The Modern Myth Of The Balanced Diet

Eat your greens, avoid junk food, and drink plenty of water. With these three simple steps we are told by most nutritionists that our diet will be balanced, with all the essential vitamins and minerals needed for optimum health. However research is consistently showing that eating a “balanced diet” is not good enough. According to research figures, there has been a steep decline during the past 50 years in the nutrient value of fruits and vegetables grown in fields. While an orange eaten by our grandparents may have been packed with vitamin C, the fruit and vegetables today are running on empty. Here are the top five ways that our modern times remove the vitamins and health from our food, and why we should all start to look at nutritional supplements to top-up.

1. Bad eating habits

Why is it that all the unhealthy foods are also the tastiest? It seems our bodies are hardwired to crave sugary, fatty foods that do nothing for our health and nothing for our levels of vitamins. According to Gladys Block, Professor of Public Health at UC Berkeley, only 9% of the population eats the recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables daily. Many people need nutritional supplements to replace the nutrients they aren’t getting from their food. However, even if we find healthy foods - fresh vegetables, low-fat - there are still ways we can make them less nutritional…

2. Cooking

Unless you enjoy raw food, you’re probably going to cook it; and this destroys between 20 to 50% of the vitamins in your food. Water soluble vitamins like ascorbic acid are particularly vulnerable to cooking, and nutritional supplements for these easily lost minerals are recommended.

3. Transport and Storage

Even before “fresh” fruit and vegetables get to the store they are losing vitamins and nutrients while stuck in storehouses and on trucks. Fruits and vegetables stored at high pressure, evacuated environment, and inert gas atmospheres are prone to deterioration. In addition, if these are exposed to irradiation or undergo sterilized filtrations also significantly reduce the nutritional value. For example, oranges picked the same day were tested and found to contain 180mg of vitamin C. Then, oranges from the same grower that had been in storage at a local store were tested. They looked the same, tasted the same, but the vitamin C content had dropped to zero. Nutritional supplements are designed to deliver vitamin and nutrient content to our bodies in an easily digestible form. Nutritional supplements are also designed to not degrade easily during storage.

4. Food Processing

Modern Processing methods are practically murdering the minerals in our food. Artificial acidification, applying antiseptic substance, or adding sugar, salt or ethyl alcohol causes fruits and vegetables to lose vitamin and mineral content. Fruits also lose their nutrition value when they are fermented alcoholically or with lactic acid. When flour is refined, up to 98% of original mineral content is lost. Nutritional supplements are needed to replace the vitamins heavily processed food doesn’t have.

5. Soil Depletion

Even fresh, unprocessed food can be lacking in basic minerals and vitamins due to soil depletion. Our farmlands are seriously over-farmed and their soils are nutrient depleted. At best, farmers can replace only a small amount of the nutrients back into the soil. These minerals do little to enhance the nutritional quality of the crop and merely affect appearance.

Furthermore, plants rely on soil organisms to pre-digest minerals for them. These helpful microbes are often absent, due to the condition of the soil and the destructive chemicals used in farming. A tomato grown in organic, nutrient-rich soil has a deep red to burgundy appearance on the inside, and it has a delightfully strong and pleasing flavor. A farmed, store-bought tomato often has a pink to clear appearance when cut open and lacks the rich flavor of the homegrown tomato. Even farmers understand this, and avoid foods from their fields and opt for those grown in their own personal, organic garden.

Unless you grow your own fruits and vegetables and eat them raw the same day you pick them, you’re not getting what nature intended. This is the main reason that nutritional supplements are becoming increasingly important for a modern, healthy lifestyle. Just think: if nutritional deficiencies did not exist, neither would the problems associated with them. Nutritional supplements are an excellent way to ensure that you are getting the nutrients that are necessary for your health and longevity.

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