When To Rely On Diet For Vitamins & When To supplement
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
No question/request too big or small 😎
❝What is better multivitamins or eating foods that have the vitamins? What if you don’t like the foods with the vitamins, is that when you should take the vitamins? Thank you,❞
Great question, and the short answer is that both have their place!
Firstly, per your question we’ll focus on vitamins, though the same rationale applies to minerals.
When it comes to other things that one might supplement, often it’s things that one cannot readily get from one’s food, unless one lives in a very particular place. For example, we wrote about Mimosa For Healing Your Body & Mind, which is a very respectable supplement, and/but since it comes from the bark of the mimosa tree that not only is not really a food as such, but also grows only in certain tropical places, it’s quite likely you won’t find it as a food in your local supermarket, so supplementation there already has a stronger argument for it (because having it as food is simply not an option).
We wrote more about that in a previous Q&A edition that was about supplements on the whole, rather than comparing vitamins from food to vitamins from supplements:
You can read that here: Are Supplements Worth Taking?
And a more specific assessment here: Are Longevity Supplements Worth Taking?
Now, about micronutrients and food…
Yes, food is better
If you can get sufficient vitamin coverage from your food, then yes, this is simply better on a number of levels, and scientists aren’t sure they’ve even found all of the reasons why yet—there are quite often paradoxical situations whereby food contains only a tiny fraction of the amount of a given micronutrient that one could get so much more of in a supplement, and sometimes even has lower bioavailability (i.e. less of it is absorbed), and yet the end result is that it somehow improves health outcomes more regardless.
Often this is strongest in the case of phytochemicals like polyphenols, but it’s often true for vitamins and minerals too.
Here’s an example of making sure to get the compounds from a wide variety of dietary sources: Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?
Sometimes, taking supplements can even have the opposite effect of what you might expect, for example: How Taking Vitamin D Supplements Can Sabotage Your Vitamin D Levels
As for “what if you don’t like the foods with the vitamins”, then really what is best there is to find foods with those vitamins that you do like. There are a lot of foods in the world, and it is unlikely that all but the most extremely restricted eater will be averse to, say, all foods containing vitamin E.
Since this matter is often a case of people “not liking vegetables”, it’s worth noting that this is often a skill issue, and therefore rectifiable.
We wrote about that here: The Real Way To Eat More Veg If You Don’t Like Veg ← and no, the answer is not to try to “hide it!”
There are other nutritional supplements that might provide a “halfway” alterative, though
If you read the “how to eat more vegetables” article and are still certain that eating vitamin-laden foods is not the way to go for you, then rather than just taking a multivitamin that are often of low quality, you might consider fruit & vegetable extract supplements, which can often deliver a lot of the benefits (not all, but a lot) of eating a more varied plants-forward diet, in a supplement, because they also contain phytochemicals beyond the vitamins, in ways that further help.
You can learn about that here: Are Fruit & Vegetable Extract Supplements Worth It?
Want to learn more?
As for why you might want to favor getting this from food if you can, then while the title says “vitamins”, the following book discusses an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients; the “other nutrients” category including amino acids (branched chain and essential), prebiotics and probiotics, and triglycerides of various kinds:
Eat Your Vitamins – by Mascha Davis, RDN ← see our review, here
Take care!
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What Your Skin Says About Nutrient Deficiencies
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Dr. Andrea Suarez, dermatologist, shows us:
Watch out for…
Fun fact: skin, hair, and nail cells divide rapidly, making them among the first tissues to reflect inadequate nutrition.
These deficiencies mimic other common skin conditions: nutrient shortages can disrupt your skin barrier, immune function, cell turnover, and inflammation control, causing rashes that resemble dandruff, eczema, acne, or seborrheic dermatitis.
So, what’s to blame?
Deficiencies and their signs/symptoms include:
- Vitamin B2 deficiency: can cause severely chapped lips, cracks at the corners of your mouth, angular cheilitis, a smooth red tongue, and a facial rash that resembles seborrheic dermatitis.
- Vitamin B3 deficiency: can cause a severe sunburn-like rash, skin darkening and thickening, a dark band around the neck called Casal’s necklace, mouth pain, a smooth tongue, diarrhea, dementia, and can eventually be fatal if untreated (technically all vitamin deficiencies are fatal if not corrected, or else they wouldn’t be called vitamins, but this one speedruns it)
- Vitamin B6 deficiency: can produce a seborrheic dermatitis-like facial rash, dandruff, and eczema-like skin changes, especially in people with alcohol misuse, inflammatory bowel disease, malabsorption disorders, kidney failure, or certain medication use.
- Vitamin B9 deficiency: can contribute to pale skin, brittle nails, mouth sores, fatigue, and symptoms that overlap with B12 deficiency.
- Vitamin B12 deficiency: can cause skin darkening, especially in skin folds and on your palms, dark streaks in your nails, a sore smooth tongue, loss of taste, angular cheilitis, and sometimes premature graying of your hair.
- Iron deficiency: can lead to hair thinning, excessive shedding, brittle nails, spoon-shaped nails, pale or dry skin, and unexplained itching.
