The Folly of the RDA / RDI / RDV

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in its infinite wisdom has decreed The Truth about nutrition and human needs for nutrients. For many years I have said:


Show me someone who takes in only the RDA and

I will show you a sick person.


Jimmy Scott, Ph.D.

Why is that? I can think of several reasons:

1  The FDA (and Department of Agriculture) do not believe that whole natural organic foods contain any nutrients not found in other foods and that depleted soils do not affect food quality.

2  They do not believe that whole natural complexes contain substances essential to robust life.

3  They define Vitamins as only one of the components of the entire complex. For example, tocopherol is defined as Vitamin E, even though it is only one of at least six different groups of molecules in the natural Vitamin E complex.

4  They believe that a synthetic single molecule does the same function as the whole natural complex.

5  They barely accept the proposition that nutrition deficiencies are related to disease!

6  The RDA definition states that the RDA is the amount of a nutrient that a healthy person needs to remain healthy. The great nutritional biochemist Roger Williams proved that even genetically identical individuals (mice in this case) might have as much as a 20 fold difference in need for a specific nutrient. That means that the definition only applies to those lucky few who have a lower nutrient need than most. Do, say, ½% of the population really determine what the other 99½ % need? If mice can have a twenty-fold difference how much difference in need do humans have?

7  The Committee who determines the RDA is allowed to “fudge” the numbers to account for any beliefs on their part. This may be good or bad depending on the people.

8  Human needs are not determinable by traditional reductionistic laboratory thinking. BioEnergy is an unknown concept to those who try.

9  Nutritional needs are also proportional to the stress experienced by the individual. The higher the stress the more the body and mind have to work, so the greater the nutritional needs. This is exactly like your automobile requiring more gas to drive faster! These days there is generally greater psychological stress, but perhaps more importantly for this purpose, there is more water, air, and food pollution (not to mention electromagnetic–which can interfere with normal metabolism). Toxins from these food sources as well as drugs, vaccines, antibiotics, and other substances have increased total toxin intake by, my guess, 10,000 times what it was a century ago. No wonder that so many people are obese, sick, suffer from cancer, infections, low energy, and so on.

The RDA

The following RDI’s (Reference Daily Intake, Value) and nomenclature “are established by the FDA (USA Food and Drug Administration) for the following vitamins and minerals which are essential in human nutrition”: They consider that everyone will get what they need if they take this much in. They also consider that there are no other essential nutrients!!!

Reference Daily Values

(DRVs) for Food Components according to the FDA

(These may be changed on occasion, so might not be exactly up to date.)

Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs) for Nutrients Based on a 2,000 Calorie Per Day Diet

* Required on the nutritional label as percent of the daily value.

Food Component           DRV / RDI

Total Fat *                      65 grams (g)

Saturated Fatty Acids *   20 grams (g)

Cholesterol *                  300 milligrams (mg)

Total Carbohydrate *      300 grams (g)

Fiber *                                25 grams (g)

Protein *                        50 grams (g)

Vitamin A *                   5,000 International Units (IU)

Vitamin C *                   60 milligrams (mg)

Vitamin D                      4,000 International Units (IU)

Vitamin E                       30 International Units (IU)

Vitamin K                      80 micrograms (mcg)

Vitamin B

Thiamin                     1.5 milligrams (mg)

Riboflavin                  1.7 milligrams (mg)

Niacin                        20 milligrams (mg)

Vitamin B6                2 milligrams (mg)

Folate                         400 micrograms (mcg)

Vitamin B1                2 6 micrograms (mcg)

Biotin                         300 micrograms (mcg)

Pantothenic Acid        10 milligrams (mg)

Calcium *                       1,000 milligrams (mg)

Chloride                         3,400 milligrams (mg)

Chromium                      120 micrograms (mcg)

Copper                           2 milligrams (mg)

Iodine                             150 micrograms (mcg)

Iron *                             18 milligrams (mg)

Magnesium                     400 milligrams (mg)

Manganese                      2 milligrams (mg)

Molybdenum                  75 micrograms (mcg)

Potassium                       3,500 milligrams (mg)

Selenium                         70 micrograms (mcg)

Sodium *                        2,400 milligrams (mg)

Zinc                                15 milligrams (mg)

It gets worse! Food labels must state the percentage of the “daily need” provided by some number of servings of that food. How realistic are those serving sizes? How much of those nutrients are even absorbed? How appropriate are those DRV / RDI / RDA values anyway?

Lets get back to Roger Williams. As far as I am concerned he should have won several Nobel Prizes for his work. He truly was a superhero of nutrition. When I first met him in 1977 he was 86 years old, and had more energy than most people at 20. He discovered pantothentic acid (Vitamin B5) and named folic acid (from foliage, since certain types of leaves were excellent sources). He will be referred to in various later posts on this site.

Of special interest here is Williams’ concepts of “biochemical individuality”. He showed that when genetically identical mice (as best that could be determined in those days) could have as much as a 20-fold difference in need for any given specific nutrient. If both animals got their required amount they were identical. If one got their need or more than their need and the other got less than their need then the deficient one would not grow as fast, or lost weight faster, etc. The deficient ones did not flourish even if they took in 15 times more than the average of the other mice, if their need was greater than their intake. In other words, you must take in (and utilize) as much of every nutrient as you individually need, regardless of what some government agency tries to pass off on the nutritionally uneducated. (In all fairness, the agency types are the ones needing the education.)

Some of the RDA values are so obviously wrong it is laughable, although it is no laughing matter. The zinc RDA is 15 mg / day. An average ejaculation reportedly contains about 15 mg of zinc. A sexually active man then is in trouble! The retina has the body’s highest concentration of zinc; the prostate the second highest. If you follow the RDA you will go blind if you have much sex! (Oh, what a lot of jokes are possible about this!) Maybe this is related to the dramatic reduction in male fertility in the last several decades.

If you routinely ingest several times of the RDA you will be much better off. Alternatively, a good Natural Bioenergetics™ Practitioner with some experience working with Nutritional BioEnergetics can help you determine just what your own individual nutritional requirements are. Once you take in your required amounts, and can utilize them thanks to our BioEnergetic corrections, you will become healthier, stronger, and probably happier. (You will likely not get this information from your friendly hospital Registered Dietitian. I have never met one who knew anything about this material, or for that matter knew who Roger Williams was.)

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