Vitamins

[sludge7]

Came across this article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17well.html?ref=science) the other day which basically says that taking vitamin supplements (as opposed to consuming your vitamins naturally in food) is a big waste of time. I do eat lots of veggies, but also take a high-potency daily multivitamin. Am I wasting my money? Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

[Roadstr]

They are talking about a balanced diet to provide adequate nutrients and provided a link to this definition of a balanced diet... "A balanced diet means getting the right types and amounts of foods and drinks to supply nutrition and energy for maintaining body cells, tissues, and organs, and for supporting normal growth and development."

I agree with the article that if you eat the foods that supply adequate nutritional needs you don't have to take supplements. When I'm limiting my carbs I know what supplements I need because I use Cron-O-Meter (http://spaz.ca/cronometer/).:D

Folate, B1, B6 and D are the vitamins that I find are usually too low when following a LC diet. I also believe that it's more beneficial to supply your body's nutritional needs through food sources and not pills. Just my $0.02.:)

[slapdash]

A 'balanced diet' with loads of fruit and veg is all very well IF the fruit and veg actually contains any nutrients, which, after much reading, research and asking about, I severely doubt. Nutrient content of many fruit and veg is up to 75% less than it was just 40 years ago. Industrial production, use of artificial fertilisers and overused soil is the main culprit. I am happy to supplement because it would seem that anything that you don't actually grow yourself is definitely suspect - cash before health.

[Roadstr]

Nutrient content of many fruit and veg is up to 75% less than it was just 40 years ago.

Did you know that the FDA's nutritional data base takes this into account? That's because the data is taken from foods... Umm today, not 40 years ago. Those are the numbers that Cron-O-Meter uses.

[sludge7]

I agree with the article that if you eat the foods that supply adequate nutritional needs you don't have to take supplements. When I'm limiting my carbs I know what supplements I need because I use Cron-O-Meter (http://spaz.ca/cronometer/).:D

Thanks for that link -- have just downloaded and installed -- much nicer than the clunky web site I was using previously and lots more options too!

Folate, B1, B6 and D are the vitamins that I find are usually too low when following a LC diet.

What are you using for your required nutritional values? The default settings on the software or something higher?

I also believe that it's more beneficial to supply your body's nutritional needs through food sources and not pills.

I couldn't agree with you more! :)

[Roadstr]

I use the defaults and don't usually track the fish oil, niacin, D, folate... etc. I just look at what was missing the day before and supplement every other day if I'm not supplementing every day. The default settings can be changed for minimum and maximum amounts by clicking on the upper right icon that's a check mark on-top of a clipboard. You can also adjust your percentages for macro nutrients and go down to 1% for carbs. Setting fiber will automatically add to the carbs, so I generally leave fiber at 0 grams.
Glad you like it, CronOMeter also has a nice feature for making recipes and adding items is a snap along with making serving sizes manually to anything you want. One tip.. you can go to the previous day and highlight what you ate with Shift and scroll and then press Ctrl-C (Command-C on Mac) to copy and then go to the current day and Ctrl-V to paste it.
A correction on my post is that I started digging to see just how current the FDA nutritional data base is and it appears that 1990's is a good guess. They are being criticized for not being current. CronOMeter 0.9.5 was an update recently for the updated food data to USDA sr21.

[slapdash]

Did you know that the FDA's nutritional data base takes this into account? That's because the data is taken from foods... Umm today, not 40 years ago. Those are the numbers that Cron-O-Meter uses.

I didn't know that, never heard of cron-o-meter before, but the point I was trying to make was that the nutritional value of foods is decreasing rapidly, in a few years it will be nothing but pretty looking bags of sugar water. If we keep on abusing the land and our food supply in the future our food will be worthless nutritionally and a bottle of pills will be the only way to get our vitamins.

[Roadstr]

I understand your concern on the nutritional value of foods that we buy. Perhaps you could look at it like I do, in a practical way I mean and by that I suggest that your green beans at a local fruit stand may be (probably are) more nutritious than what I'm buying in the frozen food section. I don't let that concern me because what I happen to have is what I'm going to eat... unless you invite me over.:)
So, if I'm at 100% for the target level in Cron-O-Meter that's great. Preferably if it's 150% then I'm golden and probably ate at your place.:D