Eat pills. Not too much. Mostly supplements.
March 2, 2015 6:06 PM Subscribe
What is the deal with recommended daily allowances? Does anyone really meet the goals without supplementation?
The wisdom on this here website is that supplementation doesn't work as well as eating real food, so I've been looking at how I'm doing with micronutrients recently, and it seems improbable to me that anyone is really hitting these targets from diet alone.
Let's talk about calcium. As a 38 year-old male, I'm supposed to be choking down a gram of calcium per day, which translates to 27 oz. of milk. It's not like I can have a cup of yogurt with lunch and hit that target . Other foods with calcium are either kind of odd (canned salmon with bones?) or don't really have that much calcium in them. E.g., you need four (4) oranges to get as much calcium as in one glass of milk.
Similarly, I'm supposed to have 8 mg of iron. Something that has a lot of iron in it is beef, right? I find that if I eat an 8 oz steak I'm only getting about 5.5 grams of iron. That and two cups of spinach gets me around 7 mg. That's not bad, but it's probably not something I'm going to eat every day.
So, what's the deal? Is the 1,000 grams of calcium a sop to the dairy industry? Should I ignore the recommended daily allowances? Is there some relatively simple diet tweak that I'm missing? Or should I take supplements?
The wisdom on this here website is that supplementation doesn't work as well as eating real food, so I've been looking at how I'm doing with micronutrients recently, and it seems improbable to me that anyone is really hitting these targets from diet alone.
Let's talk about calcium. As a 38 year-old male, I'm supposed to be choking down a gram of calcium per day, which translates to 27 oz. of milk. It's not like I can have a cup of yogurt with lunch and hit that target . Other foods with calcium are either kind of odd (canned salmon with bones?) or don't really have that much calcium in them. E.g., you need four (4) oranges to get as much calcium as in one glass of milk.
Similarly, I'm supposed to have 8 mg of iron. Something that has a lot of iron in it is beef, right? I find that if I eat an 8 oz steak I'm only getting about 5.5 grams of iron. That and two cups of spinach gets me around 7 mg. That's not bad, but it's probably not something I'm going to eat every day.
So, what's the deal? Is the 1,000 grams of calcium a sop to the dairy industry? Should I ignore the recommended daily allowances? Is there some relatively simple diet tweak that I'm missing? Or should I take supplements?
Average over a week rather than a day. And greens have a lot of calcium. The year or so I was tracking this in my own life, I regularly hit all the recommendations over the course of a week, but tracking was necessary to point out to me classes of foods that I was otherwise missing.
posted by jaguar at 6:37 PM on March 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 6:37 PM on March 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Do you eat supplemented food like cereals, milk, bread? It's remarkable how much the 10% here and 15% there add up over the course of a day. Similarly, while you might not eat four oranges, the link you posted suggests you could throw sesame seeds on a salad one day, have an orange with your breakfast, etc. Don't try and make all the numbers work in one day - leftovers, occasional meals out and such will mess with it.
I'm vegetarian with heavy periods and living far, far North, so I supplement with vitamin D and iron.* I take both the vitamin D and the iron on the recommendation of my new doctor when I moved to Canada. I asked if a multivitamin with iron would be more useful and she essentially said that with a 'reasonably varied' vegetarian diet I would be fine with the two supplements separately. I realise it's anecdotal, but I rate her as a family GP and she was very confident that I'd have no real dietary deficiencies after I outlined my usual diet to her.
*You think 8mg is hard? Menstruating women need almost twice that, and you can double the number if you're not getting it from animal sources!
posted by averysmallcat at 6:39 PM on March 2, 2015
I'm vegetarian with heavy periods and living far, far North, so I supplement with vitamin D and iron.* I take both the vitamin D and the iron on the recommendation of my new doctor when I moved to Canada. I asked if a multivitamin with iron would be more useful and she essentially said that with a 'reasonably varied' vegetarian diet I would be fine with the two supplements separately. I realise it's anecdotal, but I rate her as a family GP and she was very confident that I'd have no real dietary deficiencies after I outlined my usual diet to her.
