How Much Should You Take For Vitamins and Minerals ?

As we know, vitamins and minerals are essential to good health.
But how do we know whether we are getting sufficient nutrients to ensure our well-being ?
That's why RDI is established based on the research by Food and Nutrition Board - National Institutes of Health, USA.

What is RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) for Vitamin and Minerals ?

RDI is the recommended daily amount of vitamins and minerals you need to take in order to stay healthy and well nourished.
Lacking of vitamins and minerals can cause problems, on the other hand, overdosed by these amounts may get us into another trouble too.
Therefore, everyone needs to have personalised RDI based on their body, genetics, activities etc.
This is a general guidelines for RDI

How can we achieve the RDI ?

By eating a well-balance diet every day. Meaning we should consume fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, good fat, lean meat, dairy products in the recommended portion as food pyramid below.

What are the Challenges to Follow those guidelines ?

Problem 1 - We cannot really get everything we need from the food alone

The RDI is intended to be met solely through diet. However, it's impossible to meet the RDI by eating the food available for us today.
It's impractical and misleading the typical well-balanced diet in the food pyramid.

Athletes may need more protein than the rest of sedentary people or even those who are into weight-loss program may need to cut down some amounts of macro-nutrients which is irrelevant with this pyramid food. In the end, nobody can achieve this perfect well balance diet as suggested.

For eg. someone who is dieting may not be getting enough of these nutrients from balance diet concept and end up making it more difficult to burn body fat and lose weight.

Problem 2 - Missing Nutrients

Unless we could get the food fresh from the farm or the sea, some nutrients are missing during the process.
Fruits and vegetables begin to lose nutrients from the moment they are picked.
In fact, most of fruits and vegetables we buy have actually been picked, stored, shipped and stored again.
After we buy them, we store them some more. Then we may cook them or some are processed before we buy it. Each of these steps causes further nutrient loss.

For eg. Vitamin C content of apples may fall by two-thirds after two or three months. Green vegetables suffer even more. They lose almost all their vitamin C after a few days of being stored at room temperature. 
Orange juice is high in vitamin C. But few people realise that an orange lose 30% of its vitamic C soon after it's squeezed.

Problem 3 - Environmental Pollution

Today, there are unprecedented number of chemicals all around us - in our food, water, air we breathe.
Automobiles and industry contribute those millions of pounds of pollutants into the atmosphere every year. And Our food has become a chemical feast that's sprayed with pesticides, injected with hormones and fed with antibiotics and adulterated with artificial colors, flavors, textures and preservatives.

Even though we are able to eat well balanced diet, we are not free from those environmental pollution. Cancer has been on a rise in this past 10 years because of cancer causing agents, toxic chemicals from the pollutants or processed food.

Problem 4 - Eating Out

In local survey conducted by HPB (Health Promotion Board) Singapore, more residents eating out at food court, hawker center or restaurant for lunch and/or dinner. The portion usually eating out at least four times a week has increased to 60% in 2010.

By consuming those outside food, we don't have full control over the ingredients they used, how much salt and other artificial flavor and colors added in and how they prepare and cook the food.
It's getting harder to comply those RDI.

What are the solutions for these challenges ?

In real life, it's not easy to have perfect healthy lifestyle, however these are some tips that can be useful in achieving closer to RDI.

1. Determine our personal ODI (Optimum Daily Intake)

This is a safe dose range for general optimum health and will help to prevent illness in most people.
Individualise our ODI
Some people are at higher risk for illness owing to family health history, environmental pollution, stress etc.
Some need higher dose of vitamins and minerals like pregnant woman, weak immune system.
To know our personal ODI, we could use body composition measurement or use this free test based on symptoms we have

2. Match your ODI with your eating habits

By understanding what your body needs, it will be easier for you to adjust your eating habits.
For eg, you need more proteins, means you can increase your meat intakes, or you can take the first step by clean eating diet.

3. Fill in the gaps with supplements

A simple way to obtain good start of ODI is with a good multivitamin -mineral formula that contains all the basic vitamins and minerals.
Supplements are NOT MEANT to replace your food intakes which are the main and natural source for our body, they are meant to fill in the gaps to achieve those RDI.

4. Working with health care practitioner or nutritionist.

They have been trained in education, have deeper knowledge in the science and practice of nutrition.

If you have difficulties in finding out reliable nutritionists or have further questions about this.
Please don't hesitate to contact us.