Does our diet need a little help?

We asked you for your take on supplements, and got the above-illustrated, below-described set of results.

• The largest minority of respondents (a little over a third) voted for “I just take something very specific”
• The next most respondents voted for “I take so many supplements; every little helps!”
• Almost as many voted for “I just take a vitamin or two / a multivitamin”
• Fewest, about 8%, voted for “I get everything I need from my diet”

But what does the science say?

Food is less nutritious now than it used to be: True or False?

True or False depending on how you measure it.

An apple today and an apple from a hundred years ago are likely to contain the same amounts of micronutrients per apple, but a lower percentage of micronutrients per 100g of apple.

The reason for this is that apples (and many other food products; apples are just an arbitrary example) have been selectively bred (and in some cases, modified) for size, and because the soil mineral density has remained the same, the micronutrients per apple have not increased commensurate to the increase in carbohydrate weight and/or water weight. Thus, the resultant percentage will be lower, despite the quantity remaining the same.

We’re going to share some science on this, and/but would like to forewarn readers that the language of this paper is a bit biased, as it looks to “debunk” claims of nutritional values dropping while skimming over “yes, they really have dropped percentage-wise” in favor of “but look, the discrete mass values are still the same, so that’s just a mathematical illusion”.

The reality is, it’s no more a mathematical illusion than is the converse standpoint of saying the nutritional value is the same, despite the per-100g values dropping. After all, sometimes we eat an apple as-is; sometimes we buy a bag of frozen chopped fruit. That 500g bag of chopped fruit is going to contain less copper (for example) than one from decades past.

Here’s the paper, and you’ll see what we mean:

Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines

Supplements aren’t absorbed properly and thus are a waste of money: True or False?

True or False depending on the supplement (and your body, and the rest of your diet)

Many people are suffering from dietary deficiencies of vitamins and minerals, that could be easily correctable by supplementation:

However, as this study by Dr. Fang Fang Zhang shows, a lot of vitamin and mineral supplementation does not appear to have much of an effect on actual health outcomes, vis-à-vis specific diseases. She looks at:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Cancer
• Type 2 diabetes
• Osteoporosis

Her key take-aways from this study were:

• Randomised trial evidence does not support use of vitamin, mineral, and fish oil supplements to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases
• People using supplements tend to be older, female, and have higher education, income, and healthier lifestyles than people who do not use them
• Use of supplements appreciably reduces the prevalence of inadequate intake for most nutrients but also increases the prevalence of excess intake for some nutrients
• Further research is needed to assess the long term effects of supplements on the health of the general population and in individuals with specific nutritional needs, including those from low and middle income countries

Read her damning report: Health effects of vitamin and mineral supplements

On the other hand…

This is almost entirely about blanket vitamin-and-mineral supplementation. With regard to fish oil supplementation, many commercial fish oil supplements break down in the stomach rather than the intestines, and don’t get absorbed well. Additionally, many people take them in forms that aren’t pleasant, and thus result in low adherence (i.e., they nominally take them, but in fact they just sit on the kitchen counter for a year).

One thing we can conclude from this is that it’s good to check the science for any given supplement before taking it, and know what it will and won’t help for. Our “Monday Research Review” editions of 10almonds do this a lot, although we tend to focus on herbal supplements rather than vitamins and minerals.

We can get everything we need from our diet: True or False?

Contingently True (but here be caveats)

In principle, if we eat the recommended guideline amounts of various macro- and micro-nutrients, we will indeed get all that we are generally considered to need. Obviously.

However, this may come with:

• Make sure to get enough protein… Without too much meat, and also without too much carbohydrate, such as from most plant sources of protein
• Make sure to get enough carbohydrates… But only the right kinds, and not too much, nor at the wrong time, and without eating things in the wrong order
• Make sure to get enough healthy fats… Without too much of the unhealthy fats that often exist in the same foods
• Make sure to get the right amount of vitamins and minerals… We hope you have your calculators out to get the delicate balance of calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamin D right.

That last one’s a real pain, by the way. Too much or too little of one or another and the whole set start causing problems, and several of them interact with several others, and/or compete for resources, and/or are needed for the others to do their job.

And, that’s hard enough to balance when you’re taking supplements with the mg/µg amount written on them, never mind when you’re juggling cabbages and sardines.

