Why Fruits Have Lost Their Vitamins | ENDEVR Documentary

oh [Music] Legend has it that vegetables were better before so we are going to go back in time and visit the hallowed French Academy of agriculture [Music] where you can find the ghost of vegetables past between two old pamphlets on farming we stumble across a hidden Jam the food composition table from 60 years ago [Music] it shows the exact amount of vitamins and minerals that every fruit and vegetable contained at the time of writing so we came up with a very simple idea to compare these old statistics with those of today [Music] this information is no longer kept in Old Paper books it is now kept on the internet we discovered a little known fact fruit and vegetables have lost some of their vitamins and minerals [Music] foreign beans for example in 1960 they contained 65 milligrams of calcium for every 100 grams in 2017 they contained no more than 48.5 milligrams that's a quarter less calcium the same thing for vitamin C 19 milligrams at the time versus 13.6 today one by one We examined the 70 most consumed fruit and vegetables and compiled the results into this table the results show a dramatic deterioration [Music] 60 years all 70 fruit and vegetables have lost an average of 16 of their calcium 27 of their vitamin C and almost less than half of their iron levels for several years now an American researcher has been warning us about this loss of nutrients [Applause] I'm here to tell you about an important problem that many people are not aware of nutritional declines in Foods Donald Davis is a biochemist he has worked at the University of Austin Texas we showed him our comparative table this looks like similar to what we find in U.S data and UK data so what do in the United States Donald Davis analyzed the development of 43 vegetables between 1950 and 1999. I think that most of these declines are caused by increases in yield when yields go up there's less nutrients per weight of the food a lot of agricultural scientists may not know about how big these effects are this is kind of an embarrassing of their they're always wanting to increase yield if modern breeding was causing increases in flavor and increases in nutrients I think they would talk about it a lot more the tomato is one of the fruits that has seen the largest drop in nutrients a quarter of its calcium and more than half of its vitamins but to understand this decline we must Trace fruit and vegetables back to their origin for the fruit even grows the seed determines everything [Music] tomato Farmers choose their seeds from these brochures they are published by manufacturers such as syngenta or clothes [Music] to attract Farmers they mention their size shape color and in particular their productivity [Music] but most importantly are the letters hf1 which signifies a first generation hybrid and that's how we get a hybrid [Music] for example let's take a plant that grows large but very pale Tomatoes we crossed them with a plant whose tomatoes are red but too small by combining these two varieties we create what is called a hybrid a plant that possesses both the genes of a large tomato and a bright red tomato and for 50 years scientists from all over the world have been developing these hybridizations to create tomatoes that can withstand all sorts of bumps and bruises you've heard of crash tests on cars here are crash test tomatoes [Music] during the 1980s these laboratory Tomatoes flooded the market [Music] but there is still one problem that no one has managed to work out Tomatoes spoil very quickly foreign [Music] scientists invent the Eternal tomato [Music] this miraculous tomato has been created in Israel for 70 years this country has revolutionized the farming industry it has managed to grow fruit and vegetables in the middle of the desert [Music] fathers of the modern tomato at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem the man who made this fruit practically immortal yes hi good morning uh we go straight to the farm yeah at 79 years old Professor rabinovich continues to develop future hybrids this is a breathing Greenhouse so each plant is different and I say wow this planted looks stronger than this one for instance and definitely more than this one we look for these differences in order to develop something which is better than the existing material the best tomatoes are those that are well adapted for commercial production because although the researcher and his assistant May well be University lecturers they also work for private corporations their research is currently funded by French Seed Company vermura it's owned by them I cannot I cannot give it to anybody else this is exclusive exclusive to them you're the only one that got into this greenhouse beside you no one can get it they need to develop a tomato for southern European countries Phil Moreno looking uh to have a winning hybrid in the Balkan Market which have a food size around 300 grams Tomatoes says biggest grapefruits that must grow on horizontal Vines this is the cluster which the flower are organized usually the cluster has three dimensions the fruit grow in every possible Direction people like today what we call a fishbone cluster from packing point of view if you have three dimensions very difficult to pack in a box when you have a two Dimension you can put one on top of the other and it's much easier to create this hybrid they have to cross two plants by placing pollen from one plant onto the flower of another foreign you need to come to the open flower this is what we call artificial bee actually you know what it is it's a electric toothbrush it will just remove the brush and put a hook on top of it you can see at the bottom you can see yellow yellow dust and in two days I will come with the pollen and I will make the pollination how many Crossing you make for uh to have one hybrid at the end to make a commercial habit probably 400. 