Recommended dietary allowance

Expert-set nutrient intake levels judged sufficient for practically every healthy person, the word allowance signaling guidance rather than rigid law. They build in margins for individual variation and nutrient bioavailability, and they rest on scientific consensus that is re-examined as knowledge grows. Dietitians and policymakers use them to design labels, institutional menus, and nutrition programs, with values tuned by age, sex, pregnancy, and lactation. They are planning benchmarks for groups, not prescriptions for any single person’s optimal intake. They are periodically revised as nutrition science advances and new evidence emerges.