Looking for another reason why growing some of your own food makes sense? Here’s one you might not have considered: nutritional content. While the washed and waxed produce at your local grocery store might look chock full of vitamins and minerals, a recent report in the Journal of HortScience finds otherwise.

Apparently produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in our grandparents’ days, it also contains fewer nutrients – at least according to Donald R. Davis, a former research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in minerals (including magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc) than those harvested just 50 years ago.

Source: Time Magazine