400 like that 400 every year sometimes it's coming only from the third year so you can go to a huge numbers notice how after thousands of cross-pollinations in the early 1990s Heim rabinovic and his colleagues invented the Eternal tomato this innovation has transformed the world market where you begin to work on the long shelf life because because of this waste of 40 percent of the of the yield uh before this mutation the limit was two three days four days at the most when we exported tomatoes to Europe and we exported a lot of rescue we used to fly it by airplanes because if it has to go by boat from Israel to Marseille the Tomato will be mushy nobody nobody will touch it to extend its shelf life the professor had to defy the laws of nature the purpose of this tomato is to disseminate the seed for Next Generation so the moment the seeds are ripe it will fall off the bush bump into the ground [Music] explode and all this juice will will run all over as far away from the mother plant as possible in order to conquer more territory we don't want it it's undesired trait for human beings and here we have a mutation that seemingly can provide a solution here is the israelian researcher's idea they have cross-pollinated a plant with regular tomatoes that decay within three days with a plant carrying a natural genetic defect that prevents the ripening of the fruit they have thus ended up with a long lasting hybrid tomato that once picked will Decay much slower we let our own homegrown experiment on one side we have a hybrid fruit with a perfect appearance on the other side an heirloom tomato that has not undergone any hybridization with its speckled yellow skin and other small imperfections now all we have to do is wait [Music] after three days the two Tomatoes still look completely fine but after a week the heirloom tomato is no longer fit for sale because of these little black marks within two weeks it even starts to go moldy and what about the hybrid unaffected in two weeks it has not changed at all except for one thing the stem comes off [Music] it was only after day 25 that the hybrid became unsellable now with mold and softer skin foreign ization it would have looked like this [Music] its shelf life has therefore gone from three days to almost three weeks but just like any deal for Eternal youth there is a price to pay you can taste them tasteless the jeans for inhibition ripening inhibition carry with them some negative traits for instance flavor the taste deteriorates everywhere we are less nutrient but I don't know because we never never measured it only later in the 90s and the early 2000s we started looking into the quality traits I offered a project like that to many seed companies I even gave it a name I called it a tomato why Ace vitamin a c and e and they said it would be much healthier tomato we don't have it in supermarkets with variety the industries they don't care these manufacturers that Haim rabinovich refers to are big names in the seed industry such as the business hazera which has earned Millions thanks to the long-life tomato in 2003 this Israeli company was bought out by limagra a multinational corporation with a turnover of over two and a half billion dollars after acquiring hazira the company became the world's second biggest producer of tomato seeds hazera test out their new varieties in the Negev Desert out in the middle of nowhere yaron giras is global head of the Tomato Department is head of the Communications Department [Music] is our protocol for sanitation [Music] the 120 varieties in this demonstration Greenhouse are advertised right down to their stem foreign [Music] part of the tomatoes it's like a mustache you know there is a special gin for this mustache yes yes so you see very very nice color very firm tomato it's coming from the long shelf life family also um you mean it has a long stressful jeans yeah jeans inside but there is a percentage of all your variety that has a long shelf I didn't calculate but I assume today around the 50 50. for for a long time we saw that it was influenced to reduce the taste of the tomato and now we are going back and try to increase the test again of the tomato and yaron giras wants to prove it to us in his opinion the long life Gene doesn't necessarily mean a lack of flavor you like tomato yeah not everybody like tomatoes you know but it's hard to find a good tomato right now nowadays okay taste okay like a little bit um we said we said not all the Tomato need to have taste because if you add olive oil and salt you don't need taste I tell you I I know what is tomato this is okay yeah okay yeah there is a worse but for the market and for what they want this is okay I'm not going to show you some tomatoes that you said wow [Music] and I want you to taste this special Maggi and to tell me if there you feel the difference [Music] foreign [Music] taste it's not good as I wanted to be yeah because it's starting the cultivation they start yes we will come back to The Taste but what about the nutrients very little gel what we're looking more and more is that to have a good color a good firmness and a good taste and the nutrients in tomato are still it's a small player in the market for cooking in Italy for cooking is the hybridization of tomatoes one of the reasons for the loss of nutrients [Music] is one of the last Artisan seed sellers in the country [Music] using his own Tomatoes he produces non-hybrid seeds these are Heirloom Seeds is [Music] from [Music] security in his Greenhouse Jean-Luc brawl only grows Farmers varieties 100 natural farming is variety tonight do these Farmers varieties contain more nutrients than