Micronutrients
Magnesium and the supplement aisle
EFSA's adequate intake is 350 mg a day for men and 300 for women. The gap between that and what the pill bottles promise is where most of the confusion lives.
Section
Micronutrients
Vitamins and minerals: who actually runs short, and what the reference values are for.
6 articles
Micronutrients
Potassium: the other half of the salt story
EFSA sets an adequate intake of 3,500 mg a day. Most sodium advice quietly assumes you are also hitting it, and most Europeans are not.
Micronutrients
Omega-3: the number is 250 milligrams
EFSA's adequate intake for adults is 250 mg of EPA plus DHA a day. That is two portions of oily fish a week, and almost nothing else on the shelf.
Micronutrients
Calcium without the dairy aisle
EFSA's reference intake is 950 mg a day for adults over 25. Dairy is the easy route there, and it is not the only one.
Micronutrients
Iron: who actually runs short
EFSA sets 11 mg a day for men and 16 mg for premenopausal women. The gap between those two numbers explains almost everything about iron deficiency.
Micronutrients
Vitamin D and the northern winter
EFSA's adequate intake is 15 micrograms a day for adults — a figure set for the case where your skin is making none of it. Between October and March in northern Europe, that is the case.