Re: USDA Nutrient Listings (+ B6 questions)

[Guest guest]

these listings are not very useful because they report nutrients by

weight, and not by calorie. at best, they give some hints of where to

look.

as far as B6, it's pretty easy to get the RDA (2 mg) of B6 from

common foods. since i eat a good deal of sprouts and fermented foods, i

don't know exactly how much i actually get, but it's definitely more than

the RDA, and i don't even eat any organ meats! (yet...)

just looking at some of my daily foods, like beef, octopus, kale, other

greens, nuts, eggs, milk (raw kefir), etc, i can see that it adds up

pretty fast to more than 2 mg. according to the data, there's not much

loss from cooking. notice that kale and other greens deliver about the

same amount as liver. you could nail down half the RDA in only about 150

calories with about 2oz of liver, some greens, and some green pepper!!!

that's not even a single full meal! If anything, it would probably not be

hard to double the RDA. like lots of other nutrients, there's decent

amounts in most foods and it adds up pretty fast.

and fortified foods don't count!!!! makes me wince to think about.

mike parker

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, biophile410 wrote:

> This is the first time I found these cool pdf's on the USDA site.

> Go here:

> http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/

>

> and click

> 'Reports by Single Nutrients' which takes you to:

> http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR15/wtrank/wt_rank.html

>

> Here you see a list of nutrients (fat, carbohydrates, magnesium, b6,

> cholesterol, etc. etc.) *NOTE* Click on the " W " buttons (as opposed

> to " A " for alphabetical) to get the foods listed by amount of

> nutrient. So you can see right away which foods have the most of

> each nutrient.

>

> It confirms that beef liver is highly nutritious, containing

> significant amounts of hard to get nutrients including B6, Copper,

> Mg, and A.

>

> Also interesting is if you look at the B6 listing it seems almost

> impossible to get the RDA of B6 unless you eat (fortified) cereals.

>

> This explains the emphasis on raw animal foods in NT. Of course no

> raw animal foods are in the usda listings.

>

> Does anyone know how much B6 is in raw milk? Raw cheese? And at what

> temp is B6 destroyed?

>

> For some reason I don't see B6 mentioned anywhere on realmilk.com,

> anyone know why not? Doesn't NT say B6 is a reason to drink raw milk?

>

k

[Guest guest]

> these listings are not very useful because they report nutrients by

> weight, and not by calorie. at best, they give some hints of

where to

> look.

*** I don't think that's a problem. If you're strictly counting

calories you may prefer listing by calories. But in this listing,

the weight varies for each food, and is based on the 'common

measure'. So you can compare, say, a banana, to a potato, to a cup

of milk, to 3 oz. of beef liver. This is how most people think about

food the food they eat, not by calories.

(As an aside, I did obsessively count calories for some time when I

was a teen, which is disturbing in retrospect because I tend to be

underweight.)

>

> as far as B6, it's pretty easy to get the RDA (2 mg) of B6 from

> common foods. since i eat a good deal of sprouts and fermented

foods, i

> don't know exactly how much i actually get, but it's definitely

more than

> the RDA, and i don't even eat any organ meats! (yet...)

> just looking at some of my daily foods, like beef, octopus, kale,

other

> greens, nuts, eggs, milk (raw kefir), etc, i can see that it adds up

> pretty fast to more than 2 mg. according to the data, there's not

much

> loss from cooking. notice that kale and other greens deliver about

the

> same amount as liver. you could nail down half the RDA in only

about 150

> calories with about 2oz of liver, some greens, and some green

pepper!!!

> that's not even a single full meal! If anything, it would probably

not be

> hard to double the RDA. like lots of other nutrients, there's

decent

> amounts in most foods and it adds up pretty fast.

*** The usda data on B6 seems to contradict NT, where Sally says B6

is easily destroyed by heat. Also on realmilk.com there is NO

mention of B6 (that I found). Realmilk.com mentions damage from

pasteurization to B-complex vitamins, specficically B1. I would

think B6 destruction would be a very compelling argument since people

are more aware of B6 than the other B's (besides B12). Does anyone

have further information on B6, and how it stands up to heat, and why

it's mentioned in NT but not realmilk.com?

