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New health controversy! My verdict on vitamin supplements
24th April 2009
• Why readers disagreed with my controversial statements
about food
• Is it the end of '5-a-day?'
• The case of Food vs Vitamin supplements my verdict
revealed
Back in February I wrote a Good Life Letter called
'Are You Making This Mistake with Your Health?'
In that letter, I detailed some of the tastiest ways you
can get your essential daily vitamins from common
foods.
My central point was this:
Choosing good, fresh, locally sourced food is the
best way to get the nutrients you need to protect
yourself from disease and stay healthy.
And in a nutshell, that's the ethos of The Good Life
Letter.
It's my belief that nature is an enormous medicine
chest. By knowing more about what plants, meats,
fats and vegetables can do for your health, you can
make better informed choices about how you look
after yourself.
Most importantly of all for food junkies like myself...
you can eat delicious, comforting, lifeaffirming food
and STILL be healthy, happy and free of guilt.
Food is good. We should love it and celebrate it. And
we should treat natural whole foods as the essential
building blocks for protecting us against modern
diseases.
However, this view stirred up some controversy.
Why many readers disagree...
After I sent this email I received a deluge of 'I
totally disagree' and 'I'm surprised at you, Ray'
and 'you're totally WRONG' emails from
disgruntled readers.
Many people took issue with the idea that you can
get all your vitamins from food.
Why?
• Because the modern farming preference for
high yields over nutritional quality has driven
down the nutrient levels in our food.
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• Because heavy industrial farming has
depleted the level of active nutrients in the
soil.
• Because plants have been bred to withstand
pests and disease and last during long
overseas journeys. But it's the elements that
make plants decompose faster and make
them attractive to pests that also make them
healthy.
• And finally, because modern transportation
methods mean that food is carted half way
across the globe, and then shoved on a
supermarket shelf for WEEKS before you get
to eat it.
I absolutely agree with all these statements. There's
no doubt in my mind that the nutritional levels of our
common foods are lower than they have been in the
past.
The end of '5-A-Day?'
Some believe this means that government advice to
eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day is now
out-dated.
A newspaper article in the Daily Express on
February 12th 2009 reported the views of natural
health expert Dale Pinnock. He told the paper:
'The current five-a-day recommendations are based
on standard dietary guidelines written 40 years ago,
when the soil was richer in vitamins and minerals.
Now, because of intensive farming methods and
increased pollution, fresh fruit and vegetables don't
contain nearly enough nutrients.'
His view was that the only way to address this was
for people to take daily supplements.
But Gerry Hayman from the British Tomato Growers'
Association disagreed:
'There is a body of evidence that nutritional
supplements can do more harm than good. Fresh,
locally-grown fruit and vegetables, which are in
season, are by far the best source of vitamins and
minerals. They are not expensive and don't take a
long time to prepare.'
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These two comments neatly illustrate the two sides
of the story.
So where do I stand?
The thing is about this newsletter is that you and I
are both on a journey. I'm finding out as much as I
can about food, nutrition and health as I can... and
passing what I discover to you,
What I've discovered over the last 4 years is that, in
the world of health and nutrition, nothing is black and
white. There's always a 'But' or a 'Might' or a
'Could'.
Hopefully I cut through a lot of the jargon and
gobbledegook, and give you plenty of things to think
about... ideas you won't see in your bland, towing-
the-line media story.
Ultimately, it's your choice what you do with your life.
I'm not a doctor or a nutritional scientist. I'm not
some diet fad 'guru' who dispenses easy answers or
spews out endless dogma. This is an ongoing
dialogue and I'm open to new ideas all the time.
Of course, me being me, I'm prepared to come right
out, guns a-blazing, and tell you what I personally
think, as honestly as possible.
If you don't agree with me, that's absolutely fine. I
just want to make my own thoughts on this clear.
So here I go...
The case of Food vs Vitamin supplements - my
verdict revealed
To lay it out as simply as possible...
Yes, I agree that when you need to target an illness
or ailment, a good quality natural supplement is a
fantastic way of boosting your levels of specific
vitamin and mineral in a concentrated dose.
Yes, I agree that some specialised ingredients - like
green lipped mussels, tea tree oil, goji berries - are
best taken as a supplement or extract because you
can hardly include them in a daily British diet.
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Yes, I agree that supplements are convenient, quick
ways to up your intake of a vitamin or mineral when
you're busy, travelling, or too ill to eat properly.
And yes, food has seen a depletion in the quality of
its nutrients for the reasons I've already discussed.
BUT....
By choosing locally sourced, seasonal food, and
eating good healthy amounts of it EVERY SINGLE
DAY, I'm absolutely convinced you can get all the
basic nutrients you need.
Furthermore, food has an extra health benefit above
and beyond its vitamin components.
Most people in the west eat dramatically low levels
of fruit and veg. So the biggest problem is not that
levels of nutrients are poor, it's that people don't eat
enough fresh fruit and veg, full stop.
The argument about vitamin levels can often be a
red herring that lets people off the hook.
'Ah, to be honest, I've heard apples have fewer
vitamins these days anyway, so rather than eat a
few extra apples, I'll just pop this pill.'
When it comes to your daily diet, it's not just about
nutrients on their own, it's about the nutritional
balance of what we eat.
For instance, in place of omega 3, we eat far too
much omega 6 fatty acids from cooking oils. (I'll talk
about this more on Sunday).And in place of
vegetables we eat too many sugars, processed
ready meals, refined carbohydrates and meat.
Getting the dietary balance right is as important as
simply shovelling down extra doses of vitamins.
More importantly, I believe that real food is MORE
than the sum parts of its vitamins and minerals.
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When nutritionists get it wrong
Food is so chemically complex we still don't
understand fully how it works.
There are so many subtle processes that kick into
place when we digest food, that it's not always a
matter of the individual ingredients... but how all these
constituent ingredients work together with your
body... and how your body reacts at certain times to
certain combinations under certain conditions.
The risk of reducing food down to vitamins only, is
that we miss the benefits of the many complex
processes that food offers.
Therefore I think that eating the whole food is far
better than consuming one of the isolated elements
extracted from that food.
So in my view the first stage in disease prevention
should be to eat a wide range of foods in
moderation, thereby re-dressing the balance in your
diet.
Eat plenty of fresh, whole foods from local markets
or delivered by local veg box services. If you think
this is too expensive, then remember that the alternative
is to buy vitamin pills all year round.
And the consequences of doing nothing could be
that you spend lots of money on healthcare in the
future.
If you think of food as an essential preventative
medicine, rather than a gourmet frippery you can
take or leave, then you'll be happy to spend extra on
it... especially if it helps you avoid expensive
illnesses further down the line.
Natural supplements are fantastic way of targeting
ailments, but for general protection against cancer,
diabetes, heart disease, depression and arthritis, I
doubt that swallowing handfuls of vitamins every day
is a real replacement for a healthy varied whole food
diet.
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