Um. I started taking vitamins and other supplements without making any other changes and I felt a hell of a lot better. I can tell the difference when I stop.
When I get completely exhausted for prolonged periods of time (>1 week), I take 1,000 mg of vitamin C every day for a couple of weeks and I feel much better.
It's not scientifically controlled, so I can't deliver a conclusion that might satisfy bon bon, but in the absence of making any other changes, it seems to me that the vitamin C helped a great deal.
A lot of external situations deplete vitamins from your body more rapidly than normal -- stress, smoking, diseases -- and I don't think it's unusual that people might need supplements to make up that shortfall.
That said, I'm not implying that every human, everywhere, MUST take vitamin supplements and must take the exact same amounts or OMGSCURVY!!! People in first-world countries, in general, do get an adequate amount of nutrients from their food, even if they subsist on junk food. This is true. But the question is -- is "adequate" enough?
I don't think canned tuna counts in the oily fish sweeps. Salmon is a good one, tommy. I don't think it has the same mercury level problems.
Linky to table of fatty fish
Unfortunately, eating fish is its own can of worms, what with questionable farming practices, overfishing, high levels of mercury.... Yeesh.
Ooh. Swordfish and orange roughy are also fatty, and more important, highly nummy. Hmm... I've had very little trout (also fatty) so I should try that....
eating fish is its own can of worms
And sometimes they even eat worms from a can!
Fatty fish are coldwater fish -- like the kind they use in sashimi. (Tuna and salmon for example.)
I think that part of the reason that dieticians advise eating and concentrating on it is so that you get maximum enjoyment from the food and are very aware that you have eaten it. It encourages you to feel full. (My dietician recommended that I eat and not multi-task too.)
Linky to table of fatty fish
Huh. I didn't realize trout was an oily fish. And does its presence at the top of that list mean its oil content is the highest?
is "adequate" enough?
By definition.
Some think that the "minimum daily requirements" are too low. For example, (IIRC) the minimum daily requirement for vitamin C is the smallest amount you have to eat to avoid scurvy - it's possible such a low intake can have other problems even if you're eating enough to avoid the scurvy.
My duck is big on nutrition. He has me on a handful of supplements, and I can actually tell a difference in how I feel, from the combination.
He also says that dairy products can actually leach calcium from bone, and while dairy in ordinary amounts is fine, women especially should eat lots of dark leafy greens--kale, spinach, etc., to get their calcium requirements. Perhaps that's because leafy greens contain the "property 1" that helps metabolize "nutrient A", as Cindy said.
He also has forbidden me tuna, as the larger deep Atlantic Ocean fish have more mercury in their bodies. He recommends mackerel and wild-caught, rather than farmed, salmon for the Omega 3 fats. Also? num.
H's cardiologist has suggested that he eat more beef than poultry. My duck recommends the opposite for me. And while I enjoy chicken and fish, I have all but eliminated beef from my diet. In fact, we grilled burgers recently and they just smelled nast.
Nutrition is such a mutable thing, though. Once you think you have your needs in hand, your body changes on you, or a new discovery is made.
