Heirloom vegetables grow more slowly and spoil much more quickly than modern crops. This is because modern crops have less nutritional value - https://jeroenvanbaar.substack.com/p/data-dispatch-4-the-falling-nutritional
That article recommends eating a better diet. Sure. Seems a bit idealist. Here’s some more actionable advice: everyone should take a multivitamin and magnesium glycinate. If you live somewhere that gets a winter take vitamin D too.
I’m speaking from experience here, I used to get sick every winter and my skin would get so dry it would crack and bleed. Take your vitamins.
If OP wants more detail, this is a good explainer: Water-Soluble vs. Fat-Soluble Vitamins
This doesn’t cover minerals, and I’m still pretty sure you pee those out.
EDIT Looking it up, minerals are complicated. Sodium, phosphorus, calcium, and potassium are excreted through urine. Many other minerals are actually processed by the liver and then excreted in the intestines, which is a very slow process. That’s why minerals can poison people - you actually can’t just pee out excess iron or copper.
Only a portion is a absorbed for sure https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683096/
That is why magnesium pills tend to be big. It’s wasteful I guess but it’s your bodies fault
Are there any countries that do serious biomedical science based regulation of vitamins? I’ve heard that for most people who are eating a varied diet and aren’t facing, like, idk, a diet made up of one or two elements or grown in severly depleted soils vitamins aren’t necessary.
Excessive calcium also tend to form kidney stones, so it is not completely safe either.