Every day we are bombarded with vitamin supplements and supplement company advertising telling us to take a pill, or take this patented nutrient. I am guilty of falling into the hypnosis of thinking supplements will help improve my overall health. To some degree, very short-term, there can be benefits. For example if you are having problems with constipation and you take a magnesium supplement you may find you are better able to poo. Also if you have low vitamin D levels and choose to take a vitamin D supplement (I find sublingual works best) that is a quicker way to increase your vitamin D levels. However, you are better off to get a little sunshine and eat good whole foods to increase your vitamin D levels and this will keep them there, but if you look at research for long-term benefits of supplements there have not been vitamin supplements that add up to prove LONG-TERM disease prevention. My mind has been blown from this discovery!
I just want to share with you some information for you to open up your mind. We forget eating whole foods is the PROVEN best thing for disease prevention and improving health (See “The China Study:” the only comprehensive study ever done on total nutrition). Most people will spend hundreds of dollars on vitamin supplements every month when they can eat plants that have even more nutrients than the supplements themselves. Not to mention the body utilizes all the nutrients in a plant more efficiently and effectively than trying to digest a synthetic vitamin. I think Mother Nature knows what is best for us. The thing that we are forgetting is you need the whole plant, the whole apple, the whole piece of food, for all the nutrients to work together and improve your health.
I follow a lot of research that Dr. T. Colin Campbell shares. He has written the book called, “The China Study” and a book called, “Whole.” I am also currently taking a class at Cornell with Dr. Campbell. With his research and research I've done it has been shown over and over again that studies done with vitamin supplements have not provided nor proven long-term disease prevention. The research does not add up. So I am here to share with you the importance of eating whole, real foods.
Try the following foods for 20 days and see how you are feeling. Just think 20 days to be healthier, happier & feeling lighter!
10 Baby Carrots a Day! Carrots are high in beta-carotene and you must eat beta-carotene to get the beneficial effects. In the 90's there was research done on supplemental beta-carotene which actually showed overtime to increase lung cancer rates. Remember, the important thing is to eat your nutrients and eat them as whole foods. Although I shared with you carrots are good because they are high in beta-carotene it is all the other properties in the carrots combined with the beta-carotene that make the carrot a complete healing food. As I list the other whole foods to eat think of them in terms of the carrot. You only get the benefits of all the nutrients, even the “super star” nutrients in the food if, and only if, you eat the whole food.
2 Handfuls of Baby Mixed Greens
1 cup of Berries: Blackberries, Raspberries, blueberries, etc.
1 Cup of Root vegetables: Beets, radishes, potatoes, etc. If it is pulled up out of the ground eat it! Do this in addition to carrots.
Tomatoes! You can even slightly cook them to bring out the Lycopene.
I hope this helps encourage you to eat more whole foods. If you take vitamin supplements just check out what proven long-term (meaning over 5 years or longer) benefits the company has proven. I will admit I take a few supplements but they are not all vitamin supplements. I think herbs may provide a different outcome but I am moving towards researching this over the summer. I take sublingual Vitamin D3, magnesium, omega 3, and a variety of herbs. I do not take a multivitamin. I will keep you posted on what I find. In the meantime check out the books by T. Colin Campbell. These books and the class through Cornell are where I have been getting lot of my information and I have been reaching out to independent labs and research companies trying to find out how they test vitamins and if they test the claims, such as, “improves immunity,” what I have found is they do not get back to me or they have said they just test potency. In other words if you vitamin says it has 1000 mg of vitamin C they make sure it is 1000 mg of vitamin C, but that doesn't mean it supports immunity. I looked up the product Emergen-C and there “immune support claims” is based on research done on oranges, yes eating the whole orange, not just the vitamin C in the orange. This is all proving to be very interesting!