Getting Enough Vitamins And Minerals In Your Diet

- Through The Food Pyramid

Using the food pyramid as a guide, you can get your vitamins and minerals in diet intake. Whilst supplements can be taken, they are not essential, or even preferable.

Supplements only provide the vitamins and minerals listed on the bottle. But food supplies a lot more - antioxidants, phytochemicals that are beneficial to the body, and probably even things that scientists haven't discovered yet. It's also cheaper to get your nutrients this way. A bottle of multivitamins may not be expensive, but of you were to factor in all the other things, such as antioxidants and essential fatty acids, the cost would be quite high.

The Base Of The Food Pyramid

This is a new category - water! Whilst it obviously doesn't contain vitamins, it is essential to life, helping to flush wastes out of the body and prevent dehydration. Dehydration can cause fatigue, irritability, and a whole host of other things related to your body running under its optimum levels.

Level 1 - Grains

All grains and grain products are not created equal when it comes to nutritional value. The food pyramid recommends you get about 6 servings of grains a day. Their suggestions are fortified cereals, bread, rice, and pasta. However, if you want to get enough vitamins and minerals in your diet, you'd do well to eat more whole grains. This includes whole grain bread, as, compared to bleached bread it does have a higher nutritional value. Bleached bread is stripped of about 40 nutrients and only 4 are added back in. At least with whole grain bread you get more of what was probably in the original bleached bread.

However, to really maximize the vitamins and minerals in diet sources, go for whole grains like brown rice, basmati rice, millet, fresh corn, quinoa (available from a health food shop), amaranth, oat cereals, and bran. White rice is stripped of vitamins and minerals (they are in the outer layers, which are all removed), so it's a bit of a waste of time nutritionally.

To give you an idea of what processing does to the vitamins and minerals in grains, turning brown rice into white rice destroys

67% of vitamin B3
90% of vitamin B6
50% of the manganese
60% of the iron
all the dietary fiber
all the essential fatty acids

Good quality whole grains have a lot of nutritional value and can help ensure you get your vitamins and minerals in diet sources, as well as providing dietary fiber.

Level 2 - Part 1: Vegetables

If your goal is to get your vitamins and minerals in dietary sources, vegetables are incredibly important. Almost every vitamin can be found in the range of vegetables available. The food pyramid recommends we eat about 3 servings a day, although many people eat more as most vegetables are low in calories and have a low glycemic index. Starch vegetables like potato and sweet potato are the exceptions to this general rule, although they still provide nutrients.

Vitamin A - carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach and others
B vitamins - all legumes and green, leafy vegetables, including lettuce, bok choy, and fresh herbs
Vitamin C - tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, red bell peppers, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, kale
Vitamin E - Olives, lettuce, spinach, mustard greens, and collard
Vitamin K - brussel sprouts, carrots, parsley, peas, spinach, and cabbage

Level 2 - Part 2: Fruit

The Food Pyramid recommends 2 servings of fruit a day. To maximize your vitamins and minerals in diet intake, think about:

Vitamin A - apricots, nectarines, cantaloupes, mangoes
B Complex - oranges
Vitamin C - oranges, strawberries, cantaloupes, and kiwi fruit
Vitamin E - blueberries

As well as vitamin and minerals, fruits contain antioxidants and important phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are molecules that help the plant in some way, perhaps conferring it's characteristic color. But they also have benefits for people. And the whole fruit contains a lot of soluble dietary fiber which has an important role in the body too.

Level 3 - Part 1: Dairy

Dairy provides the calcium component of vitamins and minerals in diet sources. 3 servings per day are recommended by the Food Pyramid. Other benefits of dairy include:

Vitamin A - through fortification of milk. Mozzarella cheese also has some vitamin A.
B complex - In milk and ice cream.
Vitamin D - milk
Vitamin K - milk, yoghurt, and ice cream

Level 3 - Part 2: Meat, legumes, fish, chicken, and nuts

Meat provides some vitamins and minerals in diet sources, as well as protein, which is essential for muscle health, and our hair.

Vitamin A - liver
B complex - liver, lamb, venison, shrimp, fish, and chicken
Vitamin E - this is in many foods in this category, including sunflower seeds, almonds, and other nuts.

The Food Pyramid recommends eating 2 servings a day, but emphasizing chicken and fish.

Level 4 - Fats, Oils, and Sweets

Obviously sweets don't really have many vitamins and minerals to speak of. But good quality fats provide essential fatty acids and play an important role in the health of the body. Good quality fats include unrefined, unprocessed coconut oil, flaxseed oils, and fish oils.

You can see the updated food pyramid here.