Why Does Everyone Need Supplements?
AMONG THE MANY REASONS ARE:
1. Soil Depletion has Reduced the Nutrient Content of our Food Supply
In most areas of the world, the land has been over-farmed and over-grazed. In most of the world, manures and other mineral-rich products are not put back enough on the land. This has depleted the soil quality. In many other areas, the soil is just of low quality and is difficult to improve. This produces food that is low in many minerals, in particular, but also low in vitamins, and hundreds of other nutrients found in food.
2. Hybrid Crops Provide Lower-Nutrient Food
These are used everywhere today, even on organic farms. They yield more food per acre, but the crops all have a much lower nutrient content than those grown 100 years ago. This is well-documented in US Department of Agriculture statistics and elsewhere.
For example, at least ten times as much rice or wheat are grown on the same land as was grown there 100 years ago. But the land is not stocked with ten times the minerals, vitamins and other nutrients. As a result, in part, today's wheat contains about 6% protein whereas 100 years ago it contained 12-14%. Trace mineral levels are similarly much lower due to high-yield farming methods.
3. Modern Fertilizers Do Not Supply Enough Trace Elements
One hundred years ago, manures were used extensively for fertilizer. Today, superphosphate fertilizers have largely replaced manures. These contain mainly nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and are deficient in the trace elements. This is sad, but true. Our crops are more like a person on steroids – stimulated, but not as strong and safe.
Superphosphates often act more as growth stimulants. This has contributed greatly to depletion of the soil and crop minerals. This includes organically grown food, although it is much better.
4. Modern Use of Chemical Pesticides & Herbicides All Over the World Make Food Somewhat Toxic, and Damage Soil Microorganisms. Both of These Also Reduce The Nutrition of the Crops
Soil microorganisms are needed to make minerals and other nutrients available to plants. When these are damaged by Roundup, and hundreds of other toxic pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals put on crops, the soil micro-organisms do not function as well, and the nutrient content of the food becomes lower.
Also, our bodies require extra nutrients to process pesticide residues that remain inside the foods, so the pesticides that we must eat daily also reduce our nutritional status each and every day. Many pesticides are deadly chemicals that severely tax the human system. Some contain lead, arsenic and other toxic metals that slowly accumulate in the body.
Our laws currently allow sewage and even factory sludge to be sold as fertilizer that contains significant quantities of toxic metals. These add greatly to our toxic metal burden and requires that we take in nutrients to help remove them from the body.
5. Long-Distance Transportation Of Many Foods Diminishes Their Nutritional Content
As soon as a food is harvested, the levels of certain nutrients begin to diminish. Today, many foods are grown thousands of miles from population centers. The food may spend a week on a truck or a train before it reaches you.
In addition, some foods, especially fruits, must be sprayed, irradiated, or processed in other ways in order to survive the journey across the world. For example, many people do not realize that much of our food comes from South America, Asia and China. These are miles away and transportation is slow. The food can grow moldy and you wouldn’t even know it.
6. Food Processing Often Drastically Reduces The Nutrient Content of Common Foods Such As Wheat Flour, Rice, Dairy Products & Others
For example, the refining of wheat to make white flour removes 80% of its magnesium, 70-80% of its zinc, 87% of its chromium, 88% of its manganese and 50% of its cobalt.
Similarly, refining sugar cane to make white sugar removes 99% of its magnesium and 93% of its chromium. Polishing (refining) rice removes 75% of its zinc and chromium. This is just the beginning of most food processing, however.
This is why fresh frozen vegetables, and freshly canned sardines are not that bad. At least they are preserved quickly after harvesting or catching the fish, and the preservation method is not that terrible. The best food, however, is freshly harvested or freshly killed and eaten quickly.
Pasteurization & Homogenization of Dairy Products drastically reduces the bioavailability of calcium, phosphorus and some proteins in milk and other dairy products. This is one of the worst insults to our food today.
7. Food Additives Often Further Deplete Nutrients.
Thousands of artificial flavors, colors, dough conditioners, sweeteners, artificial sweeteners, stabilizers, flavor enhancers like MSG, emulsifiers, hardeners, softeners, chemical preservatives and other chemicals are added to most people’s food today. While a few are harmless and may even increase the quality of the food by preserving it, many are toxic and many diminish the nutritional content of the food.
Among the worst are preservatives like BHA and BHT, artificial sweeteners like Aspartame, and perhaps EDTA, a chelating agent, that is added to some frozen vegetables to preserve the color of the vegetables. The way it works is by removing vital minerals from the surface of the vegetable because when minerals oxidize, the color of the vegetable turns dark and ugly. This is like tarnishing of silver.
8. Weak Digestion & Poor Eating Habits Impair The Absorption of Nutrients
Almost everyone’s digestion is very weak today. This is due to eating poor quality food, hybridized varieties of foods like wheat, and having to digest and handle so many refined foods and chemicals in the foods. It is also due to low vitality, low digestive enzyme secretion, and imbalanced intestinal flora and intestinal infections like yeast that are extremely common. This is quite a deadly combination.
