RDI - Recommended Daily Intakes

Do you read labels when shopping for food?  Do you take any notice of the RDI recommended daily intake percentages?  Do you understand how they apply to you?

For a while now I have been meaning to look into the concept of these recommended intakes and how they actually apply to me and to others.

Most nutritional panels that list RDI's base the % on a daily kJ intake of 8700 kJ but with 3 in 5 Australians (that's over 12 million people) being overweight this is probably more than is required for most people.

For example I need to loose another 5kg which means I need only 6900kJ per day and once I reach that target I will only need to 8500kJ per day to maintain that weight based on my current rate of exercise.
Hubby on the other hand has a very physically demanding job and needs 13500kJ per day just to maintain his weight.  This has been very apparent recently as he has just finished working 14 days in a row and has lost 6kg in that 2 week period.

To calculate how many kJ you need click here and calculate

In today's society it is fairly common place to see people sitting down for a cup of coffee with something on the side such as a muffin, biscuit or piece of cake.  

But I don't think many people would be aware of the exercise you need to do to offset the kilojoule intake of what does not seem to be an extravagant treat.

To offset the energy intake from a capppucino and muffin you would need to run at a high intensity for 20 minutes,  or at a moderate rate for 35 minutes, or walk for 81 minutes.

What I find frustrating is that on many nutrition panels the ingredients that have an RDI % listed often do not list the % for the items I feel are most important such as salt and sugar.  The panel in the picture above came from a box of wheatbix and as you can see  it contains 81 mg per serve (2 wheatbix). An adequet daily intake of between 460 - 920mg and a recommended intake of up to 1600mg per day is what is recommended (National Health and Medical Research Council).

That means that at the lowest range of the scale just 2 Wheatbix is already providing 17.6% of your RDI as an adult and based on the higher intake it is 5% of your RDI.  Are you surprised?

I really encourage you to work out what your actual kJ requirement is because it will make using the nutrition panels really work to your benefit.

How do you feel about the RDI information?  Do you use it?

Do you know How many kJ's you need?