Commercialization of a limited range of stocks resulted in limitations in diversity, quantity, and quality of fats in animal foods. Processing brought about changes in the fat, mineral, and vitamin content of foods, as well as introducing into our food supply many substances foreign to human body chemistry. Shortsighted farming methods deplete soils of minerals, decreasing the mineral content of foods grown in these soils. Unripe harvest prevents full nutritional content from being developed. Transport and storage result in nutrient losses.
Processing takes the heaviest nutritional toll.
Food consumption is also influenced by religious, philosophical, moral, ethical, and faddish considerations. In times of plenty, we can afford to indulge in speculations, and to base our food choices on these speculations. These considerations are not based on the rigors of nutritional science which, at its best, deals objectively with the essential components of human nutrition, their minimums and optimums for health, and digestible sources of these essential nutrients in nature. Nutritional science takes the side neither of vegetarians nor meat eaters, but attempts to improve the health of both through better food choices based on nutritional information. In the following chapters, we examine the fat content of different diets and foods.