Think You're Eating Healthy? Think Again.

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Of course, it is always fascinating and exciting to discuss the “newest” nutrients that are getting the latest exposure in the media, such as CoQ-10, EGCG, Resveratrol and more. Without a doubt they are incredibly newsworthy, but the media loves “new news” and always seems to focus on the latest remarkable nutrients. Yet no matter how wonderful these newly discovered nutrients might be, they cannot compare to the importance of the foundational nutrients in our food or the role that all natural multivitamins play in the daily functioning of our body and our lives.

The basic vitamins and minerals that define our food as “nutritious” or that make up our multivitamin are absolutely and scientifically established to be essential to our health and the functioning of our bodies, and they literally comprise the very foundation upon which all life is built and sustained. Again, the latest nutrients receiving all sorts of media attention, such as CoQ-10, EGCG or Resveratrol, are certainly exciting and even life-changing, but the benefits of these new miracle nutrients are all built upon and dependent upon the foundation provided by the vitamins and minerals in our food or our daily multivitamin.

It is an inescapable fact, and part of their scientific definition, that our very existence depends upon the essential vitamins and minerals experts identified decades ago and have recommended ever since. Just because these nutrients are “old news” doesn’t mean they aren’t the most critical foundational health news you will ever hear in terms of diet and supplementation. In fact, because of changes in the nature and quality of our food, the decades old recommendation to supplement our diets with the vitamins and minerals we desperately need is more alarming and critically urgent than ever

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The decades old recommendation to take a multivitamin stems, in part, from the recognition that the traditional Western diet fails to provide adequate levels of essential nutrients. In recent years, the medical experts and organization recommending a daily multi-vitamin-mineral supplement have only continued to escalate and their voice has become virtually unanimous.3, 6 In fact, their recommendations only become more emphatic and obvious when one considers the latest data that is discussed below, which basically reveals that the nutrients we have always assumed are present in our food might not be there.4 It is truly frightening to consider that those of us trying to eat the healthiest diets are not getting the nutrients we expected, and that for the majority of us who don’t eat the healthiest foods, what little nutrition we thought we were getting we are likely not getting at all. The thought that our food is not what it is supposed to be is enough to make you sick, and essentially it does.

Contrary to the recommendations of experts, many people believe multivitamins are really only semi-essential, and the real determinant of health is whether you have a poor diet or not. This line of thinking is due to the current prevailing myth that a healthy diet can supply our body with all the vitamins and minerals it needs to function properly. First of all, most of us would have a great deal of difficulty identifying and providing a healthy diet and secondly, as mentioned above, the nutrients we thought were in that diet are just not there anymore.

Sadly, a healthy diet isn’t what it used to be and the data from around the world has only served to confirm the disappearing nutrients in the food we eat. Those of us who believe we are eating healthy are still not receiving the levels of vitamins and minerals we would have gotten from those same foods only a couple of decades ago. Experts have unequivocally discovered that the nutrient levels in our healthiest foods today, including fruits and vegetables, are now lower than they were in decades past.

Nutrient Levels DecliningnIt is a scientific fact that nutrient levels in foods today are much lower than the levels found in the same foods as recently as 50 years ago. This is not something that is happening over centuries, but within our lifetimes. In the December 2004 edition of The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 4 Dr. Donald Davis from the University of Texas reported on a study of the vitamin and mineral content of 43 vegetables and fruits, comparing that data to nutritional information from 1950. The team working with Dr. Davis found there has been a decrease in Protein, Calcium, Phosphorus, Iron, Riboflavin and Vitamin C over the last 50 years. Riboflavin content showed a dramatic 38% decrease, and Calcium significantly decreased by 16%. Dr. Davis expressed concern that there may have been declines in other nutrients as well, such as Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin B6, Vitamin E and Fiber, although he states that challenges with the data from 1950 make this difficult to confirm.

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Why Does this Happen?nThe reason for the declining levels of nutrients in our food is quite simple. The commercial interests behind food production and farming limit the nutritional value of the food. Instead of focusing on nutrients, farmers and distributors must focus on financial issues, such as cost of fertilizers, time to market, etc. Many factors play a role in this nutrient decline such as soil depletion, premature picking, chemicals and fertilizers, among others. Fruits and vegetables that grow much faster and look much better do not always nourish us better. Every year crops are grown and the nutrients from the soil are transferred into the plants. This depletion would not be a problem except that the minimum requirements for a plant to grow are much less than what we require to be healthy. In other words, it is not in the farmers’ best economic interests to provide the nutrients to the plants that we need to be healthy. Instead, the plants will get the minimum they require to grow and survive. Fruits and vegetables grown in better soil for us do not appear different and therefore cannot be sold for a higher price, so there is little incentive for a farmer to care for anything more than getting that produce to market as quickly and as economically as possible.

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Sensible SupplementationnIn other words, even the healthiest of diets does not ensure we are even close to optimally nourished. The research shows eating what was the perfect diet of a few decades ago is now in many critical ways only half as nutritious. As such, today’s imperfect diet isn’t just whispering for a multivitamins to supplement low levels of essential nutrients, it is begging for it. In short, the recommendation we have heard for the last decade or so regarding the prudence of a daily multivitamin is now even more urgent and compelling.5 Sadly, the only way we can truly make up for the nutrients that have been robbed and lost from our food is with sensible supplementation.

The Basics of Sensible SupplementationnMany of the multivitamins we see on our store shelves are formulated to provide 100% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI). As such, you are only getting the very minimal nutrient levels established initially by research that is now more than a century out of date; the USDA’s first dietary recommendations came out in 1894. The RDI was developed to help us avoid acute illness from a deficiency disease. In modern times we are no longer trying to avoid a deficiency disease, but to maintain our health and avoid degenerative disease. Decades and thousands of research studies later, it is clear that much higher levels, higher than the RDI in most cases, are critical to maintaining even basic health.

Of course, one must also consider the form and balance of the multivitamin to determine how well it can benefit you. For example, multivitamins in tablet form make it far more difficult for the body to digest and absorb the beneficial nutrients. It would make much more sense to avoid the stomach upset, additives and difficult absorption of a tablet and instead choose a fine powder in a multivitamin capsule. It is also important to note that it is absolutely impossible to get all the vitamins and minerals you need in a single pill and in most cases, those “kitchen sink in a tablet” products are not much more than a tablet full of additives with a handful of under-delivered nutrients.