>

> and fortified foods don't count!!!! makes me wince to think about.

>

> mike parker

*** Blech. I agree with you there.

[Guest guest]

>

> > these listings are not very useful because they report nutrients by

> > weight, and not by calorie. at best, they give some hints of

> where to

> > look.

>

>

> *** I don't think that's a problem. If you're strictly counting

> calories you may prefer listing by calories. But in this listing,

> the weight varies for each food, and is based on the 'common

> measure'. So you can compare, say, a banana, to a potato, to a cup

> of milk, to 3 oz. of beef liver. This is how most people think about

> food the food they eat, not by calories.

>

> (As an aside, I did obsessively count calories for some time when I

> was a teen, which is disturbing in retrospect because I tend to be

> underweight.)

it has nothing to do with " us " counting calories; our bodies count

them whether we pay attention to it or not. calories are the measure of

food intake and weight is completely meaningless for comparing nutrient density.

you need weight to actually figure out how much of a given food to eat,

and so it is of practical relevance, but it's

useless as a common measure to compare foods because the body doesn't care

many grams something is, only how many calories it provides. this is a

ubiquitous error in nutritional literature that drives me nuts. suppose

for example you want to find a good source of calcium and you compare

almonds and milk. on a weight basis, almonds have twice as much calcium

as milk, but that's because almonds have a much smaller water content and

are more concentrated in terms of weight. comparing in terms of calories,

however, you find that milk actually has 4.5 times more calcium than

almonds! that's a huge difference, a 9-fold difference, almost an entire

order or magnitude!! so you can see that using weight as a

common measure is deeply misleading. further, compare milk and turnip

greens. going by weight, turnip greens only have 1.6 times more calcium

than milk, but in terms of calories, which is what our bodies care about,

they have 3.6 times more calcium than milk. that's more than twice as much

more, a very significant difference. these drastic examples could be

multiplied ad infinitum.

mike parker

[Guest guest]

> it has nothing to do with " us " counting calories; our bodies count

> them whether we pay attention to it or not. calories are the measure of

> food intake and weight is completely meaningless for comparing

nutrient density.

> you need weight to actually figure out how much of a given food to eat,

> and so it is of practical relevance, but it's

> useless as a common measure to compare foods because the body

doesn't care

> many grams something is, only how many calories it provides. this is a

> ubiquitous error in nutritional literature that drives me nuts. suppose

> for example you want to find a good source of calcium and you compare

> almonds and milk. on a weight basis, almonds have twice as much calcium

> as milk, but that's because almonds have a much smaller water

content and

> are more concentrated in terms of weight. comparing in terms of

calories,

> however, you find that milk actually has 4.5 times more calcium than

> almonds! that's a huge difference, a 9-fold difference, almost an

entire

> order or magnitude!! so you can see that using weight as a

> common measure is deeply misleading. further, compare milk and turnip

> greens. going by weight, turnip greens only have 1.6 times more calcium

> than milk, but in terms of calories, which is what our bodies care

about,

> they have 3.6 times more calcium than milk. that's more than twice

as much

> more, a very significant difference. these drastic examples could be

> multiplied ad infinitum.

>

> mike parker

I agree in principle but this is irrelevant to the listings I cited.

These listings do NOT compare foods gram for gram. They list use

'common measure' where you'd have them use calories. The common

measure is a banana, a potato, a chicken breast. Nutrient content is

evaluated by 'common measure', NOT by weight. Take another look if

you don't believe me.

[Guest guest]

> I agree in principle but this is irrelevant to the listings I cited.

> These listings do NOT compare foods gram for gram. They list use

> 'common measure' where you'd have them use calories. The common

> measure is a banana, a potato, a chicken breast. Nutrient content is

> evaluated by 'common measure', NOT by weight. Take another look if

> you don't believe me.

you're right; my gripe was directed at the wrong target, but that " typical

serving size " approach is even worse than using weight because there's

so much variation between body sizes, meal sizes, unitary food

object sizes, etc. it's pretty sad that the people who are paid to

present this type of data can't get this painfully simple and obvious

point straight. of course, these are the same people who include

fortified foods and exclude so many relevant real foods...

mike parker