In researching nutrition and organic agriculture, I formed an interesting hypothesis. Various fruits and vegetables are often touted as being "rich in X" or "high in Y" and therefore lists are drawn up for people seeking a particular vitamin or nutrient or mineral.<p>Now plants can synthesize certain vitamins and there's no doubt that citrus is high in Vitamin C, for example. But many minerals must be drawn out of the soil where something is grown. So are all <X> high in selenium? What about historically selenium-impoverished areas? What about cropland that's been depleted after decades of use? Still the same selenium in there?<p>I've decided that without constant analysis and assay of each and every plant, you can't really tell the composition of what we're finding in our groceries. It's the winegrower's concept of <i>terroir</i>, that is, the soil, the environment, the climate, all contributing to the makeup of the final product.<p>This line of reasoning was enough to send me to a regime of supplementation. Unfortunately it is also impossible for my HCPs to track or validate any intake, baseline, or improvements to attribute to the supplements, so I terminated them just as abruptly. But it was a good thought. I think anyone who needs a particular nutrient should supplement with it, rather than try and derive it from diet alone, in light of this.<p>And also we cannot get too uptight about toxins in food, because that's just a neverending bugaboo that could simply kill us from anxiety more than anything else!