Statistical tables of the nutrient content of foods were developed by averaging numerous samples of food from various soils and regions. These tables basically lie because they do not show the range of possibility between the different samples. A chart may state authoritatively that 100 grams of broccoli contains so many milligrams of calcium. What it does not say is that some broccoli samples contain only half that amount or even less, while other broccoli contains two or three times that amount. Since calcium is a vital nutrient hard to come by in digestible form, the high calcium broccoli is far better food than the low calcium sample. But both samples of broccoli appear and taste more or less alike. Both could even be organically grown. Yet one sample has a very positive ratio of nutrition to calories, the other is lousy food. (Schuphan, 1965) Here's another example I hope will really dent the certainties the Linda Clarkites. Potatoes can range in protein from eight to eleven percent, depending on the soil that produced them and if they were or were not irrigated. Grown dry (very low yielding) on semiarid soils, potatoes can be a high-protein staff of life. Heavily irrigated and fertilized so as to produce bulk yield instead of nutrition, they'll produce two or three times the tonnage, but at 8 percent protein instead of 11 percent. Not only does the protein content drop just as much as yield is boosted, the amino acid ratios change markedly, the content of scarce nutritional minerals drops massively, and the caloric content increases. In short, subsisting on irrigated commercially-grown potatoes, or on those grown on relatively infertile soils receiving abundant rainfall will make you fat and sick. They're a lot like manioc. Here's another. Wheat can range from 7 to 19 percent protein. Before the industrial era ruined most wheat by turning it into white flour, wheat-eating peoples from regions where the cereal naturally contains abundant protein tended to be tall, healthy and long-lived. Wheat-eating humans from regions that produce low protein grain tended to be small, sickly and short-lived. (McCarrison, 1921, 1936, 1982; Albrecht, 1975) Even cows have to pay attention to where their grass is coming from. Some green grass is over 15 percent protein and contains lots of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium to build strong bodies. Other equally or even better looking green grass contains only six or seven percent protein and contains little calcium, phosphorus or magnesium. Cows forced to eat only this poor type of grass can literally starve to death with full bellies. And they have a hard time breeding successfully. The reason for the difference: different soil fertility profiles. (Albrecht, 1975)