Vitamins or Minerals in food... which is more important?
Replies
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JanPalmer500 wrote: »Hi everyone. I am a bit confused about vitamins and minerals in food and how they affect us. The general view I think is that the vitamins in food are essential to health. Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, the B vitamins, and all that.
So if what we eat is to keep us well, then our daily food should include all the vitamins. That makes sense.
But what about the minerals? There are things like potassium, magnesium, calcium etc. Are these more important than vitamins? I've read somewhere that if some minerals are missing in the diet then certain vitamins won't work.
So, if the food we eat lacks certain minerals, then counting the calories might be a waste of time because our bodies will be telling us to eat more in order to acquire those minerals. So we get heavier, and that contributes to today's high obesity levels.
Has anyone come across this theory? Is it true?
I believe they're both of equal importance
and I found that eating a healthy balanced diet usually delivers most vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Vegetables, fruits and legumes plus whole grains and nuts are very good sources of the nutrients we need 
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JanPalmer500 wrote: »Hi everyone. I am a bit confused about vitamins and minerals in food and how they affect us. The general view I think is that the vitamins in food are essential to health. Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, the B vitamins, and all that.
So if what we eat is to keep us well, then our daily food should include all the vitamins. That makes sense.
But what about the minerals? There are things like potassium, magnesium, calcium etc. Are these more important than vitamins? I've read somewhere that if some minerals are missing in the diet then certain vitamins won't work.
So, if the food we eat lacks certain minerals, then counting the calories might be a waste of time because our bodies will be telling us to eat more in order to acquire those minerals. So we get heavier, and that contributes to today's high obesity levels.
Has anyone come across this theory? Is it true?
I don't think it's likely to be true. Americans are actually one of the groups least commonly affected by micronutrient deficiencies; the primary parts of the world where nutrient deficiencies are common are sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Polynesia. Among other things, we eat more, we tend to have a more varied diet, many staple foods are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals, and we have greater use of vitamin supplements and vitamin deficiency testing.
The worldwide patterns of vitamin deficiencies and the pattern of obesity don't really overlap much.1 -
The salt I'm talking about are any of them that still have the spectrum of minerals in them. I just add a little salt to my eggs or eat a teaspoon of clay powder with water.JanPalmer500 wrote: »But I've never come across salt or clay as being something to eat. How do you get that into your food? Do you grow kale, onions, and veg like that on it? Do you mix it into soil? That will make sense. Maybe the farmers should do that...
I know farmers mix rock dust in the soil for remineralization.0 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »TheDevastator wrote: »Vitamins and minerals are both important equally. Without both the body won't function correctly.
Knowing which vitamins and minerals go together is important.
return2health.net/articles/vitamin-mineral-antagonists/
I believe that you're more likely to stay hungry if you are missing certain nutrients.
@TheDevastator I agree with you about to likely stay hungry. I am starting to think cravings are nature's way to keep us 'grazing' hoping we stumble upon what is missing in our diet that we need for health.
I have been studying supplements at some level for 40 years and almost daily for the past two years and find it very hard to find research that is consistent.
The fraud in the supplement industry turns me off. Bio-availability for vitamins, minerals and supplements in general are often unknown or a wild card at best. Currently I use many different sources and find LifeExtension has some of the best researched articles and is one reason I pay a bit more for their products. Most that comes from chain box sources can really be a wild card. If it is MLM product I do not even stop to look.
What people use/eat is their business but when there are vendors knowingly into fraud for $$$ taking serious peoples money that may do them no good or worse it rattles my chain.
After two years I am just tweaking my vitamins and minerals because my macro experimenting still needs more tweaking. As my health recovers I find my needs tend to shift requiring tweaking everything more than I expected.
Recently I added Marine Phytoplankton (Nannochloropsis Gaditana), Nutritional Yeast Flakes and D-Ribose trying to fill some mineral and vitamin gaps. Staying in Nutritional Ketosis and bumping up my carbs at the same time is a challenge but seems to be positive for my health so far and cuts out the need for some of my current supplements. I am into shotgun approaches it seems.
I buy most of my vitamins from Vitacost. I also buy some from Amazon like vitamin C(Viva Labs) since I want higher quality stuff.
I've been taking higher doses of vitamins and minerals the last month or so and I wake up earlier and feel better.1 -
mayoosh_primrose wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »Without the required minerals all the vitamins in the world may not help prevent a premature death.
Since the minerals are the foundation to good health in hindsight that is what I should have worked on before vitamins and nutrition in general. Well they can/should be actually all done at the same time. Magnesium levels I currently am finding is not so easy to increase. Vitamin D levels gave me a fit until I learned vitamin K2 was required.
I agree with @jgnatca that we need to look at what ties up what and prevent that action. The empty/full stomach is a factor I have trouble learning and keeping straight.
My dietary vitamin D levels are very low, almost non-existent, but I thought that being exposed to sunlight might be enough
so do I need to get vit D also from food?
