the brink of nutrient insufficiency.

And so just a small decrease, particularly in staple crops like rice and wheat,

can lead to huge consequences for those people, particularly in low-income countries where a lot of people might get half of their calories from something like rice.

You know, if that rice becomes less nutritious and they're getting half of their calories from it, all of a sudden that's a big decline.

So what can we do about this?

I mean, is there a way to make up for the loss of nutrition in these crops?

Is everyone going to have to take supplements?

Yeah, I mean, it really depends on who you are and what resources you have.

So those of us who live in wealthy countries where we're able to afford really diverse diets, this shouldn't be too big of a problem.