As a result, most people do not absorb nutrients well at all. This further impairs nutrient levels in the body, and increases nutritional needs. This is why in nutritional balancing programs, everyone is given a digestive aid containing digestive enzymes such as pancreatin and ox bile.
9. Stressful and Hurried Lifestyles Impair Digestion & Use up More Nutrients
These may include calcium, magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese and many others. Zinc begins to be eliminated from the body within minutes of a stress. This is why many people have white spots on their fingernails, for example. Stress adds to all the other causes of impaired nutrition above to make things much worse for most people today around the world.
Most people do not realize that stress always causes excessive sympathetic nervous system activity. This not only uses up nutrients, as explained in the paragraph above. It also reduces digestive strength and ability. This, in turn, reduces nutrient absorption and utilization even further.
10. Chronic & Acute Infections & Other Illnesses Most People Have Also Depletes Nutrients And Increases Nutritional Needs
11. Almost All Babies Are Born Deficient Today
In other words, most people need extra nutrition from the day they are born just to make up for deficiencies present at birth. These are called congenital mineral and other deficiencies, which means present at birth.
It is critical to understand that nutrient deficiencies are passed from mother to child through the placenta. Those who raise livestock all know this, but somehow medical doctors, nurses and dietitians do not.
12. The Increased Use of Vaccines & Medical Drugs Can Drastically Deplete a Person’s Nutrition
his is especially true of any drug that impairs digestion or absorption of food such as antibiotics, anti-acids, acid-blockers, aspirin, Tylenol, Aleve, Excedrin and hundreds of other prescription and over-the-counter remedies.
13. Toxic Chemicals & Toxic Metals in the Air, Water and Elsewhere Also Deplete Nutrients & Increase The Need for Nutrition To Combat Them
This is an enormous problem today. Toxic chemicals are everywhere, in buildings, schools, homes, work places, urban air, and in almost all water supplies, even the purest ones.
14. Some Medical Procedures Also Drastically Deplete Nutrients
These include surgeries of all types, and even some tests such as x-rays. Surgeries cause stress and add more drugs to the system. X-rays deplete B-complex vitamins and perhaps other nutrients such as zinc. This is known in medical circles, but nothing is done about it.
15. Special Life Situations Require Extra Nutrition
Medical science knows that many life situations require greater amounts of nutrition, including:
16. Supplements Can be Used by Everyone to Protect Against Disease, Eliminate Deficiency States, Prevent Future Illness & Balance The Body Chemistry.
17. The Nutritional Standards Set by Governments Around The World Are Much Too Low.
As a result, people do not make an effort to eat a higher nutrient diet.
Sources: Lawrence Wilson, MD © September 2014, The Center For Development
1. Soil Depletion has Reduced the Nutrient Content of our Food Supply
In most areas of the world, the land has been over-farmed and over-grazed. In most of the world, manures and other mineral-rich products are not put back enough on the land. This has depleted the soil quality. In many other areas, the soil is just of low quality and is difficult to improve. This produces food that is low in many minerals, in particular, but also low in vitamins, and hundreds of other nutrients found in food.
2. Hybrid Crops Provide Lower-Nutrient Food
These are used everywhere today, even on organic farms. They yield more food per acre, but the crops all have a much lower nutrient content than those grown 100 years ago. This is well-documented in US Department of Agriculture statistics and elsewhere.
For example, at least ten times as much rice or wheat are grown on the same land as was grown there 100 years ago. But the land is not stocked with ten times the minerals, vitamins and other nutrients. As a result, in part, today's wheat contains about 6% protein whereas 100 years ago it contained 12-14%. Trace mineral levels are similarly much lower due to high-yield farming methods.
3. Modern Fertilizers Do Not Supply Enough Trace Elements
One hundred years ago, manures were used extensively for fertilizer. Today, superphosphate fertilizers have largely replaced manures. These contain mainly nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and are deficient in the trace elements. This is sad, but true. Our crops are more like a person on steroids – stimulated, but not as strong and safe.
Superphosphates often act more as growth stimulants. This has contributed greatly to depletion of the soil and crop minerals. This includes organically grown food, although it is much better.
4. Modern Use of Chemical Pesticides & Herbicides All Over the World Make Food Somewhat Toxic, and Damage Soil Microorganisms. Both of These Also Reduce The Nutrition of the Crops
Soil microorganisms are needed to make minerals and other nutrients available to plants. When these are damaged by Roundup, and hundreds of other toxic pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals put on crops, the soil micro-organisms do not function as well, and the nutrient content of the food becomes lower.
Also, our bodies require extra nutrients to process pesticide residues that remain inside the foods, so the pesticides that we must eat daily also reduce our nutritional status each and every day. Many pesticides are deadly chemicals that severely tax the human system. Some contain lead, arsenic and other toxic metals that slowly accumulate in the body.
Our laws currently allow sewage and even factory sludge to be sold as fertilizer that contains significant quantities of toxic metals. These add greatly to our toxic metal burden and requires that we take in nutrients to help remove them from the body.
5. Long-Distance Transportation Of Many Foods Diminishes Their Nutritional Content
As soon as a food is harvested, the levels of certain nutrients begin to diminish. Today, many foods are grown thousands of miles from population centers. The food may spend a week on a truck or a train before it reaches you.
