For many years now at Cytoplan we have presented the rationale that there is a nutrition gap in the diets of most people by virtue of several factors. The nutrition gap describes the difference between the levels of nutrients the average person, eating a reasonable western diet, is primarily obtaining from food, and those nutrient levels identified by research as being needed for optimal health in the population.
Nutrient shortfalls are caused by a number of different factors, including dietary intake, and this means that most people are not getting the level of essential nutrients needed for health and protection on a daily basis. This deficit impacts adversely on both immediate and long term health.
The nutritional status of our bodies is dependent on six factors:
• Our food choices;
• Food growing, processing and preparation methods;
• The nutrient content of the food we eat;
• The ability of our bodies to assimilate these nutrients;
• Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, stress, alcohol intake, medications (etc.) – which give rise to extra nutrient needs.
• Our level of activity (energy-expenditure)
If you are eating a typical Western diet all of the above are relevant to the nutrition gap in your life. However, even if you are adhering to what we would consider as an optimal human dietary regime such as the ‘Paleolithic Diet’, there are still two factors that can create nutrient shortfalls.
These are
a) the level of nutrients in the fresh foods you are eating and
b) your level of activity.
For full details visit the relevant section of our website: Cytoplan Nutrition Gap
Hi,
Thanks for your article ‘the Nutrition gap’, really helpful to clarify this when speaking with my clients. However, the section speaking about ‘methylation’ appears contradictory; stating that ‘methylated forms of nutrients in plants cannot be use in supplements’ and later ‘therefore we use these nutrients in many of our formulations. Something has got lost ‘in translation’ there…
Hi Katarina – although there are high levels of methylated nutrients in plant DNA they are not easy to harvest and stabilise. But methylated nutrients are available from manufactured sources which are the same in make-up to the ones naturally occurring and these are the ones we use in our formulae. Thanks, Amanda