Vitamins and Supplaments

I know pill popping, even vitamins and supplements, is the popular thing to do today. Are they necessary and should we be doing this?

Here is my two cents on the subject.
I do truly believe we should obtain our vitamins and minerals from whole food. To accopmlish this, you have to be eating real whole food, along with minimal to no grains and here. The other big reason for not eating grains is the phytates in grains are anti-nutrients. What this means is the vitamins and minerals are no longer available for you. They are bound in the phytates and flushed out of your system. At this point it does not matter if you are taking large amounts of supplements or eating healthy, you will not absorb most these nutrients.

On the flip side, I understand our food today is defiecent in vitamins and minerals. Between genetic alterations, soil depletion, being picked way to early to shipped from who knows where and then chemically ripped, there is not much left for the vitamins and minerals. Even if you eat a very healthy diet. So what do you do? Through in the the towel and eat what ever junk food you want?!

If you are then thinking about putting supplements into your diet to make sure you are receiving all of the nutrients you need due to not getting it all from your food, there are some things to consider. What type of supplements, chemically made or whole food? What company? Do you really need them?

What type, chemically made or whole food:
If you are going to do any type of supplementing, it needs to be whole food. Many tests have been conducted on synthetically made vitamins, minerals and so forth, none of them fare too well. In fact, frequently there is more harm than good done by these synthetic vitamins. We only have a basic understanding of all of the vitamins, minerals, phytonutients and  the synergistics of how all of these work together. When vitamins are synthetically made, you miss all of these very important benefits. Some of these synergistics could actually be why real, whole food is SOOOO good for us. Yes, vitamins and minerals are all important, but how they interact with each other and the environment they are in could be more important and where all of the protection comes from. So, take a real whole food supplement.
There can also be problems with the process of making supplements. Very briefly, out DNA has two strands. In nature one side of the strand is read to make all of the amino acids. When vitamins are synthetically made, the opposite side is read. The side nature does not use. We do not know all of the side effects of this. It is something to be concerned with. When we begin mucking around with nature, we can do some very nasty things. Stick to a whole food supplement.

What company:
I do not have to much advice on this one. I take a few supplements, one from the doctor and a few from my chiropractor. My Vit. D is from a company called www.biotechpharmacal.com. This is what my doc recommends. My body has responded very well to it. The supplements from my chiropractor are from a company called www.standardprocess.com. They are a whole food supplement, easily digested and I can tell the difference in my body with them. When you are looking into supplements, do some research about the company. Find out how they make their supplements, their processes, what ingredients they use, how they are grown, what other people say about them. Go to a health food store and ask questions. This is time to bring in your critical thinking skills.

Do you really need them:
Only you can answer this question for your self or your doctor. Look at your food habits, are they conducive to living a healthy, happy life? Or are you not so good with your food choices and need some extra support? Are you dealing with some type of disease and maybe you need some extra support to get through it or you can not absorb your nutrients due to your condition? You and your health care provider need to be the ones who decide what if any supplements you need.

One supplement I do recommend taking is code liver oil. You get your omega 3, DHA, EPA, Vit. A and D as well as other vital nutrients to your health. If you go to the Weston Price Foundation, they have some great articles on code liver oil and where to purchase it from along with dosage recommendations.

Hope this helps at least some. This is a complicated subject matter. One that needs to be waded through before charging ahead and wasting money. If you are not absorbing the supplements, you have some really expensive urine and who wants that?

Saving the world one stick of butter at a time.
Many of God's blessings be showered upon you,
Jenn