The Case For Taking Vitamin & Mineral Supplements
Many people feel they eat a healthy diet and don’t need to supplement. There are many reasons you are not getting all the nutrition you think you are even if you have the “perfect” diet.
Vitamins and minerals are essential elements for all of our bodily functions and disease prevention. Many people believe they can get all of their nutrient needs from food. They may have been true a few hundred years ago, but not anymore.
Let’s explore the reason why:
*Soil nutrients are being depleted
Decades, even centuries, of agriculture have depleted the soil of its nutrients. The plants absorb nutrients from the soil as they grow. If there are little nutrients in the soil, there will be just as little in our food.
*We don’t digest our food efficiently.
With today’s fast paced life, we inhale our food and don’t chew it thoroughly before we swallow. The stomach cannot digest whole pieces of food. As such, the nutrients in these pieces of food just get passed out (hopefully) without the nutrients being utilized.
Try chewing your food until it is liquefied. Digestion begins with the enzymes in your saliva. Eat slowly and enjoy your food. You will eat less and enjoy it more, keeping you from over eating and craving more food later.
*We overcook our food.
Cooking food, specifically vegetables, leaches nutrients from the food. It becomes dead food with dead nutrients. To get optimal benefit from your food eat it raw or juice it.
*Limited food selection
Unlike our ancestors who ate dozens of different vegetables, nuts, seeds, roots and lean meats everyday, we get stuck in a food rut and typically eat just a handful of veggies, a couple fruits and a few meats. That keeps us from the broad spectrum of nutrients our body needs.
Try more variety next time you are at the grocery store. Eat a variety of colors of vegetables. Incorporate nuts and seeds into your snacks.
*A Toxic Body
A body that has plaque formed along the walls of the intestines and colon is not going to absorb food efficiently. Essentially the walls are blocked and the nutrients go unused. Use a good intestinal cleanse to thoroughly clean these blocked walls and the nutrient absorption will improve.
Although we’d like to think we get all the nutrients we need from our diet, in today’s society, it just doesn’t happen. It is best to supplement with a daily multi-vitamin & mineral source. Liquid supplements are ideal because they have a higher and more immediate absorption rate.
Deb Hoeve publishes a daily coaching newsletter offering unique approaches to weight loss and health restoration using the healing power of the body. Designed especially for people who have tried everything. Find out how you can finally achieve weight loss success and renewed health at http://www.MakeYourBodyLast.com . Also visit her blog for other health insights at Make Your Body Last Blog
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deborah_Hoeve
July 9, 2008 No Comments
Vitamins For Your Kidney
Vitamins are so significant to the whole metabolic functions of the body. Vitamins participate in controlling the body’s aptitude to burn fat and sugar for energy, and form proteins for growth. If vitamins are inadequate, these reactions are not appropriately harmonized, along with can lead to skin lesions, muscle weakness, fatigue and nerve pain. These can be indications that vitamin supplementation may be needed.
Practically all vitamins and minerals originate from the foods you eat. Your body does not make these substances. Healthy individuals who can eat foods from all the food groups eat diverse meats, grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products. Your kidney diet restricts a number of food groups. Thus, you may not be finding all the vitamins and minerals you necessitate every day. It might be essential for you to get particular sums of several vitamins and minerals in the kind of supplements.
The human body, In accordance with the Institute of Medicine, requires minimally 13 vitamins to run well. Pursuing a balanced diet is the favored way to obtain the suggested sum of these vitamins. Sufficient of some vitamins frequently cannot be acquired by individuals with kidney disease.
A number of vitamins should be restricted or even evaded since levels build up in the body as the kidneys break down. Some kidney patients require supplementation of some vitamins, but not others. Actually, supplementation with some vitamins might give damaging effects.
Vitamins fall into two groups, i.e fat soluble and water soluble. Water soluble vitamins do not upsurge in the body and should be substituted every day from the diet. Chronic Kidney Disease patients have greater requirements for some water soluble vitamins. Exceptional renal vitamins are typically laid down to kidney patients to give the extra water soluble vitamins required. Renal vitamins include vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12, folic acid, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin and a small dose of vitamin C.
Early flourishing management of infectious disease really lessens the possibility of renal failure. Saturation with vitamin C is so valuable, broad-spectrum management for infectious diseases. Vitamin C does not lead to kidney problems but precludes them. For instance, vitamin C discontinues the creation or oxalate stones, and really dissolves phosphate and struvite kidney stones. If kidney failure is supposed, visit your doctor early on and maintain that vitamin C therapy is working.
If you have more inquiries, be sure to talk to your kidney doctor or dietitian. They can aid you find out regarding your vitamins and mineral supplements. Your social worker might be able to reply inquiries in relation to how to pay for your supplements.