*You think 8mg is hard? Menstruating women need almost twice that, and you can double the number if you're not getting it from animal sources!
posted by averysmallcat at 6:39 PM on March 2, 2015
Calcium and iron are the ones I struggle with the most, too. It seems ridiculously easy to get multiple times the RDA of A or C, for example, just by eating fruits and veggies. But even eating a reasonable amount of dairy AND dark leafy greens doesn't provide the full RDA of calcium. I've wondered about this too. How could the RDA be right if it's so difficult to make? And what about all those cultures where people don't use dairy at all?
One possibility is that it's so high because of the average person's poor digestion and/or poor eating practices... the less efficiently you absorb a substance, the more of it you have to eat. So I try to maximize the quality of the iron and calcium I get from food, as well as my digestion (using fermented/cultured foods and avoiding sugar).
I don't take supplemental iron because it doesn't agree with me (even a half tablet makes me nauseous). I take a calcium-magnesium occasionally, when I feel I've been really deficient.
The calcium or iron content listed on a label only tells part of the story. The kind of iron you take in matters, as heme iron (from animal sources) is more readily absorbed than non-heme iron (from plant sources). Taking vitamin C with non-heme iron sources helps ramp up the absorption.
Calcium-rich and iron-rich food sources shouldn't be taken together in the same meal, as calcium inhibits iron absorption. This may be one of the origins of the Jewish rule of separating milk and meat at meals, or one of the reasons it survived, because it's good for your nutritional status.
Calcium also needs adequate vitamins D and K to operate.
Some people also say that too much protein flushes calcium from the body, so high-protein diets may necessitate higher calcium intake as well.
Then there are people who say dairy is actually not even a good source of calcium, because of the phosphorous content. I have a friend whose experience would support that: he was always, ever since I knew him, a huge milk drinker. And he ended up with calcium deficiency, as diagnosed by a doctor!
Nutrition is so complex, it makes me feel like throwing up my hands in defeat sometimes. :-(
posted by mysterious_stranger at 6:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
One possibility is that it's so high because of the average person's poor digestion and/or poor eating practices... the less efficiently you absorb a substance, the more of it you have to eat. So I try to maximize the quality of the iron and calcium I get from food, as well as my digestion (using fermented/cultured foods and avoiding sugar).
I don't take supplemental iron because it doesn't agree with me (even a half tablet makes me nauseous). I take a calcium-magnesium occasionally, when I feel I've been really deficient.
The calcium or iron content listed on a label only tells part of the story. The kind of iron you take in matters, as heme iron (from animal sources) is more readily absorbed than non-heme iron (from plant sources). Taking vitamin C with non-heme iron sources helps ramp up the absorption.
Calcium-rich and iron-rich food sources shouldn't be taken together in the same meal, as calcium inhibits iron absorption. This may be one of the origins of the Jewish rule of separating milk and meat at meals, or one of the reasons it survived, because it's good for your nutritional status.
Calcium also needs adequate vitamins D and K to operate.
Some people also say that too much protein flushes calcium from the body, so high-protein diets may necessitate higher calcium intake as well.
Then there are people who say dairy is actually not even a good source of calcium, because of the phosphorous content. I have a friend whose experience would support that: he was always, ever since I knew him, a huge milk drinker. And he ended up with calcium deficiency, as diagnosed by a doctor!
Nutrition is so complex, it makes me feel like throwing up my hands in defeat sometimes. :-(
posted by mysterious_stranger at 6:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
The World's Healthiest Foods is also an awesome resource for this (if a bit busy visually). You can put a vitamin or other nutrient in the search box, scroll down on the search results to find the nutrient name, and get recommendations for the foods highest in that nutrient. Here's calcium.
posted by jaguar at 6:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by jaguar at 6:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Best answer: We used to drink milk with every meal, yes. And tomato juice would be served with a meal as well as meat and potatoes (which have Vitamin C). And a dessert with dairy as well, like pudding.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:44 PM on March 2, 2015
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:44 PM on March 2, 2015
canned salmon with bones?
