Toss Those Bottles!
A customer of ours recently asked us to share tips on choosing vitamin supplements. We’re happy to oblige!
The first principle in selecting vitamin supplements is, in general: DON’T.
Simple concept, isn’t it!?
Now before we start an email war on this subject, let’s elaborate on our position.
First of all, we’d like to call to your attention that vitamin supplements have only existed for a few decades. The human race was getting along quite nicely in many ways before supplements came on the scene.
In particular, certain native cultures where the people ate an omnivorous diet (omnivorous means they at all kinds of things, a wide variety) of mostly raw (and of course organic!) foods enjoyed long life and great health. For more info on what these people ate, we suggest an excellent book to be found in the bookstore on our website: “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston A. Price.
If people could be healthy without taking vitamins, why should we take them now?
The usual answer is that today’s processed foods are no longer nutritious, so of course we need supplements.
Of COURSE processed foods are not nutritious. They have had their nutrition stripped out of them in favor of other considerations such as shelf life, marketing appeal, corporate profit margins, etc. Furthermore, processed foods are nearly always loaded with toxic chemicals, colors, preservatives and “flavor enhancers” such as MSG.
But notice that we’re not told the obvious answer, much more sensible than supplementation: we can simply eat UN-processed foods in the first place! Grab a tomato and eat it raw. It’s loaded with vitamins, minerals, natural anti-cancer plant chemicals, etc. Why take a pill for these things?
Now the second argument for supplementation: Modern foods are grown in deficient soils, so of course they lack nutrients. Thus we need supplements.
Of COURSE foods grown by “Industrial Farms, Inc.” factory farms lack nutrients. Typical corporate farms use dead fertilizers that have only THREE minerals vs. the 70+ that should be there. We need things like selenium in our diets to help prevent cancer, for instance. Forget about getting it from regular produce.
Furthermore, industrial farms are now typically growing toxic, genetically engineered “Frankenstein foods”. These may cause a host of problems, many of which are as yet unknown since adequate research was not done before these were released.
But again, we’re not told the fairly obvious answer to eat ORGANIC produce that is fertilized naturally (by critters), that has trace minerals, earthworms and friendly bacteria in the soil that help grow healthy plants without pesticides.
Now the third argument for supplementation: people today are in such a rush that they have notime to prepare whole foods, and most people don’t take the time for a leisurely meal, don’t chew enough to release the nutrients, etc. SO, of course they need supplements!
Whew, this is getting tiring! There IS an answer to this last point. If eating a good amount of fresh, organic, raw produce is an important key to health, and if this could be done in a way that was FAST and CONVENIENT, then people could actually adopt this healthful lifestyle.
But before we take that up, let’s mention the key things that are actually NOT GOOD about supplementation:
1. Supplements are nearly always synthetic, and not assimilated by the body. Most end up flushed down the toilet. Wasted money that could have been spent on quality whole foods.
2. Supplements, taken as they often are in arbitrary amounts, can actually create serious imbalances in the body and cause damage. For instance, a person may take massive amounts of Vitamin C and thereby create an imbalance of calcium. How is the body supposed to deal with megadoses of vitamins it was never designed to handle?
3. Supplements are not accompanied by their pals, things scientists call “cofactors” that assist the vitamins to do their jobs. One vitamin may have several or even dozens of cofactors in the whole food it comes from. The ONLY way to get all these is from whole foods!
THE SOLUTION:
Whole food concentrates.
Hope this helps!
Evan