For more on all of this plus visual illustrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
As for why you might want to favor getting these from food if you can, then while the title says “vitamins”, the following book discusses an assortment of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients; the “other nutrients” category including amino acids (branched chain and essential), prebiotics and probiotics, and triglycerides of various kinds:
Eat Your Vitamins – by Mascha Davis, RDN ← see our review, here
Take care!
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What Your Sleep Says About Your Dementia Risk
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We’ve written a bit about sleep and health before, including:
Why You Probably Need More Sleep ← a lot of people mistake getting 6 hours sleep per night for only needing 6 hours sleep per night. Sure, you may still be alive after regularly getting 6 hours, but (unless you have a rare mutation of the ADRB1 gene) it will be causing harm, and yes, that includes later in life; we don’t stop needing so much sleep, even if we stop getting it.
It’s also noteworthy that sleep-deprived people usually underestimate how sleep-deprived they are. This is for the same reason as why drunk people usually underestimate how drunk they are—to put it in words that go for both situations: a cognitively impaired person lacks the cognitive function to realize how cognitively impaired they are. Here’s the science on that: How Sleep-Deprived Are You, Really?
There are more considerations, though, for example: How Regularity Of Sleep Can Be Even More Important Than Duration ← here’s why you should still get up at the same regular (and ideally, early) hour, even if you didn’t sleep well. That one’s more about heart health than brain health, but as regular 10almonds readers will know, “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain”.
On which note, do see: Sleeping Positions & Your Heart & Brain
Or if you prefer to skip to the brain science, then: Goodnight, Glymphatic System: How Your Sleep Position Changes Dementia Risk
With all that in mind…
Is your brain aging more quickly than the rest of you?
“Biological age” is not really one thing, but rather a whole collection of things, and they can all age at different rates. Not merely “different organs age differently”, but also, even different metrics of aging can progress at different rates.
If that sounds a bit confusing, it can be, so if you need unconfusing, then check out: Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Recently, researchers (Dr. Kristine Yaffe et al.) found that a higher “brain age” measured from sleep EEG signals is strongly linked to a higher future risk of dementia. This conclusion was from a meta-analysis of data from 7,105 adults aged 40–94 across five long-term cohort studies, with about 1,000 developing dementia over the course of the studies.
To put it in numbers: every 10-year increase in brain age above chronological age raises dementia risk by 39%.
Let’s talk brain-waves for a moment: the laboratory EEG features record aspects of brain function that traditional sleep metrics—like sleep duration or sleep stages—miss. For example, delta waves (deep sleep), sleep spindles (memory consolidation), and signal “kurtosis” (sudden spikes) were all linked to brain health. In particular, higher kurtosis in sleep EEG was associated with a lower dementia risk, suggesting some complex brain activity patterns may be protective.
And yes, the brain age–dementia link remained even after accounting for factors like education, smoking, physical activity, genetics, and other health conditions.
You can read the paper in full, here: Machine Learning–Based Sleep Electroencephalographic Brain Age Index and Dementia Risk: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis
That’s fascinating, but how can we use this knowledge?
The researchers also cover this in the above paper, but admittedly not in the most reader-friendly of ways, so let’s look at things that will, according to best current sleep science, tend to improve those EEG readings (or rather, the brain-wave patterns behind them, because probably you have no EEG machine in your bedroom).
Some key things include:
- Support those sleep spindles: you can help protect memory-related brain activity by avoiding alcohol and maintaining stable sleep timing, since both alcohol and irregular schedules suppress spindle activity.
- Learn more: The Memories That Never Got Stored: How Alcohol Causes Blackouts ← applies to how alcohol disrupts the brain during sleep, as well as the more commonly understood concept of “getting blackout drunk”
- And on the other matter: The Circadian Rhythm: Far More Than Most People Know
- Treat sleep apnea (if applicable): address obstructive sleep apnea because repeated oxygen drops and sleep fragmentation disrupt brain-wave structure and are strongly linked to cognitive decline.
- Learn more: Beating Sleep Apnea
- Treat insomnia properly: use structured approaches like CBT strategies rather than relying on sedatives alone, as some sleep medications can alter natural EEG patterns without restoring healthy sleep architecture.
Want to learn more?
For a much more in-depth treatment of the topic, you might like this book that we reviewed a while back:
Why We Sleep – by Dr Matthew Walker
Basically, if you will read only one book on sleep, that’s the book.
Sweet dreams!
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- Support those sleep spindles: you can help protect memory-related brain activity by avoiding alcohol and maintaining stable sleep timing, since both alcohol and irregular schedules suppress spindle activity.
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Top 5 Foods Seniors Should Eat To Sleep Better Tonight (And 5 To Avoid)
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Dr. Michael Breus, a sleep specialist, advises:
A prescription for rest
Dr. Breus’s top 5 foods to eat for a good night’s sleep are:
1) Chia seeds: high in fiber, protein, omega-3s, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and tryptophan, they help raise melatonin levels for better sleep. The high fiber content also reduces late-night snacking, and in any case, it’s recommended to eat them 2–3 hours before bed. As for how, they can be added to smoothies, baked goods, salads, or made into chia seed pudding.
