I’m curious how necessary some nutrients are. To be more specific what nutrients will we see an immediate negative response if we don’t get them? Also for simplicity’s sake assume this is for the average healthy person.
Electrolytes and macros are probably all you need to worry about daily. Everything else should come naturally if you are eating a balanced and varied diet, unless you experience malabsorption for one reason or another.
Maybe water soluble vitamins need to be consumed with more regularity, though some like B12 can be held on to for a long time before being depleted.
Obviously if you are on a restrictive diet of any kind, you need to be mindful of which nutrients are less prevalent for you.
If you are not eating several servings of vegetables per day you are probably going to develop longterm deficiencies in various micronutrients.
People say “eat a balanced diet” and that is true, but “balanced” should mean “naturally balanced” and not “balanced amounts of the typical american diet”.
You can eat all the bread, pasta, processed sandwich meat and snack foods, and corn products you want, but you will still be missing key micronutrients that will show up over time as mildly annoying to serious chronic conditions, from skin inflammation to vision impairment.
Most Americans are not getting a good Omega 3 - Omega 6 ratio, and most Americans are getting too little folate, zinc, magnesium, fiber, etc. even with fortified foods like cereal and bread.
Multivitamins are very sub-par as well, and they are more of an assurance and not a solution to the problem.
Tldr: eat a few handfuls of veggies, seeds, fruits, nuts everyday if you want optimal health.
I haven’t learnt much about what ‘should’ be taken. I have tried to learn about a lot of nutrients which help us.
I think the particulars here are going to depend on any specific individual needs, especially related to things like intense athletic activity or particular kind of ill health. But overall, I’m a pretty big fan of Michael Pollan‘s advice on this. “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.“ people have been doing that for a long time, even before cars and stuff! And it seems to work well. 😉
A balanced diet includes all the health benefits and of course the nutrients and minerals need by the body to survive.