Posted on 01/22/2008 8:02:20 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Your baked potato may not be quite as nutritious by the end of the century, a new study suggests.
As carbon dioxide levels continue to accumulate in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels, the increase could cause a decrease in the nutritional value of many key food crops, says Max Taub of Southwestern University in Texas, who analyzed more than 200 experiments conducted by other researchers.
The experiments looked at the effects of higher levels of the greenhouse gas on the protein amounts in barley, rice, wheat, soybean and potatoes, key food crops, especially in poorer countries, where residents rely on plants for the bulk of the protein in their diet.
Taub's analysis, detailed in the March issue of the journal Global Change Biology, found that when grown in elevated carbon dioxide levels, potatoes showed almost a 14 percent decrease in protein. Protein concentrations decreased by more than 15 percent in barley and almost 10 percent in wheat and rice. Soybeans had the smallest protein reduction at 1.4 percent.
"This is just one more example of the impact global changes could have on us," Taub said.
As carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, most plants accumulate more carbon in their tissues, Taub explained, which can reduce concentrations of other elements, such as nitrogen, a key component of proteins.
Taub says that the decrease in nitrogen could be partially overcome by using fertilizers that contain nitrogen, but that these can have negative environmental consequences of their own, particularly for nearby waterways. Another option would be to breed strains of grains that have higher protein concentrations under elevated carbon dioxide levels, he said.
Bullshit!!!!!!!!!!
Hey! I was about to post the same reply!
Oh for crappin out loud!
I think God is telling us to offset this by eating more meat, which is the real source of protein in the diet. Hell, I didn’t even know potatoes contained protein.
That’s like complaining that global warming causes your steak to have less calcium.
This study is fabricated to offset Sherwood Idzo’s research that proves CO2 increases food production.
The gullible of the world are going to be taken on the ride of their lives.
Unbelievable.
What will these nitwits come up with next?
Put a little habanero on it kick it up a knoch, such BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBull Shit.
These are the same people that bitch against genetically-altered foods because the may have bad effects over time - a supposed point that is hard to tell the very people most affected - the poor in third world countries that STARVED TO DEATH to spare them food that MAY have killed them.
Not only that, but note that it’s considering protein content in potatoes. Potatoes contain very little protein to begin with, so any reduction could be considered substantial in terms of percentage. The reason the difference is minute in soybeans is because they are the closest thing to a good source of protein among plants.
~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~
Agreed.Carbon dioxide is plant food.What they don’t say is how highly elevated the level was.Hundreds of times the present level?
Is this the best that the global-warming cult can do?
Can I get a ribeye brother?
Do we have to exhale into government approved plastic bags and then have those bags disposed in hi-tech CO2 reclamation facilities?
It is getting ridiculous out there these days...
I find the fact that this article and the one they sourced both leave out the concentration of CO2 used in the experiment. Very suspicious indeed.
If you want good vegetables, plant a garden.
Produce doesn’t taste as good as it used to (and probably isn’t as nutritious) because of hybridizing and mass production.
Grow your own.
Damn, that steak looks good... A nice Cabernet Sauvignon would complete it, along with a loaded baked potato.
The other night I saw a segment on the Weather Channel which promoted Global Warming Activism frankly and explicitly as a religious crusade. They featured some sort of backslid preacher who rediscovered his calling in the name of Global Warming ... Honest to Gaia.
Yep. That’s what I use. ;-D
If any of us are fortunate to still be alive 92 years from now, I'm thinking less nutritious baked potatoes will be a decent tradeoff.
It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.
Global warming will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Global warming, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
Global warming will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methanphedime in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.
Listen to me. Global warming does not exist.
It cannot do anything to you. But I can. I am sending this message to everyone in the world. Tell your friends, tell your family. If anyone else bothers me with fearmongering concerning Global warming, I will turn hating them into a religion. I will do things to them that would make a horsehead in your bed look like Easter Sunday brunch.
It’s so obvious it’s not even a challenge. Potatoes are an insignificant source of protein. Yet, in this study they’re touted as being a great source of protein. This is most certainly why they use a percentage rather than an absolute amount. Soybeans do contain some protein, so the decrease in protein is essentially statistically insignificant (even with the undisclosed amount of CO2 increase).
Like you said, it’s just another BS study. I doubt it will be picked up by the local news, though. Crap like this comes out all the time.
You know what else?
Decaying plants and leaves put of more CO2 than all of mankind and our machines.
Bacteria produces even more than that...
Every living of dead and decay thing on the planet produces Co2 (cuz were carbon based)
This guy is a reglar einstein
ummm... since poorer countries have LESS industry and cars and people, shouldn't the RICH nations have HIGHER greenhouse gas problems etc??? more cBS!!!
Excuse me if I don’t believe this or care.
They will find something to counter or change this.
Most of the world is not starving except for the places paralyzed by their own incompetent governments and petty dictators, etc.
Make up your minds nanny fascists, are we too fat or starving?
American agricultural science and ingenuity can solve all or most of these type of problems.
Oh good grief...is there nothing these people won't come up with?
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TSR032204.html
Only about 0.03 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide
Where the hell am I going to get one of those at 11:20PM!! Damn you!
Beautiful! L0L
Actually a good amount of that adds to the potato. LOL
Or just tell them to put some extra cheese and bacon on those loaded baked potatoes.
Picking produce while it’s still green and ripening in a storage room is a part of mass production. Sorry you didn’t understand that I meant that.
Ever tasted a heirloom (non-hybrid and non-organic) tomato fresh off the vine?
One o’ dem Allen brothers steaks ;0)
We’re DOOMED! We are destined to be overrun by idiots.Most of them want to sell us some carbon credits.
Doesn’t matter what it tastes like since it will all be grown to burn anyway.
Was he a former fat man from Arkansas??
LOL
Let’s get a reading on vegetables raised by the Amish who still care for the land in the traditional way -
These people really think we are ignoramuses...but unfortunately, there will be far too many who will swallow this bilge...education today does not, deliberately, teach critical thinking...
Mom, grows these heirloom Sun gold tomatoes,that will blow your mind!
I walk around with a salt shaker in my pocket when I visit! L0L
I should be selling THEM carbon credits.
Then may I suggest eating it before then?
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