Micronutrient Sufficiency

I first became interested in nutrition when I was in grade school. A friend of my parents, who became a life long mentor, introduced me to the importance of nutrition for long term health. He taught me about organic gardening, how to select farms which raised sustainable and healthy livestock, and how to locate springs for clean water.  The early lessons provided a solid foundation for all of my subsequent learnings.

Fast forward to the present day. I have been spending a lot of my time reading about and researching the role of diet in epigenetics (the ability to alter the expression of your genes). A big piece of the puzzle rests on understanding what portion of the food we consume actually influences our genetics and in turn, our overall health.

Most diets focus on macronutrients (fat, protein, and carbs). This level of focus may help any given person lose weight or at least temporarily improve their level of fitness, but it may not help the person to thrive. It is the micronutrients contained in our diet which provide the support and building blocks for the biochemical reactions and metabolic pathways, which in turn help us to thrive.

Jason and Mira Calton have spent a lot of time studying micronutrient sufficiency, which is documented in a paper Jason published and subsequently in the second edition of their book, Naked Calories. Jason and Mira have rated several popular diets according to the USDA Reference Daily Intake (RDI) guidelines. It should be noted that the ranking of these diets for micronutrient sufficiency is very conservative, as other lifestyle factors, which are very individual, were not considered. These lifestyle factors include exposure to toxins, stress, exercise, cooking methods, etc. The net result is that a given individual's micronutrient sufficiency is likely far worse than the analysis shows.

The following shows how many calories you would need to consume per day to meet 100% RDI for all micronutrients.

Calories   Diet

37,500      Atkins for Life

20,500      Best Life

33,500      DASH

18,800      South Beach

17,000      Practical Paleo

14,100      Primal Blueprint

Given the above, do you think you need to take supplements? I think the answer is clear. You can not possibly obtain all of the micronutrients you need from any diet.

As a side note, I have not been able to find the same type analysis on vegetarian/vegan diets, but I assume you would similarly need more calories than you could possibly consume in a day. Also, these two lifestyle choices often result in low iron (lack of meat), in other minerals (calcium, magnesium, copper, chromium, manganese, zinc, and niacin) due to the presence of phytic and oxalic acid in a lot of vegetables, in B12 (absence animal products) and D (absence of milk).

I hope you find this helpful.