by Carol Jensen
Green Smoothies are quick to make, delicious, and of course, healthy. So why do many people opt to just take a food supplement instead while staying on a junk-food diet?
Perhaps you are asking yourself, if a one-a-day tablet can give us everything our bodies need, why not indulge a craving here and there and quit being so obsessed with eating greens?
The truth is that supplements DON’T deliver. Here are 10 reasons why whole food is better than popping a pill:
- Enjoyment comes through experiencing the many tastes, textures and colors of “real” food. Physical satisfaction simply isn’t attained in a capsule.
We have taste buds for a reason, and when we begin to eat the vast array of flavors that nature provides (not just processed, refined convenience foods), we gain an appreciation for the subtleties and richness of the harvest that the earth provides naturally.
- Taking a supplement does not stimulate an appetite for wholesome foods. Neither does eating a junk food buffet. The more sugar and fat we eat, the more sugar and fat we crave. But eating our vegetables makes us hungry for nutrition! That’s right, the more we feed our bodies the foods they really need, the more we truly desire a healthier diet.
- All the foods we eat, with their thousands of nutrients, many still unidentified, interact and support each other, creating a synergy for health, unattainable by eating isolated ingredients.
While we know that a single vitamin or mineral may be beneficial in a certain way, we don’t exactly understand how the body derives the profit from that substance. It may well be that countless other substances are required to release and activate the one. Taking solo supplements has not proven to offer the same advantages as eating nutrients found together in whole foods.
Whole foods contain fiber. Consider taking a pill to obtain all our vitamins and minerals and another supplement to fill our fiber requirements and still more man-made products to reduce cholesterol, control blood pressure, increase energy, and so forth. It wouldn’t take long to have a plate full of tablets. It seems backwards to “tank up” on over-the-counter products when we could just eat nutritional food in the first place.- Plant-based diets don’t contain the harmful saturated fats and trans-fats of an animal based diet. Individuals who use supplements to “fix” their nutritional shortfalls are still eating their fill of commercial foods such as chips, pastries, fast food burgers, shakes, and hot dogs that contain high levels of unhealthy fats.
- Experts recommend a healthy, whole food approach over a poor diet enriched by supplements. The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Dietetic Association (ADA) are among those who have formally declared that supplementation is inferior to eating a diet of unrefined, unprocessed whole foods. “The best nutrition-based strategy for promoting optimal health and reducing the risk of chronic disease is to wisely choose a wide variety of nutrient-rich food,” the ADA says. This statement comes in spite of ADA’s being sponsored by food companies such as Coke and Pepsi and VIACTIV Multi-Vitamins Soft Chews manufacturer Abbot Nutrition & McNeil Nutritionals.
- Much of the so-called nutrition in a dietary supplement passes through the body unabsorbed. Estimates of how much the body assimilates range anywhere from 8% to 60%, but regardless of what the truth is, much of the over-the-counter remedy is going down the toilet.
- We can’t overdose on nutrition when we’re eating whole foods, but food supplements may actually be toxic when taken in mega-doses. There is a tendency to think that “more is better,” so if one tablet is good, then two tablets must be superior. This is not only a false assumption, it is a dangerous one. Over supplementing can cause serious health problems, such as fatigue, diarrhea, kidney stones, and liver damage.
- Fruits and vegetables decrease our disease risk. Dozens of studies have shown the benefit of fresh produce on cancer and heart disease risk. But supplements can actually increase that risk. In one study, for example, Vitamin E – important to controlling LDL (bad) cholesterol – was shown to raise LDL levels when administered alone. Further, in other studies, anti-oxidant supplements were shown to raise cancer mortality and be ineffective in preventing heart disease.
- It is a myth that supplements give you more energy. The body will absorb what it needs from the food we need and process the rest as waste, so eating more means only more waste, not more usefulness. Applying that to multi-vitamins, what people interpret as a boost from their one-a-day may actually be a metabolic frenzy to rid the body of harmful substances.
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