DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS: ARE THEY REPLACING HEALTHY FOOD CONSUMPTION

 Today's Americans are looking for easy solutions to complex problems.  We purchase instant foods in our grocery stores, visit drive through restaurants for "service in a second," and when we become concerned that these quick fixes may not be serving our needs for adequate nutrition, we attempt to take care of the problem through still more quick fixes, nutritional supplements.  Do vitamin tablets and other food supplements correct the damage done through our negligence of healthy eating habits?  Do vitamin pills adequately replace whole fruits and vegetables in our diets? 

The truth is that whole fruits and vegetables offer more nutritionally than merely vitamins.  Many plant based foods also offer antioxidants, and have combination positive affects that only work when the ingredients are eaten together.  Isolating vitamins or other minerals does not offer the full benefit of either, and in some cases offers no benefits at all.

THE BENEFITS OF EATING A VARIETY OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Many fruits and vegetables have combined positive effects that are only active when the foods are eaten together.  In other cases, one food may compliment the positive aspects of another.  Even in a single food, nutrients must often be eaten in combination with others, to produce still another chemical that produces some needed biological affect in the body.  In other words, phytochemical compounds, vitamins, and minerals must be eaten in combination in order to have their maximum benefits.

TOXIC AFFECTS OF SOME SUPPLEMENTS

Some supplements can actually have toxic affects when taken in large amounts, while a person cannot eat enough fruits or vegetables to obtain the same negative results.  Thus, not only are isolated parts of whole foods often not helpful; they may even be poisonous.

OTHER PROBLEMS RELATED TO SUPPLEMENT CONSUMPTION

Perhaps the most obvious problem with replacing whole foods with supplements is not only related to what is not being consumed, but with what is being eaten.  Today's western diet is overloaded with poor nutritional foods that have high fat, and high sugar content.  Processed and refined foods from which the nutrients have been removed, leaving only empty calories, are common place.  Rather than change our unhealthy eating habits, we attempt to pop a few pills to solve the problem. 

Our total lack of appropriate eating habits leads to a multitude of health problems from heart disease to cancer, and more and more research confirms that prevention of these diseases is available through the consumption of five or more different fruits and vegetables daily, along with appropriate physical exercise.  The solution is not in a bottle of pills, but in a willingness to change our destructive lifestyle choices.