Why Take Vitamins?

Five reasons why getting all your vitamins and minerals from diet alone is not feasible

Many people believe that if they eat well they can get all the vitamins and minerals they need from their food. But is this really true? There here are at least five good reasons why you may not be able to get all vitamins and minerals you need from diet alone:

1. Nutrient depletion in soil. Today’s aggressive agricultural practices have significantly reduced the nutrients in the soil. The US Department of Agriculture says that fruits and vegetables grown today have 20 percent to 30 percent less vitamins than they did 50 years ago. According to a study conducted at Cornell University, the erosion of topsoil also significantly reduces the nutrients contained in food crops by as much as 300 percent.¹
   
   
2. Premature harvesting. Nowadays fruits are often picked green in order to extend their shelf life. For example, when tomatoes are picked from the vine before they ripen, the tomato does not develop the same amount of natural sugars as it would if it was left to ripen on the vine.² As a result, many of the commercially available tomato-based food products are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, which contributes to the global epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. In addition, tomatoes that are artificially ripened have significantly less carotenoids, especially lycopene, than those fruits that are allowed to vine ripen.³ Carotenoids are the natural plant pigments whose antioxidant properties are linked with reducing your risk of cancer.
   
   
3. Food processing damages vitamins. Most foods we eat are highly processed. For example, wheat is packed with vitamins, but after it is milled, ground, baked, etc. most vitamins are destroyed. Take a look at the nutrition facts on any packet of processed food and you will see that it has virtually no vitamins. A FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin reports that fruits and vegetables lose from 25 percent to 75 percent of their nutrients due to the heat used in cooking and processing food. Some essential nutrients, such as vitamin C, biotin, folic acid, vitamin B1 and niacin are even more vulnerable to processing techniques, which means the food loses from 80 to 100 percent of these essential vitamins.⁴
   
   
4. Optimal levels are higher than RDAs. RDA levels set by the National Academy of Sciences are the "minimum" amount of each vitamin you need to take in order to avoid deficiency diseases such as scurvy and beriberi. For your body to thrive you need "optimal" amounts, which can be much higher than the RDA. For example, the RDA for vitamin D is 600 IU per day and this may help you avoid rickets, but if you want to lower your risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, you may need to take 4000 IU a day.⁵
   
   
5. Medical conditions may lead to poor absorption. If you have specific medical conditions you may have trouble absorbing certain vitamins and minerals. This means that you will have to increase your vitamin intake in order to achieve the desired level of a given vitamin in your bloodstream. For example, celiac disease causes damage in the small intestine, which interferes with the absorption of vitamin D, iron and calcium.⁶
   
   

Food is best source of vitamins but it's not enough
There is no question that the best and primary source of vitamins and minerals should be your diet. I strongly believe that you should get as many nutrients as you can from food, but in most cases this is simply not enough.

For example, if your goal is to get the optimal amount of 4000 IU of vitamin D from food alone, you will need to:

• Eat 9 servings of sockeye salmon every day, or
• Drink 33 cups of vitamin D fortified milk every day, or
• Consume 100 large eggs every day⁷

Notwithstanding the prohibitive cost of procuring these foods, unless you are a human garburator, eating such quantities just to get the optimal dose of a single vitamin is not physically possible.

Assuming you can get the recommended 4000 IU of vitamin through a combination of diet and exposure to UBV light, you have 12 more vitamins to worry about. How much spinach do you have to consume to get all the vitamin E you need? How many oranges you would have to eat to get your vitamin C? As you can see, this can quickly become quite overwhelming.

What is the most practical way to get all the nutrients you need?
We recommend that you eat the healthiest diet you can possibly eat and then cover the remaining nutritional deficit by supplementing with a high-quality multivitamin.

References

¹ Pimentel, D. Soil Erosion: A food and Environmental Threat. Environment, Development, and Sustainability.(2006) 8: 119-137.

² Mikkelson, R.L. Tomato flavor and plant nutrition: A brief review. Better Crops.(89)2:14-15. (2005)

³ Kadar, A.A., M.A. Stevens, M. Albright-Holton, L.Morris, and M. Algazi.. Effect of fruit ripeness when picked on flavor and composition in fresh market tomatoes. J. Amer. Soc. Hort.Sci. 102:724-731.( 1977)

⁴ FAO Agricultural Services. Fruit and vegetable processing.(1995) Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/v5030e/v5030e07.htm.

⁵ Edwards, K. Higher Vitamin D Intake Needed To Reduce Cancer Risk (2011). Retrieved from http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/health/02-22VitamanD.asp

⁶ National Library of Medicine. Celiac disease.(2013). Retrieved from http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/celiac-disease

⁷ National Institute of Health. Dietary supplement fact sheet: Vitamin D. (2011). Retrieved from http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/.