Vitamins and Minerals – part 3 

One of the tricky parts when it comes to vitamins and minerals is how much to take. To make it especially confusing, there are several different reference scales available. The three I mentioned in my last post were RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances), ODI (Optimum Daily Intake) and SONA (Suggested Optimal Daily Nutritional Allowances). The RDAs were updated in 1993 with Reference Daily Intake (RDI) which is supposed to represent an average need. RDA/RDI values are pretty much the same, and are the values that the percent daily values (%DV) on nutrition labels are based on. The ODI is a value used in The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book by Shari Lieberman and Nancy Bruning and in most cases is higher than the RDA & SONA values. The SONA values are based on 15 years of health evaluations done on 13,500 people from six different areas in the United States. SONA and ODA (Optimum Dietary Allowances) are similar and you may see them used somewhat interchangeably. You can read more about the values and what they all mean here. It’s a Food Technology blog post that I found. It says the same thing I have read but it’s done in one paragraph where as the information I read is covered in four books. I figured the blog post would be an easier reference point. I site the books I have read at the end of this post.

So, that’s all lovely and confusing. Why all the different recommended numbers? Well, the RDA’s were developed back during World War II and they represent a value that is supposed to keep the average healthy person well. Here’s a quote from the Food Technology blog that I linked to above:

…SONA values (Suggested Optimum Nutritional Allowances), which happen to be the most comprehensive data on nutrients evolved over many years of studies with thousands of healthy people. SONA values are some times 20 times that of RDI because it takes into consideration the positive benefits of nutrient intake while RDI values are for minimum nutrition below which there can be deficiency symptoms.

In my reading I came across a description of RDAs as the minimum wage of vitamins and minerals. I thought that was a pretty clever way to explain why we are seeing competing “optimal” allowance values. Here is a quote from The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book that puts RDAs in perspective:

They are probably high enough to keep you alive – although even this is open to question. But they do not appear high enough to allow you to enjoy the best quality of life. And why should you not strive for the best?

That pretty much sums up my current, personal feelings about vitamin and mineral supplementation. I feel pretty good but I wouldn’t mind feeling GREAT! I’m also a little concerned about my life long lack of some sort of supplemental vitamin and the underlying deficiencies that may have been building for years. Hopefully I can begin to correct any damage that has been done.

The RDIs have three basic problems: 1) you cannot get all of the nutrients you need from today’s food; 2) the RDIs reflect amounts that are adequate to prevent nutrient-deficiency diseases and are not tailored for individual needs; and 3) the RDIs do not address or consider optimum health or the prevention of degenerative diseases such as cancer and heart disease.

The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book

You can read more about each of the above points in the book if you are so inclined. I’ll go into a little more detail about the first one since this used to be my rational for not needing to take vitamins and minerals. RDAs are based on a “balanced diet”. How many people eat a balanced diet? I think I eat a pretty balanced diet and a week of analysis showed that I wasn’t even coming close to the RDIs – that freaked me out. Once I realized I wasn’t hitting the RDIs I increased my consumption. I had to eat close to 2500 calories to even come close to hitting the RDIs (minimum wage) with just my food. Most people don’t eat nearly that much in a day. Let’s face it, everyone is on a diet. If the average female dieter is eating 1800 calories a day that’s a lot. The food we get from the grocery store is not as nutritious as the food our grandparents ate. The soil is depleted and the nutrient content of the food we buy is dependent on the soil it’s grown in. Buying organic is a step in the right direction but if my diet analysis was correct, which I believe it was, organic foods weren’t enough to push my nutrient values even to the “minimum wage”. I recently learned that the midwest, great lakes region and eastward are “low-selenium” areas. I had no idea that food grown in my area of the country is probably lacking in selenium – how are we supposed to know that stuff?! Selenium is a powerful antioxidant and anticancer mineral. That seems important. I would surely like to know if that was missing from my “healthy” diet and do something about it (which I now am). Even the fruits and veggies that are grown in healthy soil start to lose their nutrients as soon as they are picked. If you aren’t buying local, those fruits and veggies are hanging around a long time before you get them home from the store. Ouch.

• Food in the United States travels 1,300 miles from farm to market shelf, on average
• Nearly every state buys 90 percent of its food from outside the state.

Amy White, Functional Nutritionist

I’m Amy a board certified holistic nutritionist, certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and certified Life Coach. I help women in midlife understand the changing needs of their body so that they can stop dieting and lose weight permanently. At 56 I live what I teach. Don’t believe the story that your best years are behind you. They are not. Your best years are just starting!