The RDA: Useful or Useless?

Every 5 years since World War II, the government has revised its RDA, or Recommended Daily Allowance of food groups and vitamins. But just how useful is this recommendation?

The goal of the RDA was to provide adequate nutrition for all ages and genders of our population. As such, it claims to be a broad brush strategy which amounts to "one size fits all". In addition, the values chosen represent the bare amounts needed to prevent deficiency syndromes such as Scurvy and Ricketts.

I hope you are already thinking, “This might not be enough for me!”

You are right, but before I go any further, I should tell you about a very large book I got a few days ago on nutrition. It would be safe to say this book is the true bastion of traditional medicine's point of view on nutrition.

I bring this up because there is a chapter entitled "Signs of Quackery". One of the signs of quackery according to this book is the claim that the RDA is inadequate and that many diseases are the result of nutritional deficiencies. The big book of traditional nutrition goes on to assert that the RDA is just fine and very few diseases are caused by nutrition in our current society.

I guess that makes me a quack, because I disagree on ALL counts!

The RDA by its very nature is a one size fits all solution to nutrition. While it claims to cover the needs of almost everyone, it overlooks the fact that there is not good nutritional needs data on many populations.

It also overlooks the fact that each population truly has different nutritional needs. Examples of populations with vastly different nutritional needs are: young healthy athletes, post menopausal women, and aging men in nursing homes.

In addition, it completely overlooks some very common disease states in our society such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. To suggest that the RDA covers all the needs of these populations is indeed ludicrous.

In addition, there are no provisions for large nutrient groups like fats, carbohydrates, and specifically, Omega 3 fatty acids. As more and more research shows the powerful preventative and treatment effects of Omega 3s, and specifically fish oils, how can a credible national dietary plan leave these out?

Then again, these are the same people who brought you low fat, high carb diets resulting in a rampage of Type 2 diabetes in all ages along with runaway obesity. They would have you believe that "enough to prevent a deficiency" is optimum nutrition.

Trust them if you want to; I don't.