Multivitamins

Great Debates
81

So confirmed that it is laziness and ignorance not lack of funds.

Still waiting for your weekly or daily diet plan and food budget.

Two frozen meals a day and a multi? Banquet frozen meals are cheap; they can be had for a buck each. Only 300ish calories each so probably not your complete diet plan. Sure they’d be ample sodium and enough fat. You are eating more than that though; you do not get by on 600 to 700 calories a day.

So as you’ve expressed it: put up or shut up. What do eat and how much do you spend daily or weekly? $15 a week? 30? What? I mean if you are living off of $20/month in food stamps and what you can score from the food bank then that’s one thing. Are you?

Show me your daily/weekly menu and cost and I will show you a healthier (and tastier) one that can be made with hardly any effort and for the same money or less.

BTW neither cauliflower or brocolli is mostly waste. And the stuff that is not vitamins in apples include some stuff pretty important for health, phytochemicals like quercetin and the soluble fiber pectin. It’s high satiety too! And replaces excess crap!

82

Yah, knew that. I’ve tried to eat them. Bleah.

83

As I said before I work 7 days a week. Maybe you didn’t understand that I do this to make ends meet. You’re clueless about the real world. Clueless.

And you can wait until hell freezes over in your comfy tower location. And I invite you to experience the freeze first hand.

84

You peel the outside of the stalk off first. They can be cut into slices or strips and munched on raw or steamed or quick stir fried. They can be shredded into a cole slaw. They can be part of a stew or a sauce. It takes a few seconds. Oh but you don’t have a few seconds …

Your anger is … interesting.

Your refusal to illustrate a sample menu plan and budget is … entertaining.

The fact remains that eating a diet that contains some reasonable amount of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains (along with ample protein, etc.) can be done for about the same cost as your crap diet and requires very little time. Some small amount of planning and thought yes. People who work two jobs at minimum wage do it. For their whole family, kids and all. You just don’t.

The fact remains that highly processed crap for food plus a multivitamin is still crap.

The fact remains that eating that crap instead of a diet that includes some vegetables and fruits means that the odds of you working productively for any length of time go down … by a lot.

These facts being pointed out to you make you very angry. Fascinating.

85

I don’t recall whether this op-ed has been mentioned here, but it’s written by a Wall St. Journal columnist investigating whether it was possible to consume a decent diet on $4.30 a day. He concluded that it was, although the following quote sort of straddles the current debate:

“Fruits and vegetables were tougher to work into the budget. But I ate plenty of bananas (sometimes just 20 cents each), and I bought frozen peas, corn and other mixed vegetables for around $1.30 a pound. I took a cheap multivitamin a day.”

I suspect he could have ditched the multivitamin and used the proceeds to buy a few more fruits/veggies.

High satiety tends to frown on eating apples - the crunching noises make them suitable only for the hoi polloi.*

*sorry about that.

86

what part of “Bleah” do you not understand? I don’t like the stalks.

you’re the one who said I could get all the vitamins with the vegetables you listed. Putting aside the obvious problem of a palatable meal from what you listed they cost $20 by your estimate and didn’t come close to equaling all the vitamins and minerals I get from a 5.6 cent vitamin. Your entire argument died right there.

no DSeid, it can’t. I eat 2 meals a day. They consist of a frozen dinner and whatever I come up with cheap and that’s usually a canned vegetable or some other protein/carb combination. It could be a grilled cheese sandwhich or a hot dog or something small to bulk it up. I get my calories from drinks such as orange juice and I burn them. I work 7 days a week. You’re too arrogant or stupid to understand that my time between jobs goes toward laundry and other time consuming things which are torture enough because my jobs are labor intensive. I’m tired and sore every day when I get home. It’s the nature of the work I do.