If you want to get some excellent resources on kidney, please visit my site on You and Your Kidney or Kidney Vitamins
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mc_Raflesia
June 28, 2008 No Comments
Whole Food Vitamins and Why You Need Them
Okay, so you’re in the market for one of those “once daily” vitamins that you’ve always heard about, and seen on TV. Well, before you go out, spend some of your well earned cash (that you’ll be wasting on gas) why don’t you look into a healthier choice, and one that will do your body much more good. Try some whole food vitamins.
Why You Need Whole Food Vitamins
It’s no use denying that whole foods are one of the healthiest ways to get the recommended and needed amounts of nutrients in your body. Whole foods are something that your body is designed to digest, absorb, and use. They are the necessity that might be missing in your daily intake of nutrition.
Whole food vitamins work in a very similar way, which make them much better (in many ways) than conventional vitamins. Typically, natural whole food vitamins are a great way to get natural ingredients into your body that otherwise you might not find.
A good whole food vitamin can also be a great way to supplement a diet that you’re on if you don’t want to add a boat load of calories to your daily intake. They also come in a variety of delivery systems from liquid whole food vitamins, to pills, and even shake powders that taste great!
So if you’re looking into getting a good multivitamin, or any sort of vitamin at the store, then you might want to take a look at a whole food supplement that you can enjoy. You’ll definitely be glad you did. Whole foods are one of the best ways to get your vitamins in; and your body needs them to operate effectively.
Give your body what it wants. Give your body a whole food vitamin.
Vitamins, Pills, Liquids, Powders, and Juices; how on earth are you suppose to decide what is actually healthy for you?!
I have the answer.
If you’re interested in learning how to obtain the maximum health in your life, then you need to go to WholeFoodValue.com to learn about whole foods and how they can help you live a healthier life today.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Erin_Lorra
June 25, 2008 No Comments
Mother’s Best Friend
Mother’s best friend, that’s what it’s called in Africa. If a nursing mother adds it to her daily diet, more milk is produced. A malnourished child eating it daily can regain his weight. This plant brings many benefits for the body and is easily grown in tropical locations.
The name of the plant is Moringa Oleifera, sometimes called the miracle tree because all of its parts; leaves, flowers, seeds, bark and roots has nutritional and medicinal uses. Not only that, oil extracted from the plant can be used as lubrication for delicate machineries like mechanical watches and clocks. It’s oil, which does not become rancid can also be used for cooking.
Moringa Oleifera is native to India, Arabia and Africa. It also widely cultivated in tropical America, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Malabar Malaysia and the Philippine Islands.
It’s also called with different names in different places. Malunggay or kamunggay in the Philippines, drumstick tree in India, benzolive in Haiti. Others also call it the horse radish tree because of its roots.
The nutrients, antioxidants from phytochemicals and medicinal constituents of this plant are too numerous to mention. A major aspect of this plant is that it is low in fat and carbohydrates. A gram for gram comparison to some of its nutrients with popular nutritious foods are listed below:
- Vitamin C: 7 times more than in oranges
- Vitamin A: 4 times more than in carrots
- Calcium: 4 times more than in milk
- Protein: 2 times more than in milk
- Iron: 3 times more than in spinach
Vitamin C can provide you with water soluble antioxidants and vitamin A provides you with fat soluble antioxidants.
According to a research done in Tanzania by Optima of Africa, Ltd., daily ingestion of 25 grams leaf powder of this plant will give a child the following percentage of recommended daily allowance:
- Protein 42%
- Calcium 125%
- Magnesium 61%
- Potassium 41%
- Iron 71%
- Vitamin A 272%
- Vitamin C 22%
In places where food is scare or if the cost of food is economically high, this plant can provide a good alternative considering it is easily grown in poor soil and can be planted in the backyard.
Some folk lore medicinal uses which scientists are beginning to confirm are the following:
- Juice from the leaves stabilizes blood pressure
- Flowers are anti inflammatory
- Pods can ease joint pains
- Roots can to treat rheumatism
- Bark can be chewed for digestive remedies
Other properties of this plant include: anti-fungicidal, anti-microbial and anti-cancer. The Phytochemicals glucosinolates and isothiocyanates helps in preventing lung and esophageal cancer and can also lower the risk of other cancer forms.
To treat minor cuts and sores, the leaves can be applied as a poultice because of its anti-microbial properties.
This plant can be propagated by either planting the seed or cutting a branch, 2 feet or longer, and then shoving about one third of the length to the ground. It can thrive even in poor soil.
This plant has little commercial use since anybody can plant it in their backyard. Only after a few months from planting, leaves can be harvested and ready to be eaten with all its nutrients and benefits for the body.
Plants where green tea and herbal teas come from needs to be taken care of and cultivated properly and the final product costs more. Whereas Moringa Oleifera can be planted almost anywhere. Truly it can be considered a poor man’s food source of essential nutrients.
Nature has provided us with this miracle plant, why not plant one of our own in our backyard?
The author blogs about antioxidants where you can find a topic on herbal green tea
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jess_Baad
June 17, 2008 No Comments
