|
|
|
5 Fitness Myths That Are Responsible For Thousands of Fitness Failures
Unfortunately, many people are misinformed and are also misled by the many promises of the weight loss industry. Everywhere you look, you see or hear of people promising “Dramatic Weight Loss” with products such as “The Fat Trapper”, or...
Cheap and healthy nutrition plans
These days, with fast food being such a cheap and quick option, many people are neglecting the nutritional needs that their body's are crying out for. Without the proper nutrients and minerals, our bodies simply cannot function to their full...
Should You Be Cutting Back on Caffeine?
Many sober, law abiding people who would never dream of knowingly ingesting a mind- altering drug, actually consume one every day.
Before you say that you don't take any drugs at all, can you guess what mind altering drug is so common? It's...
Skip The Pesticide And Use Natural Alternatives
Skip The Pesticide And Use Natural Alternatives
By Jeannie Crabtree
For best health, it is important to keep your environment as chemical free as possible. With better weather coming up, consider this:
Many people do not realize that...
Tips to prevent heart disease and lead a healthy life
One of the greatest ailments that endanger your healthy life is undoubtedly the heart disease. As per statistics provided by the American Heart Association, 62 million Americans suffer from some form of cardio-vascular diseases like heart attack,...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why should you take Nutritional Supplements?
A busy lifestyle leaves little time for planning meals and cooking. It's far too easy to fill up the diet with empty calories in fast and convenience foods. Packaged and prepared mixes make life easy, but seldom provide all the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy. A good multinutrient supplement can help fill in the gaps in your diet when you're too busy to eat balanced meals.
But what if you eat a healthy diet? Do you still need to take vitamin and nutritional supplements? According to most experts on nutrition and the American diet, the answer is, quite honestly, yes.
Over the past ten years, scientists who study medical conditions like diabetes and coronary disease have all noted alarming rises in the incidence of those diseases. It's not just that there are more people being diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease. The profile of those being diagnosed has changed dramatically. For the first time ever, doctors are seeing significant number of children with adult onset diabetes and other conditions that were once thought to exclusively begin in middle age. Nearly every one of those conditions has been linked to diet and nutritional deficiencies. Why is this happening in a society as wealthy and well-fed as ours? The reasons are all wrapped up in our way of life and the changes to society and the environment over the past 100 year some nutriitonists argue.
One hundred years ago, most foods were grown and raised on small farms. Farmers rotated their crops regularly to get the best harvests because they knew that the soil needed replenishing in order for the food to grow healthy and strong. Their livestock was fed a varied diet because the animals were allowed to free range and graze at will. This meant that the meat derived from those animals contained the nutrients from the food that they ate. The vegetables and fruits that appeared on the dinner table had been sliced and cooked in the kitchen, not canned months or even years earlier. There wasn't as much of a need to add vitamins that processing robs from food simply because the foods weren't processed.
Farming has changed in major ways since then. Crops are grown in soil that has been sterilized and robbed of its
natural nutrients by overuse, insecticides, pesticides and chemicals meant to promote large, attractive fruits and vegetables--at the cost of vitamins and minerals. The natural fertilizers that kept soil healthy have been replaced with chemical fertilizers that contain only a few of the needed chemicals, and none of the enzymes that allow the body to process and absorb vitamins and minerals from food. Mass production and processing robs foods of still more nutrients. Cooking and canning and sterlization methods can remove or destroy as much as 90% of the vitamins present in a fresh peach or carrot. Even many foods that appear fresh are likely to have been sprayed with gasses meant to preserve their color and crispness as they travel across country. The end result is vegetables and fruits that contain a fraction of the vitamins and minerals that the same foods contained 100 years ago, much of it unusable by the body as it is.
When you add that to the fact that most Americans eat diets that are high on convenience and low on nutrition, the need to add vitamins and other nutritional supplements becomes very clear.
It's important to remember that taking nutritional supplements is not a substitute for a healthy diet. They are meant to be exactly that--supplements--to fill in the gaps that our lifestyle leaves in our diets. Most doctors recommend, at the very least, a high-quality multi-vitamin supplement daily, but nowadays sophisticated nutraceutical companies are producing products that go far above basic vitamins and minerals. These products may include speciality antioxidants that are much more powerful than vitamins, and other substances beneficial for health that won't be found in any typical multivitamin supplement, such as enzymes for digestive health, herbal extracts, or other natural supplements.
Whatever kind of supplement you decide to take, it's still important to consult with your doctor to let him know of your intent.
About the Author
Dan Ho is chief editor of one of the most popular resources for nutritional, dietary, and herbal supplements on the Internet, http://www.nutritional-supplement-info.com, which discusses their pros and cons, and how to choose a quality supplement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