The fact remains that 1 in 6 people do not have the money to spend on the diet you claim is possible even though I showed you the lack of vitamins in your vegetable list. The fact remains that is what I can afford and the 5.6 cent vitamin is a fraction of a fraction of the cost of the vegetables needed to cover them. I eat what I can afford to eat.

Fact, I haven’t had a cold in 30 years. Can you say that Mr full-of-vegetables? Fact, I’ve cured my migraines, back problems and to a greater extent, arthritis. I’ve done it by researching what works and I don’t give a crap about your opinion of whether you think they work. I’ve done it for pennies on the dollar.

5.6 cents versus $20 of vegetables that don’t cover what is in the vitamin.

87

Fact, working 24/7 leaves no time for a cold. Duh.

88

People are talking way past each other here. The anti-vitamin tablet people are claiming that research shows that they won’t prevent cancer or make you live longer. Magiver is saying that having a crap diet and a multivitamin makes him feel much better on a day-to-day basis than just the crap diet. The two are in no way contradictory, and my personal experience pretty much supports Magiver, although my reasons for eating crap are different.

Anyone got any links to studies on the effects of multivitamins on day-to-day wellbeing?

89

I found these:

The effect of multivitamin supplementation on mood and stress in healthy older men - PubMed (Herbal extracts were also included, and I don’t have access to the full text to see what they were.)

90

He did? Where?

91

Isn’t the point though that you don’t need to be eating fruits and vegetables to get enough vitamins? You don’t need to eat vegetables that are a “good source of vitamin C and K”: The crap you’re eating almost certainly has enough that your multivitamin isn’t helping you.

Dseid is saying that you would probably be better off if you ate healthier (and that’s probably true), but it’s not because you’d be getting more vitamins. It’s because you’d probably be eating less simple carbohydrates, and getting more fiber, and …

92

Indeed buddy431, Magiver just does not get that basic bit. His crap (which may not even be as crappy as he thinks since he does include some canned veggies and OJ at least) is not significantly likely to be associated with vitamin or mineral deficiencies, as documented in this CDC report, with the possible exceptions of vitamin D (sun exposure) and iron (which also is a bit controversial). The point is that adequate vitamins does not equal adequate nutrition, no where close. The good of a diet high in veggies and fruits is not exclusively or even perhaps primarily associated with the vitamins and minerals in them or even with the crap it displaces. We don’t even KNOW all of what it is. We do know it is.

Eating a diet that does contain adequate vegetables and fruits would be easy to do on *less *than what Magiver spends on food, clearly. The effort above and beyond what he does now for cooking would be measured in a few minutes a day of doing and a few minutes a week of thinking. His protests that such a claim is my arrogance notwithstanding.

BTW, not that this anecdote means diddlysquat, but I have not missed a day of work in my life, and didn’t miss too many days of school before that. And I have worked in the infectious disease cespool of pediatrics for over 28 years now. Do you have any idea the germs I am exposed to every day? :slight_smile:

93

Just FYI. From the report:

Paradox solved:

94

Well, there you go. You’ve got amazing antibody titers to everything.

I recall getting good and sick twice over the course of a less than two month pediatrics rotation. We are talking serious microbe vectors here.

I suspect the DSeid Super Germ-Fighting Diet could have the makings of a best-selling book. On the other hand, it would probably contain far more common sense and good science than would be acceptable for an appearance on Dr. Oz’s show.

95

You still haven’t come to terms with your own post. The foods you listed did not cover the daily amount of vitamins and minerals that a 5.6 cent vitamin does. It’s easy to make a claim but you haven’t backed it up. in effect you have said: “let them eat cake”.

It just never occurred to you that people read labels and look up nutritional values on the internet and realize that it isn’t practical to eat a perfect diet on a limited budget. Vitamins are by far the most logical avenue to take regarding deficiencies in a diet.

96

Not sure where you got the idea that I had made any such claim.

