Reply To: Materia Medica of Foods
Hi Riley, here I am at it again, sorry. I feel a bit frustrated because I can’t quite understand the whole concept of DV requirements per nutrient. How did the researches come up with these numbers? My husband and I sat and started doing numbers, there is no way a common person can eat every single nutrient requirement in one day; maybe in a week if the person is really conscious about it and all that person does is spend every day in the kitchen balancing every single meal.
And I actually think this is why the supplement industry is a multimillionaire industry, when we look at these numbers we’re all like I guess I need X supplement because I’m just not adding up with what I eat. And there we have people spending hundreds of dollars in multivitamins and any other supplement they think are lacking. And I honestly think, maybe some of the modern diseases may also be in part caused by an over intake of supplements. One of my daughter’s friends takes 19 supplements to deal with some weird symptoms she suffers from; and I really wonder if some of those “ailments” are due to excess consumption of supplements that she was told she needed! My mom started taking selenium, copper and collagen pills because some health guru said so. You see where I’m going at?
And I understand that our body is very smart and sends us signals when we may be deficient (or have excess) of something; but that’s probably when it gets to a worrysome deficiency or excess that generates symptoms. But what about mild deficiencies? Like how do we know we may be a bit low in copper, or molybdenum, or vitamin K, or B6… because if we go by those charts, I think most of the population is mildly defficient in one thing or another.
I’m privileged that I stay at home and I in fact cook every single meal at home, and we cook almost everything from scratch; but this is not the average. I think our diet is pretty balanced and varied. Once I start working with common people that work outside their home 8 hrs, plust time spent in traffic; extracurricular activities for kids, etc… How will I make suggestions like, well you just need to eat in one day 2 cups of beet greens, 2 cups of collard greens, 2 cups of legumes, 3 servings of fruits, 2 cups of grains, one serving of dairy…
I was just listening to a very popular doctor, talking about being adequately hydrated; he talked about the use of electrolytes after exercising instead of just water, because according to him, there is no way you can consume all your daily requirement of magnesium, potassium and I don’t know what else… I’m sure he’s not lying, but again, he was using those infamous daily requirement charts. I can imagine his followers lining up to their neaest health centre to buy some electrolytes because of what he said.
Sorry about this whole rant. My point really is how do we use those DV / RDI charts? Just as an overall guide, make sure we consume a varied diet that may have most nutrients even though thy’re not in the amounts specified? Literal to the number like most “health experts” do?
Thanks Riley.