How Vitamins and Supplements Work with your Diet - By: John Foley

There are many people who eat healthy most of the time, but think they don't need vitamins and supplements. They also think that you can get all the nutrients that you need from the foods that you eat. It’s possible that this is may be true in some cases, but more often than not, it isn’t. Researchers are learning all the time about new vitamins and supplements and how they work in the right doses to make our lives better. In most cases, you can’t physically eat all the foods that it would take to get the amount of vitamins and supplements for optimal health. So it is always better to take vitamin and supplements, even if you always eat healthy.

Remember, eating healthy means getting at least five servings of vegetables every day. If you can’t remember the last time you had this many vegetables on any given day, then you aren’t eating healthy. According to government statistics, only one in five adults get this many servings of vegetables every day. One out of five, they don't even eat one vegetable in a 24 hour period. If you have a salad for lunch every day, that’s a good start, but it still doesn’t come close to the five helpings you need seven days a week. If you only eat three meals a day, this means that you have to have two servings for lunch, and three for dinner. If you aren’t getting close to this, the best thing to do is to supplement your diet with the top quality vitamins and supplements.

Even if you do eat a lot of vegetables, you have to worry about where they come from. The quality of the soil where vegetables are grown isn’t More...what it used to be. This means that vegetables can be lacking in the amount of vitamins and minerals needed to maintain good health. The quality of water also has a lot to do with how nutritious the vegetables you eat are. It’s hard to say what kinds of pesticides are used on vegetables that come from other countries that have different agriculture regulations. The only way you have a chance at getting vegetables that may have the nutrients they should is to buy organic. Once again, vitamins and supplements will ensure that you are getting the right amount of nutrients for your body.

As a group, vegetarians are probably the healthiest eaters around, but even they miss out on some nutrients. For example, vitamin B12 can only be found in animal foods such as meat, chicken, fish, and dairy products. So vegetarians should be especially aware of their vitamin B12 intake and learn more about the benefits of these supplements and others that they may be missing from their diet.

The way you cook vegetables has a lot to do with the amount of nutrients they have when you eat them. Most nutritional books assume that you are eating your vegetables raw or at the very least, lightly steamed. That is the only way they can make the claims about the nutritional value of the foods they recommend you eat. If you boil, microwave, fry, or bake your vegetables, the nutrients become more depleted the longer they are cooked. At a certain point, they have little of their original value.

If you eat out more than three times a week, you are really cutting into the nutritional value of your food. Having a salad is okay, but only if it’s a dark green salad. Iceberg lettuce doesn’t count because it has no nutritional value. In fact, most vegetables at restaurants are so overcooked and over seasoned that they aren’t really very good for anyone. If your work schedule has you eating out every day, then you really need to think seriously about taking the correct vitamins and supplements.

If your looking into multivitamins, which is a viable option, you may notice that there are at least twenty two different vitamins or more in each dose. Each one of these vitamins does something for your system that is unique and also essential to keep your body functioning at a normal level. The best thing to do is take some time and look some of them up on the internet. You might be surprised at how necessary they each are.

Article Written By J. Foley

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