Fish and Vitamin D

[Guest guest]

Hi folks:

I found another glitch in the data last night. Yesterday I noticed

that, according to Fitday, I was well short of the RDA for vitamin

D. That seemed odd as I had eaten fish, which usually puts me way

over the top of the RDA - but not today for some reason. I checked

Fitday's data which said that the herring I had eaten contained zero

vitamin D. Could this be right?

So I went to the USDA database to find out what I thought would be

the REAL story! And I wasn't disappointed! I checked the vitamin D

content for Atlantic and Pacific, cooked and raw, mackerel and

herring ....... a total of eight observations. What did I find? A

can of worms.

For these two fish species the USDA database only lists vitamin D for

raw Atlantic. And the amount listed is substantial. For raw and

cooked Pacific and cooked Atlantic there is simply no line in the

table for vitamin D.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Fitday (and presumably all the other

nutrition software too) takes that to mean it contains none, and

allocates zero vitamin D if the item you chose from the list is from

the Pacific (cooked or raw), or cooked Atlantic. But if you had

happened to choose raw atlantic you will be positively swimming in

the stuff.

So, if you are hoping to get an accurate indication of your nutrient

intake, and are eating fish, you had better be sure you specify an

item from the list that actually does think fish contains the vitamin.

You may remember that I found another glitch in the data for

potatoes. I emailed them about that. Naturally, as almost always

happens when it is an error, I got no response at all. When it is me

who has made the mistake I always get a very prompt reply!

Of course the issue this raises is: " How many other errors are

there? " I have not been actively looking for errors. I just tripped

over these because of what looked like anomalies in my nutrient read

out. Are all our data just GIGO? I hope not.

Rodney.