Whole Food Supplements

Many Americans believe in the value of taking a multivitamin. However, many do not take the right type of multivitamin to complete the nutritional gap within their diets. As a nation, we eat poor-quality foods that have been stripped of nutrients. We do not consume enough fresh fruits and vegetables. Many of us get our whole grains from instant rice, refined wheat bread, pasta, and cereal. We eat a tremendous amount of prepacked, pre-made meals and one-quarter of Americans eat at fast food restaurants each day. Suffice it to say that the eating habits of many Americans leave much to be desired and as a result, many are undernourished and over-fed. This shows up as increased sickness and diseases. Conditions like diabetes type II, obesity, high cholesterol, circulation problems, anxiety and depression, insomnia and many other conditions can have a nutritional component. We are learning more each day about the role of nutrition in health and prevention of disease. But how do you choose the right supplement?

Most vitamins found in the stores today are known as isolates. This means that they contain an isolated form of a vitamin or it may be a combination of isolated vitamins packaged together. These isolated vitamins may be synthetic (produced in a lab) or they may be so-called natural, meaning that they were derived from a natural source. It is not unusual to find extremely large doses of those isolated vitamins-much larger than you would ever find occurring naturally in food. These typical “complete” multivitamins contain only a fraction of the components found in food.

Whole food supplements, on the other hand, provide nutrients as nature intended-in a whole food form. In this way, you receive more of the nutrients the whole food provides, rather than incomplete isolated components of foods. In our office, we offer Standard Process. One product, Catalyn, is made from 15 different food sources. Every food in Catalyn supplies a full list of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, even those that haven’t been discovered yet! The nutrients in foods work together to provide the body the tools it needs to maintain optimal health.

The body has an amazing capacity to heal itself but it must have good nutrition. This means eating a healthy diet that includes fresh fruits and vegetables daily. It means eating healthy sources of grains and avoiding highly processed wheat and flour products. It means eating the right amount of protein from a good source. It means restricting the amounts of processed foods and fast-food eaten. It means limiting the sweets and sugars in the diet. And it means taking high-quality whole food supplements.