Why we need a multivitamin each day…….
When I was in my first year of my naturopathy degree I was a very idealistic, fit and healthy vegan. I thought everyone can be healthy just by eating wonderful organic vegan food and that would also heal the planet.
While that is all a very romantic and simplistic way to view the world and the culinary woes of people – I did become a bit less rigid and a bit more realistic…….
I would sit through my first two years of nutrition class and wonder how much our nutrition lecturer was getting paid by the vitamin companies to teach us about each vitamin and how much of a dose we needed to take for various ailments or general health. I would roll my eyes when she mentioned soy milk and ‘So good’ in the same sentence and wonder why everyone didn’t just make their own soy milk like I did as a ritual every Sunday evening. It wasn’t too hard – only took a few hours really!
I was the kind of vegan who thought everyone should be a vegan and I wouldn’t even wear leather or eat honey. Don’t get me wrong I loved that period of my life and I wouldn’t change it – I learnt my best health lessons in that period – though after a hard grief period of my life and I guess growing up through life experience I relaxed a bit and started to enjoy different foods and I felt really good with egg protein. Anyway where I’m trying to get to is that I also started experimenting with taking good quality multivitamins and was so surprised. I mean I thought I was really healthy and I was full of energy and slept less than six hours per night, but I felt so much better with a multivitamin each day. Why was this so?
Well with a bit more research and open mindedness I felt a little light globe go off in my head one day! –
Just a mere 50 years ago there was 70% more nutrients in the soil on average. That is an enormous difference in such a short time. Well our modern chemical based farming methods have fed a lot more people…….but at a price!
So what that means in real terms and buy it. Sometimes we wash it and eat it – but other times we cook it into a stew and put it in individual soft plastic containers (that leach xeno-oestrogens but that’s a topic for another blog post) and freeze it. Three months later we pull it out and microwave it and have it for dinner. And we expect it to nourish us! Do you get the picture?
The above example is about a carrot – a fairly natural food – what about all the food we consume that comes in boxes and has had a variety of processing? Do we really expect it to provide every bit of nourishment our body needs?
Plodding along with an average diet can be certainly enough to keep you in okay health if you are generally healthy. However, if you’re a growing child, going through puberty, if you’re pregnant, breast feeding or going through menopause, if you’re a busy parent, then I really do believe you need some added help in the form of a good quality multi vitamin and mineral complex.
I generally eat well at least 80% of the time – this constitutes, gluten free, probiotic foods and as much organic produce as possible, but I really notice it when I forget to take my Male Essentials multivitamin.
Here is some great information about good quality Multivitamins – http://www.mynaturopathchristos.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/why-good-multivitamin-counts.pdf
Give yourself the month long challenge – Do you generally feel better when taking a good quality multivitamin for a month?
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