Sorry, there is very little Vitamin D in food. If you live in a northern climate about the only way to get enough vitamin D is through supplements.
https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-do-i-get-the-vitamin-d-my-body-needs/2 -
Here's something I discovered after doing a a bit of digging around today...
Apparently, a study carried out by two UK food scientists (McCance and Widdowson) on the mineral depletion of foods available in the UK from 1940 to 1991, showed that in all the foods analysed in the study there was a large loss in their mineral content. That was published 25 years ago. So what about today? It must be a lot worse.
It appears that the UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Foods, and the Royal Society of Chemistry, are fully aware of this.
Here's the link to the published report (it's a PDF):
http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk/pdf/mineral_deplet.pdf
It's all a bit scary to me.
I also discovered that glacial soils hold all the minerals and trace minerals that we think are present in our farmland soils, harvest after harvest. They once were ... many years ago it seems.
Maybe we should look at Greenland's soil under the ice sheets and grab some, and then spread it over our farms...
Anyway, I have a feeling that some very important information about the health of the soils on which our food grows is being shoved under the carpet by those in-the-know. Perhaps because there is practically no remedy available. And with population growth things won't get any better in the foreseeable future.
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?1 -
JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
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JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
Thanks for the question.
The body might 'crave' food in order to obtain any specific minerals that it doesn't have. If those are not in the food we eat, then maybe it complains and makes us feel hungry...1 -
JanPalmer500 wrote: »JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
Thanks for the question.
The body might 'crave' food in order to obtain any specific minerals that it doesn't have. If those are not in the food we eat, then maybe it complains and makes us feel hungry...
Thanks for the response.
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rankinsect wrote: »JanPalmer500 wrote: »Hi everyone. I am a bit confused about vitamins and minerals in food and how they affect us. The general view I think is that the vitamins in food are essential to health. Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, the B vitamins, and all that.
So if what we eat is to keep us well, then our daily food should include all the vitamins. That makes sense.
But what about the minerals? There are things like potassium, magnesium, calcium etc. Are these more important than vitamins? I've read somewhere that if some minerals are missing in the diet then certain vitamins won't work.
So, if the food we eat lacks certain minerals, then counting the calories might be a waste of time because our bodies will be telling us to eat more in order to acquire those minerals. So we get heavier, and that contributes to today's high obesity levels.
Has anyone come across this theory? Is it true?
I don't think it's likely to be true. Americans are actually one of the groups least commonly affected by micronutrient deficiencies; the primary parts of the world where nutrient deficiencies are common are sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Polynesia. Among other things, we eat more, we tend to have a more varied diet, many staple foods are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals, and we have greater use of vitamin supplements and vitamin deficiency testing.
The worldwide patterns of vitamin deficiencies and the pattern of obesity don't really overlap much.
You have to take into account countries where the average person can afford to overeat.0 -
JanPalmer500 wrote: »JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
Thanks for the question.
The body might 'crave' food in order to obtain any specific minerals that it doesn't have. If those are not in the food we eat, then maybe it complains and makes us feel hungry...
- OR -
For many people in the western world food is cheap, convenient, and abundant while the requirement of manual labor has reduced, which is a relatively unusual circumstance historically speaking.
Add to that a prevailing culture that has loosened social restrictions on eating between meals, eating out more often, and larger portions, it is not really that surprising many people are consuming more calories than they burn.
That is the far simpler explanation than mass nutrient deficiencies.
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JanPalmer500 wrote: »JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
Thanks for the question.
The body might 'crave' food in order to obtain any specific minerals that it doesn't have. If those are not in the food we eat, then maybe it complains and makes us feel hungry...
- OR -
For many people in the western world food is cheap, convenient, and abundant while the requirement of manual labor has reduced, which is a relatively unusual circumstance historically speaking.
Add to that a prevailing culture that has loosened social restrictions on eating between meals, eating out more often, and larger portions, it is not really that surprising many people are consuming more calories than they burn.
That is the far simpler explanation than mass nutrient deficiencies.
This makes sense to me.0 -
JanPalmer500 wrote: »JanPalmer500 wrote: »
Is it no wonder why many of us are overweight?
What's the connection you're making between depleted soil and being overweight?
Thanks for the question.
The body might 'crave' food in order to obtain any specific minerals that it doesn't have. If those are not in the food we eat, then maybe it complains and makes us feel hungry...
- OR -
For many people in the western world food is cheap, convenient, and abundant while the requirement of manual labor has reduced, which is a relatively unusual circumstance historically speaking.
Add to that a prevailing culture that has loosened social restrictions on eating between meals, eating out more often, and larger portions, it is not really that surprising many people are consuming more calories than they burn.
That is the far simpler explanation than mass nutrient deficiencies.
Especially since nutrient deficiencies can cause extremely specific health conditions that we haven't seen an uptick in as well.0
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