hybrids we are going to analyze them on one side we have jean-luc's tomatoes [Music] on the other a hybrid with a similar appearance bought from the supermarket [Music] the very same day we sent them to an accredited laboratory to measure their nutrient levels [Music] three weeks later the results arrive the hybrid tomato contains a significantly lower level of the five nutrients analyzed it contains 63 percent less calcium 29 less magnesium and 72 percent less vitamin C the levels of lycopene and polyphenols two antioxidants that help fight cardiovascular diseases are two times lower in the hybrid than in the farmer's variety tomato [Music] we then showed these analyzes to Donald Davis a specialist in nutrient loss [Music] it's a taste is it a taste different of course the heirloom one was very very good I ate it like a candy but the average was a tasteless yes of course it's consistent with the idea that there is a relationship between taste and nutrient content this was published by Professor clay at the University of Florida and he made the observation in this paper that many of the flavor components of tomatoes are derived from Human nutrients when you eat a tomato that has good flavor that means that it probably also had good amounts of the nutrients that were used to make that flavor it's a with all of the other evidence a breeders select for yield is but they're also looking for other economic traits and in the process of making that change they also caused a change in the chemistry of the tomato hybrid varieties are less nutritious so what does le magran owner of hazira and the world's second largest Tomato Seed producer think of this is [Music] one of the company's board members is oh commercialism [Music] regular foreign [Music] the hybrids offer another great Advantage for seed suppliers their seeds are single use if you plant the seed of a hybrid plant the genes mix and when the plant grows it's the luck of the draw the tomatoes could be small striped or misshapen this is why farmers must buy more seeds every year [Music] a profitable Market given that the manufacturers sell these tomato seeds at a very high price like limagra in Israel how much is one kilo of seeds of this kind of tomato this kind of tomato today can reach the 400 000 Euro kilogram of seeds what 400 000 Euro or more yes you can buy a house with this I've heard that the tomato seeds the more capital gain of all the seeds yes the margin or our margin is the highest that we can get in tomato why because it's expensive expensive seats and there is a lot of Demands so it's a yeah it's a good business for us if it's not we are not here the small yellow tomato the most expensive Variety in the greenhouse costs 450 000 for every kilo of seeds even so for a basic tomato it is 67 000 double the price of gold this is really to hand work they need a lot of Labor to to make seeds when you produce the the seeds like we told you today in 22 different countries something all over the world and like which kind of country like like Israel like in Thailand like in Chile with in Spain in India in many places [Music] seeds sold for the price of gold and produced by hand in countries with cheap labor welcome to the era of seed globalization [Music] the Tomato Trail has led us to India it was this report with a young girl on the front cover that prompted us to take the flight soiled seeds commissioned in 2015 by ICN a Dutch NGO in the seed sector 16 of workers that produce vegetable seeds are children under the age of 14 years [Music] these seeds are produced in the state of Karnataka in remote Villages that are amongst the poorest in the whole country [Music] here the climate is mild for vegetables every year 160 000 kilos of tomato seeds are produced to then be exported the five biggest multinational seed companies can be found here on this plane BASF Dupont Bayamon Santo syngenta and limagran we are going to travel across it together with the Hindu god garnish and one of the researchers from this NGO that works against child labor Saturday in India working before the age of 14 is illegal roams the area to count the children in the fields um [Music] foreign these young girls have been hollowing out watermelons for hours in order to remove the seeds it is 86 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade these girls have been recruited by a farmer who works for an Indian Seed Company according to Ravi and Karnataka the Tomato hybrid industry is one of the largest employers of child labor it's the end of the season the fields are almost deserted but a little further we noticed some figures through the screens of this greenhouse this Farm is a subcontractor of the Swiss multinational syngenta foreign workers prune the tomato plants a girl who was smaller than the others stares at us the young girl on the left quietly tells her to bend down [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is this young lady 17 years old our translator finds this heart to believe I don't think she is something looking at her probably she is much younger than 17. which is very much apparented I know she has been trying to hide in Karnataka 800 Farms have a contract with syngenta it's the largest foreign Contracting party [Music] naturally we asked the Swiss multinational its thoughts on child labor in response an empty rhetoric of principles enter conforms to all labor laws syngenta's Equitable work policy promotes decent working conditions and also tackles the problem of child labor [Music] why are children hired by Farmers that work for these big seed companies Dr davuluri Venta quesvalu author of the report soiled seeds is one of the main experts on child labor in India for 15 years this independent research worker has been investigating the production sector