Micronutrients
Nutrients are what you must eat or drink to survive.
To be healthy, you need big quantities of five kinds of nutrients: water, carbohydrate, protein, fat, and fiber. (Most Americans eat too much fat, not enough carbohydrate & fiber.) The quantities are measured in “grams” per serving.
You also need smaller quantities of other nutrients, called micronutrients, measured in “milligrams” or “micrograms” per serving. The most important micronutrients fall into two categories: vitamins (whose chemical formulas include carbon) and minerals (whose chemical formulas do not include carbon).
Vitamins
You need 13 vitamins:
Vitamin Where to get a lot of it
vitamin A milk, egg yolks, beef&chicken livers
vitamin D sunlight, salmon, fortified milk, enriched flour&cereal&bread
vitamin E corn&soybean&canola&sunflower oil, kale, sweet potatoes
vitamin K spinach, lettuce, watercress, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, soybean oil
vitamin C (ascorbic acid) peppers, currants, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, oranges, papaya, cranberries
vitamin B1 (thiamine) pork loin, whole grains, enriched flour&rice, dried beans, nuts, seeds
vitamin B2 (riboflavin) beef liver, milk, eggs, enriched flour&cereal
vitamin B3 (niacin) chicken&turkey breast, tuna, swordfish, enriched flour&rice, peas, corn tortillas
vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) liver, fish, chicken&turkey, whole grains, yogurt, beans, lentils, peas
vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) tuna, potatoes, bananas, chick-peas, prunes, chicken breasts, avocados
vitamin B9 (folate) chicken livers, asparagus, beans, chick-peas, lentils, oranges, fortified cereal
vitamin B12 (cobalamin) clams, chicken livers, tuna, sardines, salmon, lamb, milk
vitamin BH (biotin) corn, soybeans, egg yolks, liver, cauliflower, peanuts, mushrooms, yeast
Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble: your body stores them for a long time in your fat tissue and in your liver.
Vitamin C and the B vitamins are water-soluble. Since your body can’t store them long (except for B12), you must eat them frequently. When cooking them, don’t boil them long, since they’ll escape from the food into boiling water instead of helping your body. Instead of boiling them, try steaming them or using your microwave.
Here are peculiarities:
Biotin was called vitamin H until researchers later discovered biotin’s a kind of B vitamin.
Though beef&chicken livers contain many vitamins, they also contain cholesterol and many toxins.
Although swordfish contains vitamin B3, it also contains a toxin (mercury).
If you eat a well-balanced diet, you’ll get enough of all those vitamins except perhaps C & E.
Some nutritionists recommend taking pills for vitamins C & E, but others disagree.
Since vitamin C leaves the body in 12 hours, eating 2 small doses per day is better than 1 big dose. Vitamin C does not prevent colds, but 1000 mg per day can make existing colds end 1 day faster and be 20% milder.
Vitamin B9 is called folate or folacin or folic acid. It prevents birth defects. If you’re pregnant (or might be in 2 months), make sure you get enough vitamin B9 (by eating good foods or taking a pill). The US government requires the food industry to add vitamin B9 to all white flour (and therefore all white bread and white pasta); that’s one of the few advantages of white bread over whole wheat: whole-wheat bread does not contain folate.
Vitamin B3 is called niacin or nicotinic acid. Milk and eggs contain little B3 but lots of tryptophan, which turns into B3 when digested. The vitamin B3 in corn is indigestible unless the corn is mixed with lime, as in a corn tortilla.
