Despite all recommendations, only 13% of men and 15%
of women eat five portions or more of fruit and vegetables per
day.1
In other words, 87% of men and 85% of women are not obtaining
the essential micronutrients that the government recommends. In
fact, the average daily intake of fruit and vegetables among adults
is fewer than three portions (2.7 for men, 2.9 for women). And
that’s before we’ve even mentioned the lack of oily
fish in the typical British diet.
Dr Paul Clayton, President Elect of the Forum for Food &
Health at the Royal Society of Medicine, declared at a recent
conference that dietary nutritional deficiency is a problem,
explaining that we simply cannot obtain all the micronutrients we
need with a standard modernday diet of up to 2,000 calories per
day, no matter what we eat. He suggests that most modern food
pyramids should contain supplements as an integral part of the
support of a typical diet.
There are certain groups of people for whom a daily multivitamin
has always been highly recommended (vegetarians, vegans, those on a
diet, those who omit food groups or who are intolerant/allergic to
certain foods, those who miss meals or who have erratic eating
habits). But should that extend to the 85-86% of adults who
aren’t getting five or more portions of fresh fruit and
vegetables per day? It seems so. Increasingly, we are facing a
dietary nutritional deficiency ‘epidemic’ as our
society has turned to convenience and processed foods, snacking and
TV dinners to fit in with our busy modern lifestyles. Hence the
rise in heart disease and stroke rates, the incidence of cancer
rise, the obesity and diabetes rates that we see soaring.
A multivitamin will never be a panacea, but as a
‘nutritional insurance policy’ to accompany our diets
(however good we think our diet is), it is highly recommended. The
USA Food and Drug Administration now recommends a multivitamin for
all adults and Britain may not be far behind.
1 National Diet & Nutrition Survey; Department of
Health; 2004.
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