2) Nuts (especially pistachios & almonds): both of these nuts are rich in B vitamins and melatonin, so take your pick! He does recommend, however, no more than ¼ cup about 1.5 hours before bed. Either can be eaten as-is or with an unsweetened Greek yogurt.
3) Bananas (especially banana tea): contain magnesium, especially in the peel. Boil an organic banana (with peel) in water and drink the water, which provides magnesium and helps improve sleep. It’s recommended to drink it about an hour before bed.
10almonds tip: he doesn’t mention this, but if you prefer, you can also simply eat it—banana peel is perfectly edible, and is not tough when cooked. If you’ve ever had plantains, you’ll know how they are, and bananas (and their peel) are much softer than plantains. Boiling is fine, or alternatively you can wrap them in foil and bake them. The traditional way is to cook them in the leaves, but chances are you live somewhere that doesn’t grow bananas locally and so they didn’t come with leaves, so foil is fine.
4) Tart cherries: are rich in melatonin, antioxidants, and other anti-inflammatory compounds, which all help with falling asleep faster and reducing night awakenings. Can be consumed as juice, dried fruit, or tart cherry extract capsules. Suggested intake: once in the morning and once an hour before bed.
5) Kiwis: are high in serotonin, which aids melatonin production and sleep. This also helps regulate cortisol levels (lower cortisol promotes sleep). He recommends eating kiwi fruit about 2 hours before bed.
Also, in the category of foods (or rather: food types) to avoid before bed…
- High quantities of red meat: can disrupt sleep-related amino acid balance.
- Acidic foods: can cause acid reflux.
- High sugar foods: can slow melatonin production when consumed in the evening.
- Caffeine-rich foods & drinks: includes chocolate and coffee; avoid in the evening.
- Large meals before bed: digestion is less efficient when lying down, causing sleep disruption.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep ← Our “Expert Insights” main feature on Dr. Breus
Take care!
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Millet vs Couscous – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing millet to couscous, we picked the millet.
Why?
In terms of macros, they’re pretty much equal, and are both moderately high glycemic index foods so to abate that, it’s good to have them with some fibrous foods (e.g. some vegetables) and fats (e.g. perhaps sauté the vegetables with a little olive oil), to slow down the carbs a little. But, as there’s nothing meaningful between them in this regard, we declare this category a tie.
In the category of vitamins, millet has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, K, and choline, while millet has more of vitmains B5 and E. An easy win for millet here.
When it comes to minerals, it’s a similar story: millet has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while couscous has more calcium and selenium. Another clear win for millet.
For those avoiding gluten, you want to be aware that millet is naturally gluten-free, while couscous is usually made of durum wheat and thus contains gluten.
For those avoiding oxalates (shouldn’t make any difference for most people, but if you have certain kidney problems, then it can matter), millet is low in oxalates and couscous is high in oxalates.
All in all, it’s a clear overall win for millet!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?
Enjoy!
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The Well Plated Cookbook – by Erin Clarke
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Clarke’s focus here is on what she calls “stealthy healthy”, with the idea of dishes that feel indulgent while being great for the health.
The recipes, of which there are well over 100, are indeed delicious and easy to make without being oversimplified, and since she encourages the use of in-season ingredients, many recipes come with a “market swaps” substitution guide, to make each recipe seasonal.
The book is largely not vegetarian, let alone vegan, but the required substitutions will be second-nature to any seasoned vegetarian or vegan. Indeed, “skip the meat sometimes” is one of the advices she offers near the beginning of the book, in the category of tips to make things even healthier.
Bottom line: if you want to add dishes to your repertoire that are great for entertaining and still super-healthy, this book will be a fine addition to your collection.
Click here to check out The Well Plated Cookbook, and get cooking!
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Cantaloupe vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing cantaloupe to cucumber, we picked the cucumber.
Why?
In terms of macros, both are of course 90–95% water, with just enough fiber to hold them together. However, it’s cantaloupe that’s 90% water and cucumber that’s 95% water, because cantaloupe has more than 2x the carbs and 144x the sugar (whence the sweetness). Now, it’s a fruit and so this sugar isn’t really anything to worry about if you’re eating it in solid form (as opposed to as juice), but by the numbers, it does mean that cucumber has the much lower glycemic index (cucumber has a GI of 21, while cantaloupe has a GI of 65), so we’ll give cucumber the win in this category.
In the category of vitamins, cantaloupe has more of vitamins A, B3, B6, B9, C, and E, while cucumber has more of vitamins B2, B5, and K, so cantaloupe scores a 6:3 win in this round.
When it comes to minerals, cantaloupe has more potassium and selenium, while cucumber has more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc, so another win for cucumber here.
Looking at polyphenols, cantaloupe has almost nothing (trace amounts of some lignans), while cucumber has more of the same lignans that cantaloupe has, plus highly beneficial flavones apigenin and luteolin, and famously good flavonols like kaempferol and quercetin. So, one more win for cucumber here.
Plus, and it’s not yet known the mechanism of action for this one, but cucumber extract beats glucosamine and chondroitin for reducing joint inflammation, at 1/135th of the dose.
Adding up the sections makes for a very clear overall win for cucumber, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
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