Whole food nutritional supplements offer better health benefits than isolated vitamins and minerals
April 28, 2005 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, editor of NaturalNews
Key concepts: food, nutrition, vitamins
In the natural health community, what we've learned over the years as scientists and observers of human nature is that the human body is not designed to consume isolated nutrients and use them effectively. It must take in a full spectrum of supporting complementary nutrients as they exist in nature. So, for example, lycopene is one phytonutrient found in tomatoes that is well known to help prevent prostate cancer. But, in fact, if you take lycopene by itself, it's not going to have nearly the positive effect of eating whole tomatoes or taking whole-food concentrates made from dried organic tomatoes. So getting these minerals in their full-spectrum natural ratios (ratios which they're found in nature) is very important.
It's also important to consider the density of these nutrients. If I were to ask you to eat 10 fresh tomatoes at one serving, you probably wouldn't be able to get through more than five or six without feeling full. That's because tomatoes have a lot of water, and they fill you up quickly. So you wouldn't be able to get much nutrition from those tomatoes if you ate them raw. Certainly, they're good for you in their raw form, and that's the best way to eat them, but that's not going to meet your nutritional needs.
In contrast, if you were to take these 10 tomatoes and dry them, and then grind them up into a powder, and then shape that powder into capsules or tablets and consume those, you could easily eat those 10 tomatoes and enjoy all their nutritional benefits. It's all about the density of nutrients. But let me be clear: I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't eat raw tomatoes or other whole foods; what I'm saying is that raw foods are good for calories, but getting outstanding nutrition requires consuming whole food concentrates. Personally, I eat them both: fruits and vegetables for enjoyment and calories, combined with whole food concentrates for nutrition.
Avoid isolated vitamins and minerals
I also recommend that you move away from isolated vitamins and minerals. So forget about those cheap, low-cost bottles of vitamin C, vitamin E or those B vitamins you might find at the wholesale clubs, pharmacies or grocery stores. These are typically not going to do you very much good, because your body doesn't need just vitamin C; your body needs a whole complement of vitamins from a lot of different sources. If you want vitamin C, go with whole-food concentrates. You'll get plenty of vitamin C in a full-spectrum package that gives you antioxidants, phytonutrients, and cancer fighting compounds all at the same time; and none of that is actually listed on the label.
For example, if you buy the Alive Whole Food Energizer, you're not going to see on the label a listing of the B vitamins, the C vitamins, the antioxidants and so on, because it's not broken down like that. It just tells you what foods were used to make the product. From there, you have to understand that those foods provide those nutrients and much more in a full spectrum of great nutrition.
It's also important to take these supplements from several different sources. You don't want to take superfoods every day and rely on that as your only source of supplemental nutrition. You don't want to take only the Alive! Whole Food Energizer supplement and rely on that. You don't want to rely on any one brand; you want to have a variety of nutritional products so that you're getting whole food sources from three or four different manufacturers on a daily basis. This is the best way to be sure that you're getting a full complement of fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, microalgae, and other food sources that can provide peak nutrition for you.
High-density whole food concentrates provide real nutrition
In the world of holistic nutrition, we take whole foods from nature that are grown organically, or we take microalgae and other superfood supplements, and we dry them, grind them up, put them into powders, and then encapsulate those powders or shape them into pills or tablets. That's the way to get your nutrition in the modern world. That's the way healthy people do it, and that's the way I've been doing it for years. I can't imagine living a single day without taking dozens of nutritional supplements made from whole-food concentrates. They aren't pills or medicine, in my view: they're just high-density food.
This article is a content segment from the book, the Five Habits of Health Transformation by Mike Adams. The book covers the five most effective, yet effortless strategies for enhancing health. Written for busy people, it explains how to get the greatest health results possible with the least investment in time, money or effort.
About the author: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, is the editor of NaturalNews. Author of over twelve books, and fifteen hundred articles on natural health, Adams is widely considered the most prolific writer on natural health today.
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