Micronutrients

Here is some food for thought. According to recent ad-publication I received I should not trust my regular diet. Entitled, "The balanced diet myth--shattered!" the publication goes on to warn me about inadequate micro-nutrients.

Wow! Now here is something to worry about? What if we can't get a balanced diet? And what is a balanced diet anyways? Where is the balance in all this?

To give credit where credit is due, there are a few truths here. For example, we read: "Did you know that there has never been a single clinical study that documents what comprises a balanced diet, nor one that has demonstrated one's ability to meet basic nutrient requirements through whole foods alone?" 

That is true as far as the "single study" goes. It would be hard to design a study like that. How do you measure balanced in any case? Most of what we know about diets comes from inadequacies and deficiencies. Ironically enough, most of those were uncovered when people tried to "engineer" artificial diets in order to improve performance. Deficits are rarely seen in common diets, and only when caloric intake is inadequate. The reason is simple: no diet could survive if it caused illness.

The second part is completely nonsensical. Clearly one is able to meet one's basic nutrient requirements through whole foods alone. That is what people have been doing for tens of thousands of years. More than that, they met their basic requirements and those of their offspring as well. If they hadn't we simply would not be here. The very fact that we are alive proves that our parents ate adequate diets that supported their daily needs for several decades and provided enough extras to produce and raise healthy offspring. Since mammals have long pregnancies that is not a trivial matter.

People in the past also did more physical work and hence put more demands on their diets than we do. No time to sit around on the couch watching TV. No chips to munch on. Nothing but whole foods alone. Real hard labor and long hours were the rule. No pushing paper in the office. No driving kids to school. Survival in past generations demanded a high level of physical fitness.

Studies on Greek triremes, a kind of warship driven by rowers, have shown that the men rowing the ship were every bit as fit as today's Olympic athletes. Given that these were ordinary citizens of Athens, chances are the real Greek athletes were even fitter. All without special nutritional supplements.

Warfare using swords and shields was a physically demanding and exhausting activity. It is widely believed that not too long ago, people walked the equivalent of a marathon each and every day. Pheidipides, the man of marathon fame, ran from Athens to Sparta, a distance of 147 miles through rough terrain, a few days before joining the Athenians at the battle of Marathon. (It is unlikely he ran the 40kms to Athens to bring the news of victory-after which he supposedly dropped dead, but that is another story. He did run the 147 though.)

In any case, my ad-publication tells me "Regular diets simply can't cover the entire range of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, and other micronutrients necessary to maintain optimal health and peak athletic performance."

There is every indication that the "regular" American diet, "unhealthy" as it is, does that and more. Clearly it contains ample supplies and lets people grow in all three dimensions. Furthermore, what makes the diet unhealthy is not a lack of items, but rather too much of them. The "regular" American diet is too high in carbohydrates for anyone's needs. But no American eating such diet suffers from lack of vitamins or minerals. 

If anything, Americans tend to suffer from hypervitaminoses due to all the vitamin pills they take. They eat too many minerals (esp. salt) and often suffer from mineral deposits instead. They do not lack phytochemicals or antioxidants either.

There is no reason to believe that "daily supplementation is a necessity, not an option," as my publication indicates. Furthermore, the daily supplementation I supposedly need consists of nothing but a cocktail of vitamins and unproven supplements and extracts whose consistency and quality is likely in doubt. Plant extracts are notoriously inconsistent in quality. The levels and types of ingredients vary from batch to batch and from season to season even under the strictest QA provisions. It is one reason FDA shies away from plant extracts.

And when it comes to clinical studies, the news is not good. Not a single study has ever shown the benefit of such extracts. Each and every time people have studied "promising" supplements in prospective studies, the results have been negative or detrimental. Promising cases include those where micro-nutrients were found to be correlated to health benefits in retrospective studies. You heard it all, vitamin E, vitamin C, lycopene, quercetin, etc. etc.

