Both vitamins and minerals are also very important for optimal health. They work together with enzymes, special proteins that regulate all the biological processes in your body.
Each vitamin is not a single substance, but a combination of dozens (sometimes hundreds) of ingredients. For example, vitamin C contains ascorbic acid, ascorbigen, tyrosinase, copper, trace minerals, dozens of bioflavonoids, J factor, P factor, and a few other ingredients.
Food (orange, kiwi, strawberry, etc.) has all the ingredients of vitamin C. A capsule of ascorbic acid does not.
Minerals are naturally found in the earth crust, in rocks, mountains, and soil. Minerals in their natural state are inorganic (not alive) and are useless to us. Plants can take these “dead” minerals and transform them into the “live” ones, which is what your body needs. When you eat plants (or animals that eat plants), you get the minerals that are organic (live).
The fact is that even if you eat a good diet you still need additional nutrients, so you need to take supplements.
It may come as a surprise, but most nutritional supplements are not made from food. They are made from rocks (calcium carbonate, magnesium oxide, etc.) and from petrochemicals or coal tar (B vitamins) or corn syrup (ascorbic acid).
Fortunately, you can find nutritional supplements that are made from real food. They are made by removing water, which leaves all the nutrients intact. A raisin has all the same nutrients as a grape, except for water.
The first food-based multivitamin was produced in 1929 by Dr. Royal Lee, a dentist and a brilliant nutritionist.
If you look at the list of ingredients, you will not find synthetic ascorbic acid or d-alpha tocopherol (synthetic vitamin E). Instead, the ingredients are real foods, such as wheat germ, carrot, nutritional yeast, bovine adrenal, bovine liver, bovine spleen, bovine kidney, dried pea juice, dried alfalfa juice, mushroom, oat flour, and rice bran.
The reason for including organ meats is because they are loaded with nutrients, more so than the meat that we usually eat. In the past people actually ate the organs and even now there are many parts of the world where this is still done.
Because it is made from foods, this multivitamin contains every nutrient known and unknown (we are still discovering new important substances). The foods are mixed together and dehydrated using a patented low temperature high vacuum process. The end product contains live foods with all the important nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and co-enzymes.
Most of the supplements I use in my practice are made by a company founded by Dr. Lee in 1920s. It has 1,000-acre organic farm in Wisconsin where all the raw materials are grown, so they control the whole process from seeds to the finished product.
Because they are made from foods, these supplements have real vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.
Next time you think of buying a supplement, check the ingredients. If it is not made from food, put it back. To get more common sense information about nutrition, visit the site below.