The claims:

  1. Even the typical standard American diet, which is yours is reasonably representative of, full of highly processed foods, nitrates, sodium, highly refined carbohyrates, low in fiber, low in vegetables and fruits, is not associated with any significant risk of vitamin deficiency. It is horrible nutritionally and is associated with a greater risk of such things as cancer, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, etc. People who eat that crap in today’s world may live only a few years shorter than those who eat healthier but they are much more likely to live those years sicker, being unable to work productively as long, requiring more medicine, more likely feeble physically and of the brain, more likely to spend many more years unable to care for themselves perhaps even in an extended care facility for those with dementia.

  2. For the same money you spend on the crap you eat I can creat a complete menu plan that will provide the nutrition that has been shown to reduce those risk substantially (following for example the guidelines set by the government advisory panels, this one for adults who need 2400 calories a day, likely you with how hard you work). Of course I can’t do that without knowing what you currently actually eat and spend on food currently, and my getting that information won’t happen until Hell freezes over.

  3. Adding a multivitamin to a crappy nutrition plan does not change those risks.

As for part 2 … I demonstrated that current pricing allows vegetables and fruits to be had for roughly 25 cents a serving, more or less depending on the choices made and sale prices that week. 5 servings of vegetables and fruits are part of that diet and would run $1.25 a day. I had rounded up and called that potion under a buck fifty. The advised protein could be had for about $2 (a combination of beans, canned tuna, chicken bought frozen in bulk, unsalted peanuts and peanut butter, eggs). A few pennies more daily for brown rice, whole grain bread, other whole grain starch sides, and potatos alternating in the mix and some basic cooking essentials. Rounding up that still comes to under the average amount awarded for food stamps … I suspect you spend at least that much.

The effort involved?

Breakfast of a few eggs quickly scrambled with some left over veggies from dinner thrown in and a serving or two of fruit and a slice or two of whole wheat toast.

Or a bowl of whole grain cereal with milk with a fruit.

Or oatmeal premade in some bulk supply in the fridge poured out and heated up quickly with some added fruit and milk.

You skip lunch but easy to bring a piece of fruit and a peanut butter sandwich along.

A supply of dinners made in bulk and frozen. One night of cooking to make 7 meals and you build up a variety in the freezer in single serving containers. The effort involve per cooking session is about half an hour of work max. This is the work of putting up a large pot of brown rice, cooking up a vat of beans. (Okay you did have to do the work of putting them in a bowl of water the night before … that took 30 seconds extra.) Mixing in some combo of veggies depending on the current sales and your tastes, kale, spinach, collard greens, squash, cabbage … if one had a creative side this could be fun, some peanut butter and hot sauce added and it is a satay style, so on.

Other nights a can of tuna on whole wheat bread with a quick side of stir fried veggies (takes a total of 10 minutes maybe) or even some frozen or canned veggies quickly nuked. Maybe a quick nuked potato or sweet potato.

Or frozen chicken breast quickly cut up into smallish pieces quickly stir firied in a pan with frozen or canned veggies or on sale fresh ones with any of those complex carb sides.

Or some frozen chicken breast put up in the crockpot with canned tomatos, sale veggies and even some canned pumpkin, peanut butter, chili powder, and cocoa powder for a Mexican mole style, or, garlic and some spices for an Italian theme, or, curry powder for an Indian one, in the morning (takes 5 minutes) and served over some cheap pasta at night (boil water and cook for 10 minutes while you check your threads) or brown rice or cheap whole grain tortillas as appropriate. Make enough that you can add it to the frozen single servings selection in the freezer ready to nuke.

A package of frozen spinach with a few cups of precooked or canned chickpeas quickly mixed up with some garlic seved over some pasta.

Cheap. Quick. Easy. Tasty. Will keep you able to work and healthier longer.

Of course more effort can result in better eatin’ and more money to spend can allow for better ingredients and more variety. The cost over enough cheap frozen meals, OJ, and hot dogs to give the calories you need … probably a net savings. The time spent over nuking the frozen meal and cooking the hot dog? Averaging maybe a couple of minutes a day tops. If that.

