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Fact or Fiction: You Can Get Everything You Need From The Food You Eat
Moss Greene
Did you know that several years ago our government did the
most extensive research project ever done on the American
diet? The U.S. Department of Agriculture studied the diets
of a cross section of over 21,000 men and women and the
findings were appalling!
They found that not one single person was getting all of the
minimum daily requirements of the RDA's (Recommended Daily
Allowance) from the food they ate. And I don't know if
you're aware of this, but the RDA's were considered to be
only "adequate," by the people who set them up. They're the
bare bones minimum amounts required to prevent deficiency
diseases like scurvy, beriberi and rickets.
Take Vitamin C for instance. The RDA for Vitamin C is only
60 milligrams. Whereas recent research has set the ODA
(Optimum Daily Allowance) for Vitamin C at 500 – 5000
milligrams a day! The ODA not only protects you from scurvy,
but it helps ward off colds, flues and many other diseases.
So remember, the RDA's are not the optimum level of
micronutrients necessary to create buoyant, vibrant health.
And yet no one in the study, not one single person, was
getting even "adequate" nutrition.
How could it be that difficult to get "adequate" nutrition?
Actually, it's really easy to see why. Let's consider Vitamin
E. The RDA for Vitamin E is 30 International Units (IU). Two
good sources of Vitamin E are peanuts and brown rice. In order
to get the RDA for Vitamin E from these foods you would need
to eat 10 oz. of peanuts at 1050 calories or 2 ¼ pounds of
brown rice at 1575 calories. No way, right?
Now let's look at the ODA for Vitamin E. Research shows that
in order to take advantage of the many health protective
benefits of Vitamin E, you should be getting between 200 and
400 IU daily. How much food would you have to eat to get the
ODA for Vitamin E? I hope you're hungry, because you'll have
to eat 40 cups of peanuts for 33,600 calories or 130 cups of
brown rice for 91,000 calories!
And, to make matters worse, commercial industry uses artificial
fertilizers to grow our food. Of the 26 nutrients essential to
human beings, only 16 are necessary for plant growth. So
artificial fertilizers, designed to create higher plant yields,
overlook the human requirements for these 10 other essential
nutrients. This produces nutritionally depleted food.
For example, our food has plenty of phosphorus because plants
need it. However, plants do not need chromium or selenium to
thrive. Therefore, artificial fertilizers do not contain these
important minerals. So our food is, for the most part, deficient
in chromium and selenium, which are vitally important to help
protect you against cancer, diabetes and premature aging.
So what do you think? Fact or Fiction? Can you get everything
you need from the food you eat? Maybe in the textbook sense or
in the pristine environment of a laboratory, assuming people
are eating exactly what they are supposed to. But in the real
world, I don't think so. And, I'm definitely not going to rely
on the modern food chain to help protect me from degenerative
diseases like cancer, heart disease, arthritis and diabetes.
What can you do to keep yourself healthy? Stick with organic
produce and meats whenever possible. You should eat plenty of
fresh, raw (or lightly steamed) fruits and vegetables. Reduce
your fat, salt and sugar intake and maintain your optimum weight.
Eat more fiber rich foods, drink plenty of pure water, exercise,
manage your stress and increase your micronutrient intake in the
form of natural supplementation.
Moss Greene is the Nutrition Host at Bellaonline.com. Visit her
web site at http://www.bellaonline.com/site/nutrition to find
out how to look better, feel your best and have more energy -
naturally. When you sign up for the News You Can Use Newsletter,
you will receive a free copy of "The Seven Secret Steps To Look and
Feel Fabulous." Subscribe now by sending a blank email to
news_you_can_use-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
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