Hello!
Most of my first time clients come to me with a big bag of their supplements, pills, and antioxidant formulas. They spend a lot of money on them, and the more they pay for a bottle, the better they assume it is. In my experience, more then 70% of what many bring in, (unless they are from a whole food source), tests very weak on their body. This means the body does not want them, or they are actually causing some harm!
This article may be a bit long but I trust the information will be useful.
Our diet is 80% of our health, and unfortunately more than 70% of the American diet is some form of processed, nutrient deficient foods, (actually they are only by-products of food). This is not nutrition!
Many take a multivitamin to cover their bases, just in case they are not getting all the nutrients from their diet. This could be a good thing, but there is a caveat: Most vitamins are not made from whole food, and can do more harm than good!
Definition of vitamin/nutrient:
1. Any of various fat-soluble or water-soluble organic substances, essential in minute amounts for normal growth and activity of the body, and obtained naturally from plant and animal foods. 2. A functional unit. (Funk and Wagner)
That last definition is my favorite one. It states the simple truth. Life is made up of many functional units working together.
Most store bought vitamins are synthesized, synthetic, single units separated from the whole, and 98% or or so, are from petrochemicals! These petrochemicals have the elements of life in them from prehistoric animals but they are not functional units like living food. They can be processed in a laboratory as single units of a vitamin but tis is not what our body needs to heal and repair.
There are no single elements in nature’s food supply and the body does not recognize synthetic ingredients separated from the many factors in whole food. The body is made to run on whole food.
Imagine if you took a fine Swiss watch to a jeweler and had him analyze the parts. Now take a hammer and break that watch. All the parts are still there but the watch is no longer working. Next, take one of the tiny springs from that broken watch. Now, if you told me a bunch of those springs were the same or even better than the original working watch, I would probably think you were crazy. That is exactly what they imply with 99% of vitamins sold.
Most vitamins are just one chemical element of the whole food vitamin. They are made by pharmaceuticals from a dead source, like coal tar, or petrol-chemicals! They may have been alive thousands of years ago, but they are definitely expired now!
The body has to make up for the whole food elements that are missing, to create a functional unit it can use. This forces the body to use it’s precious reserves from the cells, and eventually those reserves can run out, resulting in a body even more deficient!
When it comes to vitamins, it is about quality, not quantity! The body needs everything in balance, just like it is in nature!
It is impossible to cram all the nutrients from whole food into one pill, especially if it is more than 200% of the RDA
Vitamin C is one of many examples. Most believe that Ascorbic Acid is the same thing as vitamin C. It says “Vitamin C’ on the label when we buy it off the shelf. But if you read the back label, it says ascorbic acid, or ascorbate, or other forms of that single element.
Ascorbic acid is only part of the whole food complex of vitamin C. It is simply the antioxidant that surrounds the Vitamin C complex to protect the many substances that make up Vitamin C: Rutin, Factor F, enzymes, trace minerals, and other essential components.
Many of these micronutrients have not even been discovered yet! They all work synergistically, (can do more together than alone), for the body to function!
Even if scientist could synthesize every whole food element, it would still be no better than that broken watch in the above example.
Even if scientist could synthesize every whole food element, it would still be no better than that broken watch in the above example.
To add insult to injury, they create mega-doses of these single elements which are way out of proportion with nature and what your body needs. So when you take a thousand milligrams of synthetic ascorbic acid, (there is no more than 20 milligrams in natural occurring vitamin C), you miss out on all the other wonderful nutrients in their pure form. It’s like eating a bunch of egg shells and tossing the egg!
Enriched foods are more of the same. They process real food, by homogenizing, pasteurizing, sterilizing, milling, canning, cooking or dehydrating. This depletes the nutrients so it lasts longer on the shelf. Even bugs and bacteria know there are no nutrients left, so they don’t even bother with it! That’s why they last so long!
Then, chemicals, dyes, artificial flavors, and sugars are added to make it look and taste like real food. Then, they ‘enrich’ it with these fractionated, synthetic vitamins to make it look nutritious.
More profits are made, at the expense of nutrition.
Check out this article on enriched foods: http://www.doctorsresearch.com/royallee.html
Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, digestion problems, and all the other maladies we have today, were not as prevalent 100 years ago. This is because the soil was not as depleted, most of the food was fresh and whole, and there were no chemicals added to the food supply.
What is the solution? Eating raw organic vegetables with every meal is a great start. Then avoiding any packaged foods that are ‘enriched’ with added chemicals, would be awesome! But in today’s fast paced environment, many would find that a challenge.
So to start, you could cut way back on packaged foods that are enriched, (that would eliminate most of the bad stuff). Also, eat more organic vegetables, and grass fed organic meats.
