Broccoli Isn't As Good For You As It Used To Be

I'm not the best parent. My daughter, Cinderella, has the bedtime habits of a vampire. She watches too many movies, and cadges too many sweet treats. At restaurants she acts like a coked up hostess, flitting from table to table, rather than the prim and proper little girls that occupy every other table at every restaurant I've ever been to.

But I've gotten her to eat -- and like -- broccoli, damnit!

But now this. Research shows that broccoli, carrots, and all the other good-for-you fruit and veggie foods have less good stuff in them than they used to.

Since 1940, when people first started keeping track of this stuff, broccoli has lost 75% of its calcium, carrots 75% of their magnesium. There are other declines across the veggie and fruit spectrum. The most likely culprits are factory farming and plant breeding. Some guy in a white coat says we now have to eat more of the stuff to get the same nutritional boost. Gee, thanks. Can't we just inject all the missing nutrients into chocolate?