Many of us eat healthily, exercise regularly, sleep our required eight hours and try to keep our stress levels down by ‘not stressing the small stuff’ but in today’s world that’s often not enough to regain and maintain optimal health. There are many reasons why we should take supplements but here are the top three.
- Growing, Storing and Shipping of Fresh Foods
If we go back just 50 years and look at farming and fishing methods, we can see how much they have changed. Today’s intensive farming methods, both on land and in the sea, the use of pesticides and the introduction of genetically modified foods have all taken their toll on the quality of food we eat today. We don’t even know what long term effects these ‘new’ farming methods will have on our health. This will be determined by scientific studies conducted over the next 50 years.
- Storing, Processing and Cooking Foods
Many of the fresh fruits and vegetables that we consume are stored for so long that there are very few vitamins left in them by the time we get to eat them. There was a study done in California where they tested the vitamin C content of oranges that had been in cold storage for 4 weeks. The result – absolutely none left.
Processing also affects the vitamin content of food. Foods are usually blanched before they are canned or frozen. This process easily destroys all water-soluble vitamins such as C and B. Freezing for long periods of time can also deplete the vitamin content of food and, of course, cooking food also kills off vitamins.
- Stress, Eating and Digestive Systems
In this modern world, stress is a reality. Sadly, it causes our bodies to become lacking in minerals such as calcium, zinc and magnesium. Stress also takes its toll on our digestive systems, reducing our ability to absorb the nutrients that we take in.
Just these three factors alone show us the need to take supplements.