Get in the habit of having salads or some kind of raw vegetable. like avocado, carrots, apples, sauerkraut (not canned), blueberries, etc with every meal. You can also start juicing organic vegetables with a little fruit too.
Organic produce has been found to have 50-70% more nutrition than conventionally grown produce. (“Variations in Mineral Content in Vegetable’. Firman E. Baer report, Rutgers University)
If you want to take a supplement, make sure it is from whole food. There are not many out there, but just look at the label. If it has a long list of chemicals, (like ascorbic acid, alpha tocopherol, riboflavin, etc), and they are all 100% or more of the RDA, it is not from whole foods. You need to see a list of food on the back label, like organic broccoli, kale, berries, carrots etc. It is really that simple.
If you want to take a supplement, make sure it is from whole food. There are not many out there, but just look at the label. If it has a long list of chemicals, (like ascorbic acid, alpha tocopherol, riboflavin, etc), and they are all 100% or more of the RDA, it is not from whole foods. You need to see a list of food on the back label, like organic broccoli, kale, berries, carrots etc. It is really that simple.
There are also powdered green drinks made from organic fruits and vegetables. This can be a wonderful option for a busy lifestyle. Throw a banana in a blender with almond milk or coconut milk, a scoop of some green powder, maybe some collagen protein powder. And Viola, you have a nutritious shake that actually feeds your body! (See the links below).
Make sure you are getting good healthy fats like coconut oil, flax seed oil and especially organic, grass fed butter. Please see my article on Cholesterol.
I used to get a cold once or twice a year. Since I started taking whole food supplements, and eating withthe above suggestions, I have not been sick, despite everyone around me getting the cold or flu. Most of my clients experience the same thing!
It isn’t normal for us to have diabetes, cancer, heart problems, and even cavities! But, if we give our body the fake foods that are so prevalent in today’s world, it’s like supplying a carpenter with cardboard to build a cabinet. It may look good on the outside, but as soon as you put something on the shelf, it will collapse.
We can exercise all we want and make our body look good, but if we are not feeding it the nutrition it needs to rebuild and repair, illness is given a chance to rear it’s ugly head.
A body does not all of a sudden get sick! It slowly degrades until one more bit of stress is like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Consider the fact that most disease is just a long term nutritional deficiency that was never addressed, and it all comes together.
Every 14 months, 50% to 60% of your body’s cells are rebuilt. The other 40% of our body is replaced with new cells every 7 years. So it is never too late to switch to a healthier lifestyle and give your body what it needs. We can help it build better cells, which make up every organ, and also makes up your immune system, and create better health!!
Every 14 months, 50% to 60% of your body’s cells are rebuilt. The other 40% of our body is replaced with new cells every 7 years. So it is never too late to switch to a healthier lifestyle and give your body what it needs. We can help it build better cells, which make up every organ, and also makes up your immune system, and create better health!!
People have recovered from many diseases by changing to whole, unprocessed foods along with whole food supplements and a positive lifestyle! It will not be over night, but wouldn’t it be better to start a nutrient dense diet and healthy lifestyle, than to wait for illness to occur and take a bunch of medications? Most medications can be toxic to your body and suppress the symptoms that tell you something is wrong. Then you are then not treating the illness. You are just suppressing the symptoms.
The body is an intelligent, miraculous organism capable of healing any wound. It can kill foreign invaders, and detoxify itself. But it can’t function correctly if it doesn’t get the genuine replacement parts from whole foods!
A healthy, well nourished body is the best insurance policy you can have!
In Health and awareness.
Jill Coleman RN, Holistic Nutrition
Here are some good links for green drinks and general health info:
REFERENCES:
For more information on whole food nutrition check out these:
www.DrBerg.com
Great books to read:
‘Lick the Sugar Habit’ by Nancy Appleton
‘Empty Harvest’ by Bernard Jensen
‘The skinny on Fats’ by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon
I actually found this more enntetainirg than James Joyce.
Hello Melly, I am happy you found my blog site entertaining! Thank you for your comment. Please feel free to contact me any time for questions on health. Sorry for late reply!
Thank you , I have debilitating rheumatoid arthritis right now I’m on a 13 day detox vacation as all medications from Macy’s to pain medicines biological medicines altogether Henry in 167 pills go through my
Not not including whatever vitamins there are out there so I decided to do a 30-day detoxification medications
Thank you for your comments! A detox is always a good idea. Just make sure the ingredients are from whole foods, not synthetics. http://www.DrBenKim.com, http://www.Herbdoc.com and Dr Gundry are all great recourses on whole food supplements and high nutrient powders you can make into a health benefiting morning shake. I have found the Paleo diet helps a lot of people get healthier as long as lots of veggies and salads are included. Hope this helps. You can Google benefits of Paleo diets to get loads of info!