Spring 2010: Putting RDAs into Perspective
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The RDAs (Recommended Daily Amounts) are levels set by our government for various nutrients considered to be desirable for good health. But are they correct? Are these levels appropriate, and will even higher levels of certain nutrients benefit us? Difficult questions to answer, but first we must consider how the RDAs were derived.

The RDAs were first developed when the government began questioning the nutritional value of military rations distributed to our soldiers during World War II. Later, our government’s Food and Nutrition Board looked at what foods they expected most people to eat. By analyzing the average diet, they came up with a suggested minimum and then added an upward adjustment to theoretically ensure optimal health.

The RDAs are biased in favor of the conventional level of intake. They are not based on how people should eat to maintain optimal health; rather, they have been formulated to represent how we do eat. They characterize the conventional diet: high in animal products; lots of dairy products and fat; and low in fiber, antioxidants, and other nutrients, such as vitamin C, that are rich in plant foods. The RDAs reflect a diet that caused all the problems in the first place.

So we see a tendency to keep RDAs for plant-based nutrients low while keeping animal-based nutrients high. Take, for example, the most ridiculous recommendation from the RDA—vitamin C. Any diet utilizing an abundance of unrefined natural plant foods offers a significant quantity of C. The diets recommend [in Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman], contain between 500 and 1500 mg of vitamin C each day just from food. If you consumed a diet only half as good as recommend [in the book], you would still consume between 250 and 750 mg of vitamin C each day. The RDA of 60 is merely reflective of the inadequacy of the American diet and how impossible it would be to get enough vitamin C if you ate a diet so low in natural plant foods.

You can take 1000 mg of vitamin C in the form of a pill to make up for how deadly deficient your diet is, but then you would be missing all the other plant-derived antioxidants and phytochemicals that come in the same package as the vitamin C. The government must hold the RDA ridiculously low because it would be inconsistent with the other absurd dietary suggestions and make it impossible to achieve such levels without supplementation.

Most of the dietary recommendations from our government have been discarded and updated over time. Such recommendations, such as the Basic Four Food Group Guide,

Source: Dr. Furhman's website.
have always been at least ten years behind current science and strongly influenced by the food manufacturers. The current RDAs should meet the same fate; they are based on outmoded nutritional opinions that do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. Last, and most important, is that thousands of phytonutrients lack RDAs. There are subtle nuances and nutritive interactions that create disease resistance from the synergy of diverse substances in natural food. Like a symphony orchestra whose members play in perfect harmony, the performance of our body depends on the harmonious interaction of nutrients, both known and unknown. By supplying a rich assortment of natural foods, we best maximize the function of the human masterpiece.

Excerpted from the book Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Furhman, pages 140—141.

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