Do I need to take an additional mineral supplement since ALL ONE does not contain 100% of the requirements for copper (10%), potassium (3%), biotin (10%), Chromium (40%), Selenium (70%) etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the product…just a little concerned about the percentages above.

The Vitamin Professor Responds:

Dear Sue,

Thank you for your question and interest in ALL ONE.

The percentages you refer to in your question reflect the “Daily Value” or “DV” as set by the government based upon a daily diet that contains 2,000 calories.

To best answer your question it is good to first review how DV’s came about.

Back during WWII when the government was creating K-Rations, to feed to our troops fighting abroad, they wanted to come up with the “minimum daily requirement” (MDR) for various nutrients.  They wanted to insure that the food our soldiers were eating was not insufficient in certain important nutrients.  In other words they wanted to establish the “minimum” amount of each specific nutrient so that eating  K-Rations alone would not create any vitamin deficiency diseases.

Keep in mind the word here is “minimum.”

Over the years the name has changed but the amounts (with a few exceptions) have not.

The name went from “Minimum Daily Requirement (MDR) to Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) to Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) to now what it is called the Daily Value (DV).

Even though the name changed the amounts still reflect “minimum” levels.

A political point here is that large food processors lobby to keep these amounts low.  Then they can claim 100%  nutrition from their cereal.

So while it is true that you need to consume 60 mg of Vitamin C a day to prevent scurvy (a Vitamin C deficiency disease) our supplements are formulated for optimal health not simply to keep you from becoming scorbutic.

Labeling laws require us to list the Daily Value (DV) but it has very little to do with the research we reference when formulating ALL ONE.

Some nutrients in ALL ONE are  greater than the DI like Vitamin C (1,667%) because research indicates 1,000 mg is a more optimal level for than nutrient.

In some cases it will be lower, like copper (10%) because we get enough copper in our diet and too much copper is not a good thing.  Then again, some nutrients like potassium are lower because the government actually restricts us from exceeding 99 mg per daily dose.

If the amounts are below 100% it is because we feel we get enough of these nutrients in our diet and do not need additional supplementation.

Some very important nutrients like Lemon Bioflavonoids (Vitamin P) while important in the absorption of Vitamin C have yet to be deemed necessary or essential by the government and therefore there is no set Daily value (DV) for Bioflavonoids.

I hope this answers your question and addresses your concerns.