MultiVitamins

I am sure to get some sort of flack for categorizing multivitamins in the harmful category, but I have compelling reasons for doing so! And more than just the fact that they give me migraines!

Follow this reasoning, ok? You are told that your diet is possibly deficient in something, so just in case you cannot eat healthy, you should take a multivitamin as "insurance" that you are getting what you need.

Gee, what a comforting thought. And what a misleading, damaging myth!

Here is the reality:

We eat foods with the naturally occurring nutrients stripped out, or that started out whole but have degraded with age and chemical additives. So we are starting out with foods that ARE in fact deficient in certain things.

Manufacturers, in an attempt to persuade us that we have nothing to worry about, "enrich" foods with additional vitamins and minerals. They pick the ones they think are the most important, which are not necessarily the ones that were missing in the first place. And they only pick a handful of them. Many of them will put in 100% of the USRDA of some of them. That means if you eat more than once a day, you are already going to be overloaded on some added nutrients.

Then you take a multivitamin, though heaven knows why you'd need to do that, because the vitamins and minerals in the multivitamin are the SAME ones that have already been added to your food! And practically NONE of the trace elements that you really need for improved health and systemic balance are included.

The end result is that you OD on specific nutrients, while never getting close to the ones that you are truly lacking in.

There is no substitute for good food. The only way to get a good balance is to eat fresh, whole, and simple foods. The more you do of that, the better balanced your body will be.

Multivitamins are nothing more than an easy out for people who do not want to take the time to eat right. And the worst thing is, the more unhealthy your diet, the LESS helpful a multivitamin will be! Don't believe me? Take a bottle of multivitamins, and compare the nutrition label with the label on a loaf of white bread. Still not convinced? Compare it with the nutrition label on a bag of potato chips.

Unfortunately, we are training our children from the time they are little to this attitude, and doctors and childrearing magazines do not help. They advise letting your two year old be as picky as they please, and then just give them a multi-vite to insure that they don't miss anything important. They grow up believing that as long as they take their pill, they can be as irresponsible as they like. Not that you should force a two year old to eat anything specific, but you CAN insure that unhealthy foods are not readily available, and offer a range of healthy choices.

The great thing about healthy foods is that if you even come CLOSE to a balanced diet, you'll get everything you need in abundance, and won't experience deficiencies unless they are created by other medical conditions.

The best source of any nutrient is the food that it is found naturally in. Most nutrients are found in a range of foods, so you don't really have to be that concerned about getting enough, as long as you eat whole and fresh as much as possible. The one time that a supplement is necessary, is when a deficiency exists due to specific digestive or allergic conditions - more about that in the Nutrient Deficiency page.

I suppose I do have a bit of a soapbox about multivitamins. But I believe my conclusions are sound.

Written by Laura Wheeler, Owner of Firelight Business Enterprises, Inc.