I wonder why is it that unless you supplement, or have a very strong commitment to each mineral, you are likely to have deficiencies in the intake of basic minerals. Magnesium a key mineral is just an example: Unless you have one pound of spinach every day, or about 100 grams of cocoa powder, you will not make the recommended ingestion of magnesium. Something similar applies to potassium, although this does not bother me because I do have enough bananas and sweet potatoes. My question goes well beyond magnesium: would the same apply to manganese, zinc and other essential minerals, like copper, iron, calcium, etc, etc, that unless you "live for this and that mineral" you end up with a need for supplementation? Have humans lost important sources of mineral absorption? I am a little confused on this: I do not want to be supplementing on this and that mineral, but also I find it cumbersome to need to organise my diet around so many different minerals!
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Probably because the soil in which crops are grown in has been slowly depleted of these minerals over time. Therefore, it takes more of them in order to get the necessary amount of vitamins and minerals. |
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maybe the recommendations are wrong? |
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One of the biggest enemies of mineral absorption is phytate, as Korion mentioned. Pretty much every mineral is absorbed to a lesser extent as a result of a high phytate:[mineral] molar ratio during digestion. This is why any dietician or nutritionist advocating the consumption of soy or whole grains should be put in the stocks and have the townspeople hurl rotten edamame and moldy bread at them. Oxalates are known to inhibit the absorption of at least Ca, Mg and Zn. I don't know that the oxalate:[mineral] molar ratio is so high that eating, say, spinach with your steak would actually result in less magnesium absorbed than if you ate the steak by itself. What it does mean however is that if you eat less meat/organs because of the advertised levels of nutrients in spinach, you will likely be actually absorbing far less than you think. A heavy intake of tea will provide a lot of copper and manganese (and fluoride and aluminum for that matter), which will block iron absorption because copper and manganese compete with iron for absorption, with the latter thought to be indistinguishable from iron to the intestine. The tannins/polyphenols also bind with at least iron to form insoluble iron tannates during digestion. As far as a trace mineral absorption dietary strategy goes, Aside from limiting exposure to the aforementioned, I'd recommend eating small amounts of organs as frequently as possible in a paleo manner and over time you'll likely eventually address most everything. Problems may arise if you aggressively pursue the repletion of a particular mineral via supplementation, because minerals interact differently in an aqueous solution than when consumed with food. If, say, you'd like to address a probable zinc deficiency, it'd likely be best to segregate those supplements/oysters from the rest of your diet so you still absorb sufficient quantities of iron and copper every day. I haven't seen any evidence of a day-long inhibitory effect on copper absorption that would occur as a result of zinc taken in the morning, for example. On the other hand, if you took zinc with every meal you'd very likely run into problems. |
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If you don't restrict your diet to VLC foods its not that hard to get adequate minerals. |
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Just look at all the fiber you're supposed to eat! I was looking at that the other day, and I'd have to do 25 cups of spinach to get the RDA of fiber! There's obvious something wrong with the numbers. maybe I'll just give up and go back to peanut M&M's all day long. That and vodka. Felt great, until it didn't. |
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The SAD depletes minerals and that's what the RDA is based on. |
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