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I’ve had a little bit of a thing going lately with eating the most nutritious food that I can get my hands on.  This was one of the first attitudes that I ever developed while attempting to improve my health through diet long, long ago.  Only problem was that back then I was primarily a vegetarian.  I was missing out on some very important nutrients that put a nutritious diet to good use. 

For three days last week I kept close track of everything that I ate just so I could share my numbers with you guys.  I plugged all my data into some very expensive software that I purchased a couple of years ago (ESHA). 

As you will be able to see in a minute when you go to check out the PDF of my nutritional intake vs. the recommended daily allowances (RDA), my diet is incredibly nutritious.  Who the hell says you can’t get all the vitamins and minerals you need from diet alone?  In fact, I would find it hard not to greatly exceed almost every nutrient level set for a guy my size with my physical activity level. 

Frighteningly though, when reading Jack Challem’s Stop Prediabetes Now, he posts a chart of nutrients for which a high percentage of Americans do NOT even get the pathetically small nutrient amounts of the RDA.  Challem’s graph shows that…

73% of Americans do not get the RDA of calcium
75% do not get the RDA of Folate
34% do not get the RDA of iron
68% do not get the RDA of magnesium
24% do not get the RDA of Niacin
22% phoshporous
22% riboflavin
15% selenium
28% thiamine
55% vitamin A
35% B6
30% B12
48% vitamin C
86% vitamin E
42% zinc
31% copper

Considering that all nutrients must be present without deficiency for the human organism to operate correctly, you can see that, from those numbers, it is likely that almost 100% of Americans are deficient in something.  The most alarming is Vitamin E.  Vitamin E is the antidote for oxidative damage done by solvent-extracted polyunsaturated fat.  A radical increase in poly with a huge drop in Vitamin E consumption is a horrible, and potentially deadly combination that may cause enough free radical damage to induce lots of inflammation, hypercortisolism, and metabolic syndrome (cortisol blocks the action of insulin, thyroid hormones, leptin, etc.).

?Polyunsaturated fatty acids, particularly linoleic acid, are, of course, easily oxidized. From numerous studies of poultry, rats, rabbits, cattle, and man, investigators have found that increased ingestion of polyunsaturated fats requires greater amounts of antioxidants in the diet, particularly vitamin E.
-Roger J. Williams

A great counter-attack to this problem is to eat a whole foods diet with more saturated and monounsaturated fat, less polyunsaturated fat, especially as linoleic acid as found in vegetable oils, and more vitamin E.  That’s my diet in a nutshell, as you will see.  As a tip, coconut oil has only trace amounts of polyunsaturated fat and lots of vitamin E, making it the ultimate fat source.  Note that nuts, despite often high levels of omega 6 LA, have corresponding high levels of vitamin E as a protectorant against those highly unstable oils. 

As you check out  the chart, note in my diet that the Vitamin D content is low on the charts.  This is a flaw of the software though.  I ate 3 portions of sockeye during this time for a total of nearly 4,000IU vitamin D, 300% the daily recommendation on average.  Click here to watch my video on preparing sockeye

One interesting thing is to look carefully at the two primary nutrients that I’m low in that are of particular significance – chromium and iodine.

My research has led me to be all over insulin resistance and thyroid function.  Iodine is of course the main mineral for thyroid function and chromium is necessary for insulin function – a lack leads to insulin resistance.  I’m not too worried about the chromium, as my low sugar diet keeps me from excreting too much, but if there were 2 key minerals to focus on, iodine and chromium might be the ones.

It’s interesting at least.  Anyway, here’s my nutrient analysis.  Sorry to disappoint on the calorie intake, but after over a month of eating like a madman my appetite just isn’t there :)

Matt Stone’s 3 day Nutrient Analysis  

P.S. – The 2 grams of trans fat shown on the chart were from naturally occuring trans fat in cheese – worlds apart from the CIS configuration of trans fats found in hydrogenated oils.

What I ate – if you wanna know.