Supplements in Your Daily Diet: Good and Bad Sides
As healthy food and proper nutrition have become increasingly popular, we’ve started focusing on filling up the holes in our nutrition in various ways. Some have started consuming massive amounts of nutrient-dense foods, like beets when lacking iron. Others, however, claim that if you just eat massive amounts of food, you’re getting the bad with the good, so the right way to go is through supplements. But why is there such a big debate around supplements and is there a definitive answer to the supplement debate?
Are supplements natural?
The biggest argument people make against supplements is that they aren’t natural and that you should be getting all of your nutrients through food alone. However, let’s unpack the statement that supplements “aren’t natural”. All the nutrients you might find in supplements aren’t created out of thin air nor are they grown in tubes. They are the exact same nutrients you would get from food, just isolated into a concentrate ready to be sold online via places like Gold Bee. So to say that supplements aren’t natural is similar to saying that pure fruit juice isn’t natural, which you’ll admit sounds a bit silly. So, this leads us to the next question:
Where is it better to get the nutrients from?
Nature all around us is extremely clever. It made fruit taste sweet and juicy so we’d eat it and get the fibers that come with it, and it’s made vegetables distinct in color based on the nutrients they provide, so we could easily recognize them. In this same way, all fruit and veg exist in symbiosis, where the nutrients within a fruit complement each other and encourage absorption. This is a process called bioavailability, and it’s the ability of nutrients to be absorbed in connection to other nutrients that might block their absorption. So, while the fruit is “programmed” to have the right balance of nutrients to allow you to absorb the most out of it, sometimes it isn’t enough or your body can’t absorb some nutrients from food for other reasons.
Not everyone can stay healthy on food alone
It’s easy for a perfectly healthy person to say that you should only eat natural, whole foods and you’ll be getting all the nutrients you need, but the fact is that some people’s bodies just aren’t capable of taking things from food. This is where nutrients can not only be helpful, but they can be life-saving. Including just one or two scoops of the Bulk Nutrients, vitamin and antioxidant mix can drastically improve the quality of life of someone suffering from cardiovascular problems, because those doses can just not be achieved by eating berries. It’s just like how pregnant women might take folic acid to make sure they and the baby remain healthy as they come to terms because, in our regular diets, there just isn’t that much folic acid around.
Why didn’t we need them in the past?
There isn’t much point in arguing that there are many things that we didn’t “need” in the past that drastically improve our lives today. Modern medicine is a pure miracle of science and the technology we live with every day is making our lives easier than ever. But the real truth behind why we need supplements today is that our food just isn’t what it used to be. The actual soil that we grow our food on is far less nutrient-dense than it was before and our food, while it might taste the same, doesn’t have nearly the same nutritional values. Is the answer just eating way more? Of course not. The calorie content stayed the same, while the amount of vitamins and minerals has decreased, meaning our food just isn’t good enough on its own anymore.
Should you be taking supplements?
That depends and the answer isn’t the same for any two people. While someone might be completely healthy by just having a balanced diet and their blood work always comes back good – not everyone is that lucky. If you’re not sure whether supplements are something you should consider, the best course of action is to talk to your doctor and see what they can recommend.
As long as you can live without supplements – you have no reason to take them, but don’t turn your nose up and discard them completely, because they might just one day be the thing you need to stay on top of your game.
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