97

Since you’ve already admitted that fortified foods work your predictions of doom and gloom for a less than optimal diet are alleviated by 5.6 cents worth of vitamins/minerals. Things like fiber are easily dealt with by… wait for it… fiber supplements.

easy words to toss out. Haven’t seen you produce anything in the way of a return in investment analysis.

if they replace vitamins missing in a diet then by default, that’s exactly what they do.

No you haven’t demonstrated that current prices of the products you listed provide the daily allotment of vitamins. You haven’t even tried.

Nothing you’ve listed is anything other than vague hand-waved suggestions of things that are “good for you”. You haven’t constructed a budget against a list of foods that have all the vitamins and minerals in a 5.6 cent supplement.

I’ll comment on this but it fits all your great ideas. It’s not quick, it’s not cheap at $2.75, and it’s certainly not tasty. But more importantly, it doesn’t cover all the vitamins and minerals. I can eat a frozen dinner with just about anything thrown in on the side plus a multivitamin and spend half of what you suggested while getting a better balance of vitamins and minerals. Plus it’s edible.

There is no logic behind your mathematically challenged position on how great vegetables are against the cost benefit of supplements.

98

Actually, you can buy a 5-pound package of fresh spinach for about $1 a pound, freeze what you don’t eat right away, and get hefty amounts of vitamin A and C (among other nutrients) in a product that works fine in a lot of meals (the link mentions using spinach in smoothies, which is not my thing but quite a few people enjoy them).

99

There’s no point in telling someone to eat differently if they don’t want to, and Magiver’s included taste and convenience in his arguments for not eating vegetables, which makes his position unassailable: if he says he doesn’t like the taste of fresh vegetables, he doesn’t, and all change to routine is inconvenient. But it’s beside the point, which we seem to be losing site of. The point is that Magiver’s diet already has adequate vitamins and minerals, and has no need of supplementation.

Magiver, you may object that you’ve calculated the vitamins in your diet and they don’t meet the USDA Recommended Daily Allowances, but that’s irrelevant. The US RDAs are calculated to prevent acute vitamin deficiencies in 97.5% of the population, and are general guidelines, not specific medical advise. The fact is that outside of certain high-risk groups, acute vitamin deficiencies are rare in the US. That suggests that for most people, the ketchup they squirt on their hamburgers is giving them enough vitamin C every day. Based on what you’ve said, you have a perfectly adequate diet and probably don’t need any of the vitamins you’re getting from your pill. Furthermore, there is some chance that it may be doing you harm.

What your diet may lack, is fiber and various phytochemicals found in plants. The former, you can get from fiber supplements, as you point out. The latter can, for the most part, only be obtained from food. You may or may not also consume too much saturated and trans fat, which also isn’t something that can be fixed with a pill. FTR, we don’t really know what role, if any, phytochemicals play in nutrition, and even the role of various fats is disputed. All we know for sure is that diets high in fruits and vegetables and low in saturated and trans fats produce much better health outcomes than other diets, even when the other diets are nutritionally adequate. We don’t really know why.

100

I haven’t had much luck freezing something like spinach. If I have the time/money/energy to cook up stuff that freezes well then I’ll toss that on a bed of something. It’s a catch 22. I work different hours all through the week and I’m dead on my feet when I get home. I’m typing this on a lunch break as I sit on a heating pad. It’s not like I want to live like this. I CAN cook tasty healthy meals but I’m done when I walk in the door. Something hits the microwave as I head for a shower so it’s ready when I’m done. I usually fall asleep eating it. When I wake up I’ve got laundry or other household chores to do. That’s a typical day. I don’t have a weekend to sit back and cook. I don’t have the money to cook.

I know my diet is not optimal and I’m limited by time and money. I can tell the difference vitamins make and it’s certainly enough to justify the price.