On the topic of those sardines, don’t forget to carefully balance your omega-3, -6, and -9, and even within omega-3, balancing ALA, EPA, and DHA, and we hope you’re juggling those HDL and LDL levels too.

So, when it comes to getting everything we need from our diet, for most of us (who aren’t living in food deserts and/or experiencing food poverty, or having a medical condition that restricts our diet), the biggest task is not “getting enough”, it’s “getting enough of the right things without simultaneously overdoing it on the others”.

With supplements, it’s a lot easier to control what we’re putting in our bodies.

And of course, unless our diet includes things that usually can’t be bought in supermarkets, we’re not going to get the benefits of taking, as a supplement, such things as:

• Bacopa monnieri
• Reishi mushroom
• Ashwaghanda root

Etc.

So, there definitely are supplements with strong science-backed benefits, that probably can’t be found on your plate!

What’s The Deal With MSG?

There are a lot of popular beliefs about MSG. Is there a grain of truth, or should we take them with a grain of salt? We’ll leap straight into myth-busting:

MSG is high in salt

True (technically) False (practically)

• MSG is a salt (a monosodium salt of L-glutamic acid), but to call it “full of salt” in practical terms is like calling coffee “full of fruit”. (Coffee beans are botanically fruit)
• It does contain sodium, though which is what the S stands for!
• We talked previously about how MSG’s sodium content is much lower than that of (table) salt. Specifically, it’s about one third of that of sodium chloride (e.g. table salt).

MSG triggers gluten sensitivity

False!

Or at least, because this kind of absolute negative is hard to prove in science, what we can say categorically is: it does not contain gluten. We understand that the similar name can cause that confusion. However:

• Gluten is a protein, found in wheat (and thus wheat-based foods).
• Glutamate is an amino acid, found in protein-rich foods.
• If you’re thinking “but proteins are made from amino acids”, yes, they are, but the foundational amino acid of gluten is glutamine, not glutamate. Different bricks → different house!

The body can’t process MSG correctly

False!

The body has glutamate receptors throughout the gut and nervous system.

The body metabolizes glutamate from MSG just the same as from any other food that contains it naturally.

Read: Update on food safety of monosodium l-glutamate (MSG) ← evidence-based safety review

MSG causes “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”

False!

Racism causes that. It finds its origins in what was originally intended as a satirical joke, that the papers picked up and ran with, giving it that name in the 1960s. As to why it grew and persisted, that has more to do with US politics (the US has been often at odds with China for a long time) and xenophobia (people distrust immigrants, such as those who opened restaurants), including nationalistic rhetoric associating immigrants with diseases.

Read: Xenophobia in America in the Age of Coronavirus and Beyond ← academic paper that gives quite a compact yet comprehensive overview

Research science, meanwhile, has not found any such correlation, in more than 40 years of looking.

PS: we realize this item in the list is very US-centric. Apologies to our non-US subscribers. We know that this belief isn’t so much of a thing outside the US—though it certainly can crop up elsewhere sometimes, too.

Are there any health risks associated with MSG, then?

Well, as noted, it does contain sodium, albeit much less than table salt. So… do go easy on it, all the same.

Aside from that, the LD50 (a way of measuring toxicity) of MSG is 15.8g/kg, so if for example you weigh 150lb (68 kg), don’t eat 2.2lb (a kilogram) of MSG.

There have been some studies on rats (or in one case, fruit flies) that found high doses of MSG could cause heart problems and/or promote obesity. However:

• this has not been observed to be the case in humans
• those doses were really high, ranging from 1g/kg to 8g/kg. So that’d be the equivalent of our 150lb person eating it by the cupful
• it was injected (as a solution) into the rats, not ingested by them
• so don’t let someone inject you with a cup of MSG!

Read: A review of the alleged health hazards of monosodium glutamate

Bottom line on MSG and health:

Enjoy in moderation, but enjoy if you wish! MSG is just the salt form of the amino acid glutamate, which is found naturally in many foods, including shrimp, seaweed, and tomatoes.

Scientists have spent more than 40 years trying to find health risks for MSG, and will probably keep trying (which is as science should be), but for now… Everything has either come up negative, or has been the result of injecting laboratory animals with megadoses.

If you’d like to try it in your cooking as a low-sodium way to bring out the flavor of your dishes, you can order it online. Cheapest in bulk, but try it and see if you like it first!

(I’ll be real with you… I have 5 kg in the pantry myself and use about half a teaspoon a day, cooking for two)