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WHAT ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS?
Why would a person need to supplement if they are eating a diet of fresh, raw fruit and vegetables 80% of the time? After researching this question for about two years and reading everything available, I came to realize there are alot of supplements out there which we do not need, some that don't work and a small handful that will compliment a healthy diet by replacing the nutrients that are slowly disappearing from the commercially grown food that is most available to us in the grocery stores. How important are minerals and what is happening to them?
Minerals Rule
Minerals rule over all other nutrients. Vitamins, proteins, enzymes and amino acids, as well as fats and carbohydrates, require them for activity. Trace minerals (such as zinc, copper, chromium) are those needed in small or trace amounts by the body. They are no less important to the functioning of the body than are macro minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulphur and chlorine), needed in larger amounts.
There are 84 known minerals, 17 of which are considered to be essential in human nutrition. If there is a shortage of just one of these, the balance of activity in the entire system can be thrown off. A deficiency of a single mineral can negatively impact the entire chain of life, rendering other nutrients ineffective and useless.
According to Senate Document #264, 99% of Americans are mineral deficient. This document was published in 1936! The situation is even worse today, as minerals continue to disappear from our soils.
Where Have All the Minerals Gone?
Modern agribusiness farming methods, including the widespread use of N-P-K (nitrogen-phosphorous potassium) fertilizer, over farming, loss of protective ground cover and trees, lack of humus - these are some factors that have made soils vulnerable to erosion (through drought, wind and flooding). The result is reduced nutrient content of crops.
N-P-K fertilizer is highly acidic. It disrupts the pH (acid/alkaline) balance of the soil, as does acid rain. Acid conditions destroy soil microorganisms. It is the job of these microorganisms to transmute soil minerals into a form that is usable by plants. In the absence of these microbes, these minerals become locked up, unavailable to the plant. Stimulated by the N-P-K fertilizer the plant grows, but it is deficient in vital trace minerals. In the absence of trace minerals, plants take up heavy metals (such as aluminum, mercury and lead) from the soil. These toxic metals are then passed on to us through the food chain - and they are readily assimilated in the body deficient in protective nutrient minerals.
When trace minerals are scarce in plant bodies, they're scarce in human bodies and we then hold onto toxic minerals and traces of agricultural chemicals. Also, plants deficient in trace minerals tend to be deficient in vitamins and in protein, as well. It is primarily the amino acid component of protein from which neurotransmitters are made. These neurotransmitters have a huge amount to do with our mental functioning, as well as our physical health. Mineral-deficient plants are also protein-deficient plants. Between 1950 and 1975, the calcium content in one cup of rice dropped 21% and iron fell by 28.6% and protein content dropped nearly 11%. In 1945, wheat was 17% protein. By 1985, its protein content dropped to 9%.
Tables showing nutrient content of foods can no longer be relied upon, for minerals are disappearing faster than updated charts can be published. And, there is great variation in mineral content of foods grown in different locations and under different conditions.
Trace minerals, rapidly disappearing from our soils, play a major role in electrolyte formation in the body.
Electrolyte Loss
Electrolytes are mineral salts which conduct electricity when dissolved in solution. In the body, the bloodstream provides the fluid medium for electrolyte formation. Electrolyte deficiency or imbalance results in energy loss and fatigue. The disruption of balance or homeostasis that results leads invariably to disease.
Nature forms electrolytes through a transmutation process wherein inorganic colloidal minerals are changed into a more usable crystalloid form. This occurs when water cascades over rocks, picking up minerals from the soil, tumbles over the terrain and forms vortexes. Most of us today, however, cannot look to our drinking water as a source of electrolytes. We drink, by and large, from stagnant, polluted sources.
Such water is not only mineral deficient, but the minerals it does contain remain in the difficult-to-use colloidal form. Therefore, our best bet for obtaining unpolluted water that contains usable (crystalloid) electrolyte minerals is to purify our water mechanically (preferably through reverse osmosis) and add back the electrolytes. Be sure to select a true electrolyte formula, one that contains trace minerals in crystalloid form.
Replacement of electrolytes will balance pH and stabilize osmotic pressure (the force on the inside and outside of cell walls). This will result in significantly lowering the risk of infection, increasing digestive efficiency, restoring peristaltic action, increasing oxygen to the cells, reducing water retention, correcting neuromuscular imbalances, improving enzyme production, regulating blood sugar levels and hormonal production, "chelating" (removing) heavy metals from the body and increasing energy levels.
Dr. I. Gerald Olarsch, ND Susan Stockton, MA, CRC are the writers of the above articles 'Minerals Rule', 'Where have all the minerals gone' and 'Electrolyte Loss'
The above pretty much explains in a nutshell why we need mineral supplements. For similar reasons we need other supplementation. Vitamins, fatty acids, Iodine, digestive enzymes etc.
