Do we really need to watch our vitamin & mineral intake?

Legacy_user

I had some blood tests recently, and although I've been accused a lot of having a poor (vegetarian) diet, I was not deficient in anything, even b12. Is simply eating cereal each morning with milk enough to cover all bases for the day and after that it can be empty calories?

Being properly deficient in something for diet reasons seems rare as far as I can tell, even though most people don't try that hard, I believe the body is resourceful, more so than foodies give it credit. I've also never been lectured about my diet from an actual doctor. I understand extra fibre might be needed, and we would have to watch the bad stuff, but from a nutrient intake perspective - would you agree?

elsien

I've never been lectured about my diet by an actual doctor either, but that's probably because I rarely go to the doctor and when I do it's not diet related and I've never had any blood tests with regards to any deficiencies.

I suspect that there's quite a few out there who are lacking minerals/trace elements of one sort or another who are completely oblivious to it for the same reasons as me - unless you've got rickets etc, or some other physical health condition that merits further investigation most of us go merrily on our way putting our poor night's sleep/broken nails/mild symptom of choice down to other factors.

System

So for most it never causes serious enough problems I suppose, because if a problem bothered us enough we'd get it looked at

I have blood tests because of meds for severe eczema, which is 100% unrelated to diet, but so many people like to blame diet

It makes you wonder why the NHS recommends 5-7 fruit/veg a day to reduce dementia risk, maybe that's more about reducing the bad stuff we would otherwise eat like cholesterol, salt etc than it is about nutrition

elsien

It's gone up to 10 a day now.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/five-a-day-of-fruit-and-veg-is-good-but-10-is-better/

Unless my red wine and chocolate raisins count, that's me stuffed.
The caveats as the end of the article are interesting though.

The difficult bit isn't so much the amount of fruit/veg but the variety - if you have 5 portions of the same thing it only counts as one, apparently.

System

Interesting article, thank you
I think if we ate 10 a day we wouldnt be eating much else, i think maybe that's partly why

And as it said, correlation isn't causation, these people are probably less likely to smoke, drink, more likely to excersise, etc, but there may be a nutrition side, it'd be easier to tell with supplements i think since if it did help it wouldnt be from simply cutting the bad

Maybe some sort of blended smoothie is a way to get 10? Home made to avoid sugar that rots the teeth

calleyw

elsien wrote: »

It's gone up to 10 a day now.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/five-a-day-of-fruit-and-veg-is-good-but-10-is-better/

Its always been 10 a day. But to not scare people and make it manageable they said 5.


Yours


Calley x

Murphybear

I make my own granola. I stuff it full of dried fruit and nuts because I like them plus between the granola and the milk they contain most vitamins/minerals I need. I usually add fresh fruit as well or frozen fruits from the supermarkets which is very cost effective.

Big bonus, home made tastes much nicer

Danipat

Fruit and veg is soooooo important for us. For optimum health, we need to eat 10-13 portions a day, yes we wouldn't be eating much else but we dont need too, we shouldn't be eating bread, pasta, pizza etc. Every Time we eat we should be nourishing our body and none of the above things help. Eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day reduces our risk of cancer, heart disease and chronic disease by 75%

No surprise that the Okinawa are some of the healthiest people in the world. All of these illnesses that we are getting today I believe are all connected to poor diet. If we eat healthy, we would live, longer, healthier lives.