Irish growers are producing vegetables that are “nutritionally deficient”, because of pressure from the multiples to supply more at less cost, according to a chef at one of the republic’s leading cookery schools.

Darina Allen, who runs the celebrated Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, says she is “very concerned” about the quality of some of the vegetables being sold around the country. “They contain only a fraction of the vitamins and minerals that our vegetables contained in the 1950s.”

The reason for this deficiency, she claimed, citing UK Soil Assoication (SA) research, was that “plants are being pushed beyond their natural limits so as to satisfy supermarket multiples”. Growers were being told they “must produce the most possible for the least possible cost”. As a result, the soil was exhausted and could not supply the necessary trace minerals and vitamins.

Allen is an acknowledged authority on food and a member of Bord Bia and of the Irish Food Safety Board. In her latest broadside, she called for a complete overhaul of Irish agriculture to improve the national diet. “The food people are eating is simply nutritionally deficient,” she declared. “If things are to improve, we need to have the departments of agriculture and health working hand in hand.”

She said the SA research showed that levels of trace minerals in fruit and vegetables fell by up to 76 per cent between 1940 and 1991 because of mass production. In contrast, she claimed, researchers found that organic crops contained 27 per cent more vitamin C, 29 per cent more magnesium and 21 per cent more iron than conventional vegetables.

Irish growers readily acknowledge that they are under constant pressure from the multiples, but, according to PJ Jones, the national fresh produce co-ordinator with the Irish Farmers’ Association, they hotly dispute Allen’s criticisms. “I am a grower myself,” Jones said, “and year on year, I monitor soil trace elements and they remain the same. Through tilling at the right time of year and other forms of soil husbandry, one can ensure that vegetables extract the maximum nutritional benefit. Fifty years ago… it could take days for vegetables to reach the store shelves. If I harvest my crops today, the produce can be in Tesco or Dunnes by tonight.”

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