It came as a shock to me to find out that most of the vitamins we buy in the stores (especially drug store brands and grocery store brands and even some health stores will carry these brands) are not even extracted from food! They are synthetic! Man made! The body can't even use them in the form they are in! To me that's shocking! When I bought vitamins for my children when they were little I thought I was giving them healthy nutrients from nature!
If you want vitamins that are not synthetic, manmade mimicers of 'vitamins as they occur in nature', you have to do your research! You have to sort through the 'Carbonates, citrates, oxides, sulphates, chlorides and phosphates to find out which is a form that is actually usable by and available to the body. Scratching your spatula on a cast iron frying pan and getting the iron scrapings for the last 20 years does not mean your iron stores are fine. In fact, that is the type of iron (byproduct of industry actually) that is useless to the body for nutrition, in fact a person can get iron overload (overdose) from supplementing with the iron that is not usable by the body, it can accumulate to dangerous levels, it is the same with synthetic vitamin A.
Ascorbic acid is not vitamin C , alphatocopherol is not vitamin E and retenoic acid is not vitamin A. They are synthetic and man made. Here is some further reading on the topic of vitamins, 'synthetic' versus 'whole' and how it came to be that they should be man made!
Vitamins as they occur in nature can never build up and be toxic, when they are consumed in full spectrum (in fruits and vegetables etc.) as they do in nature, they work 'synergistically'. The body uses what it needs, some may be stored (calcium is stored and iron is stored (serum ferritin stores) and the rest is flushed out. However, when we take supplements we are consuming the vitamins in more concentration so it is good to follow the directions for usage to get the best results, 'more' is not always better, remember, vitamins and minerals in nature are 'trace' (very small amounts).
Because vitamins occur in nature in 'spectrum' I feel, based on what I have read, that is the way we should consume them as supplements. Taking only B12 might be a good way to resolve a problem such as depression or fatigue, for a short term but then the consumption should return to the full spectrum once the problem is resolved. I believe this because when vitamins are taken in their singular forms (taken away from the rest of the spectrum), one without the rest may not be letting the vitamin present itself to the body in an optimal form or be used optimally, in which case we might as well just take synthetic man made vitamins.
After mega reading and experimenting carefully with supplements this is what I have narrowed it down to for myself. You can read all the supporting information I have presented on my site. Some is my own interpretation based on what I have read and some of the information is the literature of professionals whose studies I trust and opinions I respect (which I hope I've remembered to give credit to all the Doctors and Scientists I have quoted by putting their names at bottom of the articles).
Omega3 fatty acid:
I believe that the fish (salmon, tuna etc.) that we could be getting our Omeg3 fatty acids from are too contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals, so I take Krill oil which I believe is a superior form. According to Dr. mercola a high quality salmon oil is a good omega3 as well. I found after I started taking krill oil that my thinking was much sharper and my mood more stable and those are just the things I noticed. Having levels of omega3 fatty acids continually available to the body is helping much more than just cognitive functions, even though we don't actually see or feel the effects, many other organs and systems of the body are getting lifelong benefits.
If I eat only raw fruit or raw vegetable I don't take enzymes, that's because the raw food comes with it's own enzymes to completely digest itself after it's been consumed! Eating raw vegetables (or very lightly steamed so as not to destroy the enzymes and vitamins) and fruit, leaves the enzymes produced by the body to do some of their other important jobs.
But if we eat like most modern day people do, our diet quite often consists of precooked or prepared (processed) food that has been cooked at high heat, treated with chemicals to preserve (longer shelf life) or denatured in some way to make it look better, last longer and taste better.
These processes make the food, what I like to call, 'dead food', there are no living enzymes to help with the digestion of that kind of food. When we consume this food the body has to provide the enzymes to digest it. If we on top of that, eat very large meals, the body cannot keep up with the production of the amount of enzymes required to digest large quantities of the 'dead food' . Pretty soon we have only partially digested food moving into places where nutrients are to be extracted, but can't be because the food is not in a form that is easily assimilated (usable) by the cells!
'Dead food' and over eating is where digestive enzyme supplements are very important. Coincidentally, I have read several times that over eating is one of the most detrimental things you can do to your body. We should stop eating when we feel satisfied not stuffed. Some other signs that can make us aware of when we should stop eating is if the food begins to lose its' intense tastiness ( isn't tasting as good as when we started eating). Eating slowly gives the body a chance to get the signal of satisfactory food intake before we are too full .
According to Dr. Batmangelidj (author of Water: For Health, for healing, for Life), drinking a glass of water a half hour before eating and an hour or so after eating, helps the body to prepare for receiving food and processing it.
It takes alot of water to complete digestion, in fact it is necessary.
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