Minerals
In your body, the 7 main minerals (the macrominerals) are sodium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium. The average American eats too much sodium (which is in salt and preservatives) and an okay amount of chlorine & sulfur but should eat more of the other 4:
Mineral Where to get a lot of it
calcium milk, yogurt, cheese, canned sardines&salmon, fortified orange juice, fortified oatmeal
potassium avocados, bananas, cantaloupes, oranges, tomatoes, potato skins, beans, yogurt, tuna
phosphorus meat, chicken, turkey, seafood, milk, seeds
magnesium whole grains, nuts, seeds, tofu, chocolate, spinach, beans, avocados, halibut
The typical multivitamin/mineral pill does not contain a full day’s supply of those macrominerals. Be especially careful about calcium:
The average American doesn’t eat enough calcium. The average American man should eat more calcium; the average American woman should eat much more calcium. Calcium builds strong bones and reduces a woman’s PMS difficulties. Elderly people who have weak bones (because of many years of calcium deficiency) break their bones when they fall, and the resulting operations and disabilities are life-threatening. Eat more calcium foods, or buy a calcium pill, or buy Tums (which contains lots of calcium).Vitamin B3 helps the body digest calcium, so make sure you eat vitamin B3 also.
Your body also needs smaller quantities of 15 other minerals (called trace minerals). The most important trace minerals are boron, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc.
Your body also contains about 40 other minerals that are not necessary.
Antioxidants
When your body uses oxygen, some of the oxygen turns into an unstable, dangerous form called a free radical. Free radicals occur faster if there’s a lot of pollution (or cigarette smoke, alcohol, X-rays, sunlight’s ultraviolet rays, or heat). Free radicals interfere with cell activities, so the cells get damaged, age faster, and have a harder time warding off cancer and heart disease.
To get rid of that dangerous free-radical oxygen, your body uses antioxidants. Your body makes its own antioxidants, but you can help your body by eating extra antioxidants. The most popular ones to eat are vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium (a mineral), and carotenoids (yellow, orange, or red pigments in fruits and vegetables).
Although carotenoids are yellow, orange, or red pigments, they can hide in vegetables that are darker (purple or dark green): those darker colors hide the carotenoid molecules from your eyes. Vegetables that are light green contain hardly any carotenoids.
Here are the most popular carotenoids:
Carotenoid Where to get a lot of it
alpha carotene carrots, pumpkins, yellow peppers
beta carotene carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, spinach, kale, cantaloupes, apricots, mangoes
beta cryptoxanthin tangerines, oranges, peaches, papayas, mangoes
lycopene tomatoes, watermelons, pink grapefruits, guava
lutein kale, red peppers, spinach, endive, broccoli, romaine lettuce
Your body turns some carotenoids into vitamin A, but other carotenoids stay in their original state and provide extra benefits.
Although most fruits & vegetables are most nutritious when eaten raw, carrots & tomatoes are different: carrots & tomatoes are more nutritious if cooked than if eaten raw, because you need cooking to break their tough cells walls (so you can digest the carrot’s beta carotene and the tomato’s lycopene). Unfortunately, cooked tomato sauce typically contain lots of salt (unless you order the no-salt version).
Since pizza includes cooked tomato sauce, it’s a good source of lycopene. The pizza industry likes to brag about that. Unfortunately, pizza can be high in salt (from the sauce), calories (from the breading), and saturated fat (from the cheese and any meat toppings). Go ahead, eat some pizza, but don’t overdo it!
Other micronutrients
Researchers keep discovering other micronutrients in fruits and vegetables. To get all their benefits, eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.
The newest exciting research concerns grapes. The skin of a grape contains resveratrol (a chemical that helps the grape fight against pests). If you eat that chemical, it will help you fight cancer, heart disease, and oxidation. Grapes grown in the north produce more of that chemical than grapes grown in the south, since northern grapes need it to fight against their tough environment. The “food” that contains the most resveratrol is “red wine made from northern grapes,” since red wine’s manufacturing process uses skins more than white wine’s process, and since the alcoholic fermenting helps bring out the resveratrol. The French love of red wine is the chemical reason why French people have fewer heart attacks than Americans, even though French foods come in heavy sauces. (But I suspect that the main reasons why French people have fewer heart attacks are: the French binge less, eat more vegetables, eat less junk food, get more exercise, and have less stress.) Some resveratrol is also in peanuts.