You can figure out the RDA of fiber protein and water you need to consume at the USDA Healthcare Professional Quiz.

I stumbled on this quiz last week and I do not know how the USDA arrived at these numbers to give professionals. You can take the quiz even though you’re not a professional.

The thing is I’m skeptical of the results. The USDA is known to often be headed by industry folk not non-biased government officials. I’ve read in the book Uncertain Peril about the danger of industrial agriculture that the heads of Monsanto and other companies routinely go in and out of heading the USDA.

My RDA count is as follows from the above quiz:

21 gm fiber     40 gm protein     11 cups water / per day

I’m skeptical because in the 1990s the M.D. I saw who had a private practice in nutrition told me to have 50 gm of protein / per day.

The Harvard Protein RDA guide is here. Multiple your weight in pounds by 0.36. That gives me 43 gm protein.

From what I’ve also read within the last two years you’re supposed to divide your weight in half to get the number of gm of protein each day. And you’re also supposed to do this for the number of cups of water each day.

Here’s the Mayo Clinic Guide Water RDA.

Here’s the Mayo Clinic Fiber RDA:

Age 50 or younger:                    Age 51 or older:

Men: 38 gm                                  30 gm

Women: 25 gm                            21 gm

As you can see there’s different RDAs depending on which calculator and which “expert” opinion you believe. You can’t trust those diet books that people who are not professionals write. The last I counted at a public library in the diet section [613.25] there were a total of 30 diet books on the shelves. Thirty diet books!

I didn’t ever go on a diet when I wanted to lose weight. I read books on nutrition and changed how I ate one food at a time. I have also always done some form of exercise since I was a freshman in high school.

In my estimation the resources and sources I’ve listed above do seem like reputable guides to the RDA for fiber protein and water. The USDA guide for my fiber RDA was in line with the Mayo Clinic guide.

This should all reassure us that we don’t have to consume tons and tons of fiber protein and water just a realistic amount linked to our weight in pounds and other individual factors.

In coming blog entries I’m going to list types of common food and the gm of fiber and protein they have.

Indeed we can all can having orange juice not only because of its sugar. An actual orange as opposed to orange juice has 3 gm fiber for a medium orange. Orange juice of course does not have any fiber.