Totally normal and a definite source of calcium. Unlike canned tuna, canned salmon does have some bones in it. The bones are soft but slightly crunchy and they're not meant to be picked out. You could mash them if you don't like them. There was even an Ask about them.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Totally normal and a definite source of calcium. Unlike canned tuna, canned salmon does have some bones in it. The bones are soft but slightly crunchy and they're not meant to be picked out. You could mash them if you don't like them. There was even an Ask about them.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Kalmya and Marie mon Dieu have explained the calcium part of it. The feds really do want me to drink three glasses of milk per day (or equivalent) and for some reason that seemed like too much. Thanks for all the answers so far. Keep it coming!
posted by chrchr at 7:25 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 7:25 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Supposedly you can eat less calcium if you're eating a highly absorbable form. I eat a tin of bone-in (hopefully heavy-metal free, sustainably sourced) sardines every day for my calcium.
posted by zeek321 at 8:37 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by zeek321 at 8:37 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh yeah, and I have a lot of food allergies, which has restricted my dietary variety, so I do use supplements. But I try to be very conservative about it, erring on the side of too little rather than too much. The research seems to say that many supplements don't extend life and may even shorten it. But I pay careful attention, and short of doing a blinded study on myself (like mixing in placebo-filled capsules), I seem to feel much better with some supplements in my diet. YMMV based on how good your diet already is.
I use the guidelines here as my starting point:
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/recommended-supplements/
I've read some criticism of their research-based reasoning, but, again, I've picked conservatively from their suggestions.
posted by zeek321 at 8:45 PM on March 2, 2015
I use the guidelines here as my starting point:
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/recommended-supplements/
I've read some criticism of their research-based reasoning, but, again, I've picked conservatively from their suggestions.
posted by zeek321 at 8:45 PM on March 2, 2015
Hey, vegan here, and we totally get enough calcium sans milk between leafy greens, fortified nut milks, etc. Dairy isn't even really the best source of calcium. Here's a short, informative podcast about calcium without dairy. :)
posted by Gymnopedist at 11:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Gymnopedist at 11:40 PM on March 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Another factoid that might help you wrap your mind around this is to realize that RDAs are pretty generous and most people who are not quite meeting them are not really "deficient" in any sort of medically significant way: RDA is "the daily dietary intake level of a nutrient considered sufficient by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine to meet the requirements of 97.5% of healthy individuals in each life-stage and sex group. It is calculated based on the EAR and is usually approximately 20% higher than the EAR [estimated average requirement]". It tends to be people who have eliminated certain swaths of food types from their diet (e.g. fresh fruits, animal products, grains) due to location or choice who run into trouble with true dietary deficiencies.
posted by drlith at 5:27 AM on March 3, 2015
posted by drlith at 5:27 AM on March 3, 2015
Before you go changing your diet, get baseline bloodwork from your doctor. That will give you much more useful information about deficiencies, if any. Even if your calcium intake is high, you can't absorb it without adequate vitamin D, so depending on your blood levels you might be better served by supplementing D instead of calcium.
Also, the bioavailability of nutrients from foods varies wildly and is altered by cooking and processing methods. For example, raw spinach is a terrible dietary source of iron even though the iron content is high; our bodies are just not that great at extracting iron from raw leaves. Even when cooked, it takes large volumes of cruciferous vegetables daily to equal the calcium and iron content of animal-based foods. Personally, I can't digest that much kale in a day. YMMV.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:33 AM on March 3, 2015
Also, the bioavailability of nutrients from foods varies wildly and is altered by cooking and processing methods. For example, raw spinach is a terrible dietary source of iron even though the iron content is high; our bodies are just not that great at extracting iron from raw leaves. Even when cooked, it takes large volumes of cruciferous vegetables daily to equal the calcium and iron content of animal-based foods. Personally, I can't digest that much kale in a day. YMMV.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:33 AM on March 3, 2015
« Older How do i drive legally in ohio | Best medium to start a "platform" for my self-help... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Kalmya at 6:37 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]