In prospective studies many of these ingredients caused or made worse the very diseases they were supposed to prevent or cure. I would advise you to stay away from such preparations. The benefit is not there and you run a very real risk of ingesting a banned substance without your knowledge. Unfortunately, when that happens you will be totally on your own. Not even a grain of sympathy will come your way. 

Nutrition and supplements

There is no shortage of nutritional information. And yet most people in our society suffer from eating induced disorders such as obesity, type II diabetes, hyperlipidemias, etc. That in itself should tell you something.

Unfortunately, most nutrition information is downright wrong and nearly all of it is unscientific. Even government guidelines are highly suspect and the government is powerfully influenced by many food- and farm-lobbies that stand to gain or lose enormous amounts of money from endorsements or lack thereof. There are simply too many people with too much money at stake to enable objectivity. Even if everyone was held to high ethical standards -and they are not- the field would be heavily biased and unsuitable for scientific discovery.

For example, the Washington Post reported recently that a campaign by Health and Human Sciences Department to advocate breast feeding was very successfully toned down at the request of infant nutrition companies. Such things can and do happen and they happen a lot.

Government officials are beleaguered by diary farmers that want you to drink milk and eat cheese, by cattle ranchers who want you to eat beef, and by the poultry industry advocating eggs and chicken. Not to mention the fishermen who want to sell fish and the corn farmers who want to douse everything and everyone in high fructose corn syrup. The list of constituents with something at stake is just endless. Unfortunately, no science can be done in this type of climate.

Athletic food intake is, if anything, even more problematic. The specialty food industry is one of the most rapidly growing market segments and that means lots of interest from business and politico's alike. Everyone loves a growing market and nobody wants to spoil the party. Nobody would even dare to attempt to, and doing so would mean a certain DOA.

Food also has important cultural and religious overtones. Nearly all religions regulate food intake, often prescribing what people can eat and when. Against such forces, no objectivity can prevail. Science practitioners are human too, with their own ideas, cultural baggage, religious beliefs, and prejudices. As Michael Pollan pointed out, nutritionism, as the ending "ism" suggest is not a scientific subject but an ideology. And "ideologies are ways of organizing large swaths of life and experience under a set of shared but unexamined assumptions."

Fortunately, humans have an elaborate digestive system, and one function or benefit of such a system is that it makes one largely independent of what and when you eat. That is especially true now that a veritable treasure trove of clean, high-calorie food is readily available. If anything, we have too much good food that is too easily accessible. 

It is therefore a total irony that people think they need supplements, vitamins, and other "magic" potions. It is safe to say that any such items are totally unnecessary and a waste of money. If anything, these useless items can only lead to disease, and hypervitaminoses are more of a problem in the West than lack of vitamins.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to take any vitamin or nutritional supplement. Once again I never have and I never will. It is a total waste of money and can only harm you. Yet nobody has the guts to admit to it. Most coaches will tell you to take a multi-vitamin. It is baloney and serves no purpose. 

You don't need vitamins, mineral supplements, protein supplements, lycopene or quercetin or any other supplements to perform or stay healthy. These things do not work and the "scientific evidence" backing them up is not there.

The golden rule for food is, eat but don't eat too much so you stay lean. Weight is the great enemy of most endurance athletes. Always eat a variety of foods and be careful with carbohydrates. Carbohydrates, or sugars, provide a quick energy boost but it is easy to eat too much as carbs do not signal satiety as protein and fats do. A diet based most only carbs will leave you perpetually hungry and presents a great risk of overeating.

Unlike what you may think, fats do not make you fat. Carbs do. Ask any cattle-farmer what they use to fatten the cows. Ever heard of corn-fed beef?

Nutrition is the one area where you will do better the less you listen to the "experts" and the more you stick to nature. Never eat prepackaged and prepared foods unless you have no other option and are in danger of acute starvation. A candy bar is great while cycling, but it is not nutrition and should not be treated as such.