Here's the 'sense' of it, in a
sentence: The human body is designed to run on
food. Therefore to have the best possible
health, it requires the fuel it was designed to
burn. In other words:
food.
To get the best mileage and
performance from a car requires using the proper
fuel. The human body is the same except you can't
trade it in and get a new one. That makes it
even more important to give it the right fuel, to
maximize its performance and its
lifetime.
Knowing or sensing this, many
people enhance the fuel they consume in meals
with nutritional supplements. In
fact, nearly 52 percent of adult respondents in
a 2007 study said they had used some type of
supplement in the last 30
days.
To determine whether the
cents spent on nutritional supplements actually
makes sense requires a closer look. at these dietary
supplements. Here are some interesting facts
about these dietary
supplements.:
1. Any ingredient in a
nutritional supplement that's over the minimum
daily requirement is made in a laboratory and is not
a whole food. In other words, it was made in a
laboratory from some base chemical. Whole food
nutrition only comes from foods, and foods do not
contain more than the minimum daily
requirement.
2. The product you buy
from any
particular company is not made by that company.
Instead it is sourced from another company,
a 'contract manufacturer' -often located in another
country. Japan, China, Germany all have these
'contract manufacturers'. Since the standards in that
country are different (often lower) than those in the
US, the source product used by that company can be
contaminated (remember the Melamine-tainted baby
formula that killed at least six children and caused
some 300,000 others to become ill?) One industry
insider told me privately that there are only a very
few companies in the world that provide these
synthetic 'vitamins' to all the various
packagers.
3. The source material used in
manufacture may be the wrong one or of low
quality. The consumer has no way of knowing
this - and neither does the packager - because
no third party testing is carried out to ensure
quality of source
materials.
4. Many synthetic vitamins
start out their lives as base chemicals that are
toxic or can cause allergic reactions. This means
that even that expensive 'good brand' dietary
supplement you paid a lot of money for started out
its life as coal tar or nicotine or alloxal,
according to the Organic Consumer's
Organization,.
5. Most synthetic vitamins contain
other additives. One class of these is
called toxic 'flowing agents' such as
magnesium stearate or stearic acid. Another
common additive is common sand, which appears on
the label with its chemical name, 'silicon
dioxide'. Organic Consumer states the reason
for this is that it's "an expensive filler that
makes the bottle weigh more with the hope that the
uneducated consumer will equate weight with higher
quality)". In other words, it makes cents for
the manufacturer, not sense for the consumer
seeking better health.
6. A third category of additives,
including those labelled 'pure' and
'natural' are "natural" flavors.
Organic Consumer reports that this is a common
term used to describe "toxic MSG (monosodium
glutamate) used to disguise bland taste",
methylcellulose, carnauba wax, and or titanium
dioxide."
As you can see, synthetic supplements
make cents for their manufacturers and distributors,
but they do not make sense for enhancing the
performance and longevity of the human body, because
they are not the fuel the body is designed to
use.
A whole food diet and whole food
supplements are what make sense. And even
though they may seem more expensive when considering
purchase price only, when factoring in the
ineffectiveness and toxicity of synthetics, whole
food supplements actually make more cents - for
you.
You can access further information
about this at:
.