of hybrid seeds the hybridization activity is very very delicate it requires a lot of uh skills the children are preferred because they can do this repetitive activities very faster than adults and also they are more obedient we can say two children can do the work of three adults that is the kind of calculation Farmers have according to this researcher Farmers cut wages for one simple reason the low prices set by the multinationals the farmers are struggling actually to have a good profit margin if they have to hire labor and pay good remuneration to the workers the the margin will be very nominal or sometimes there won't be any margin for the farmers battle has begun to pay off the proportion of children working in the seed industry under the age of 14 has been reduced from 16 to 10 percent but another part of the population is still being exploited traveling through Karnataka we made another Discovery in the Tomato Seed fields we only saw women we found out why during our visit to chamang gowda Doda goda's Farm tomatoes in India Lima operates under the name h.m Clause the French seed company is in contract with 600 farmers in the region bent over under the blazing sun these women removed the pollen from flowers with tweezers for eight hours a day go really my legs the heads buried in pollen and fertilizers for just 2.80 a day it is not much and what's more it is illegal in India employers must comply with the minimum wage it is 330 rupees in the agricultural industry the equivalent of 4.80 a day these women therefore earn 40 percent less than the legal minimum wage [Music] um foreign foreign sells a kilo of seeds for an average of 67 000 are the local immigrant managers aware of these illegal practices the following day we decided to take a little visit to the Indian branch of hm clothes with a hidden camera we got off to a bad start they stopped us before we even got close to the building we make a documentary about the seeds in uh means which country particularly friends oh okay apparently being French like lima has its benefits we are invited to enter the staff office to see to speak directly with the supervisor okay the man is on the phone with head office people they are banned from speaking to us but do not underestimate the famous Indian hospitality okay we go inside the storage facility where the seeds produced by the Indian farmers are dried before being exported [Music] thank you the site managers admit they are fully aware that the farmers do not abide by the minimum wage of 4.80 a day [Music] what is the salary for one worker more shocking information according to this executive The Firm even violates this law with its own employees so how much are paid in hm clothes Farm according to the supervisor the business has a knack for hiding the price of seeds in Europe from the farmers what are the name of a tomato it is very secret numbers production people we should not know um doing to combat these illicit practices is foreign [Music] super visors animals [Music] Medina functions nowadays it's almost impossible to find seeds that have not been hybridized or cloned by the industry corn vegetables rice wheat sunflowers the same modern and uniform plants are being imposed all over the world [Music] as a result two-thirds of all seeds sold in the world now belong to four multinationals syngenta and limaga this privatization of nature is destroying biodiversity in 2009 a man launched a global appeal to the United Nations at the time Olivier de scooter was a United Nations special repertoire on the right to food sense of the of the pressure towards the adoption of uniform improved writing we are meeting him at his home in Brussels despite his calm demeanor [Music] the former un special repertoire is frustrated that his warnings are falling on deaf ears [Music] it is fragile plants is not such a bad thing for the large seed companies because out of these four multinationals that dominate the world seed Market three are pesticide manufacturers Bayamon Santo dodupon and syngenta [Music] um seeds are a perfect trojan horse for these chemical products as a result 3 million tons of pesticides are sold annually worldwide um foreign citizens and Farmers alike are revolting against this program disappearance they demand free seeds seeds that do not belong to the Giants of the agrochemical industry [Music] in France a number of people are organizing the resistance [Music] in the southwest of the country and the depth of a valley you will find The Hideout of Kokopelli [Music] runs this non-profit organization they are trying to protect traditional and forgotten vegetable varieties their collection includes 2 400 vegetables that are now rare such as this beige colored cucumber punakira or orange Swiss chard on universities to help with the preservation of these varieties Kokopelli has launched the schemed seats Without Frontiers [Music] um foreign [Music] by conserving these endangered seeds we are taking back the choice to plant or eat non-standardized fruit and vegetables which are the best produce for both our planet and our health but perhaps most importantly we will Liberate the vibrant common good of humanity [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: ENDEVR

Views: 351,307

Keywords: Free documentary, documentaries, full documentary, hd documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Business Documentary, food documentary, healthy eating, food documentary 2023, health documentary food, food industry, food industry documentary, documentary food, food lobby, food lobbying, healthy food documentary, vitamin documentary, food choices, healthy eating documentary, health documentary, healthy living

Id: 2H3VhsnyCdI

Length: 50min 8sec (3008 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2023