In addition, some foods, especially fruits, must be sprayed, irradiated, or processed in other ways in order to survive the journey across the world. For example, many people do not realize that much of our food comes from South America, Asia and China. These are miles away and transportation is slow. The food can grow moldy and you wouldn’t even know it.
6. Food Processing Often Drastically Reduces The Nutrient Content of Common Foods Such As Wheat Flour, Rice, Dairy Products & Others
For example, the refining of wheat to make white flour removes 80% of its magnesium, 70-80% of its zinc, 87% of its chromium, 88% of its manganese and 50% of its cobalt.
Similarly, refining sugar cane to make white sugar removes 99% of its magnesium and 93% of its chromium. Polishing (refining) rice removes 75% of its zinc and chromium. This is just the beginning of most food processing, however.
This is why fresh frozen vegetables, and freshly canned sardines are not that bad. At least they are preserved quickly after harvesting or catching the fish, and the preservation method is not that terrible. The best food, however, is freshly harvested or freshly killed and eaten quickly.
Pasteurization & Homogenization of Dairy Products drastically reduces the bioavailability of calcium, phosphorus and some proteins in milk and other dairy products. This is one of the worst insults to our food today.
7. Food Additives Often Further Deplete Nutrients.
Thousands of artificial flavors, colors, dough conditioners, sweeteners, artificial sweeteners, stabilizers, flavor enhancers like MSG, emulsifiers, hardeners, softeners, chemical preservatives and other chemicals are added to most people’s food today. While a few are harmless and may even increase the quality of the food by preserving it, many are toxic and many diminish the nutritional content of the food.
Among the worst are preservatives like BHA and BHT, artificial sweeteners like Aspartame, and perhaps EDTA, a chelating agent, that is added to some frozen vegetables to preserve the color of the vegetables. The way it works is by removing vital minerals from the surface of the vegetable because when minerals oxidize, the color of the vegetable turns dark and ugly. This is like tarnishing of silver.
8. Weak Digestion & Poor Eating Habits Impair The Absorption of Nutrients
Almost everyone’s digestion is very weak today. This is due to eating poor quality food, hybridized varieties of foods like wheat, and having to digest and handle so many refined foods and chemicals in the foods. It is also due to low vitality, low digestive enzyme secretion, and imbalanced intestinal flora and intestinal infections like yeast that are extremely common. This is quite a deadly combination.
As a result, most people do not absorb nutrients well at all. This further impairs nutrient levels in the body, and increases nutritional needs. This is why in nutritional balancing programs, everyone is given a digestive aid containing digestive enzymes such as pancreatin and ox bile.
9. Stressful and Hurried Lifestyles Impair Digestion & Use up More Nutrients
These may include calcium, magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese and many others. Zinc begins to be eliminated from the body within minutes of a stress. This is why many people have white spots on their fingernails, for example. Stress adds to all the other causes of impaired nutrition above to make things much worse for most people today around the world.
Most people do not realize that stress always causes excessive sympathetic nervous system activity. This not only uses up nutrients, as explained in the paragraph above. It also reduces digestive strength and ability. This, in turn, reduces nutrient absorption and utilization even further.
10. Chronic & Acute Infections & Other Illnesses Most People Have Also Depletes Nutrients And Increases Nutritional Needs
11. Almost All Babies Are Born Deficient Today
In other words, most people need extra nutrition from the day they are born just to make up for deficiencies present at birth. These are called congenital mineral and other deficiencies, which means present at birth.
It is critical to understand that nutrient deficiencies are passed from mother to child through the placenta. Those who raise livestock all know this, but somehow medical doctors, nurses and dietitians do not.
12. The Increased Use of Vaccines & Medical Drugs Can Drastically Deplete a Person’s Nutrition
his is especially true of any drug that impairs digestion or absorption of food such as antibiotics, anti-acids, acid-blockers, aspirin, Tylenol, Aleve, Excedrin and hundreds of other prescription and over-the-counter remedies.
13. Toxic Chemicals & Toxic Metals in the Air, Water and Elsewhere Also Deplete Nutrients & Increase The Need for Nutrition To Combat Them
This is an enormous problem today. Toxic chemicals are everywhere, in buildings, schools, homes, work places, urban air, and in almost all water supplies, even the purest ones.
14. Some Medical Procedures Also Drastically Deplete Nutrients
These include surgeries of all types, and even some tests such as x-rays. Surgeries cause stress and add more drugs to the system. X-rays deplete B-complex vitamins and perhaps other nutrients such as zinc. This is known in medical circles, but nothing is done about it.
15. Special Life Situations Require Extra Nutrition
Medical science knows that many life situations require greater amounts of nutrition, including:
- All babies, children, the elderly and all athletes.
- Anyone born with a birth defect may need additional nutrients.
- Anyone who is ill, particularly those with a chronic illness.
- Pregnant and lactating women.
- Anyone who uses alcohol, refined sugar or recreational drugs such as marijuana.
- Anyone following a vegetarian or other restricted diet for any reason such as weight loss or anything else.
- Anyone under extra stress due to financial issues, a difficult job or marriage, or for any other reason.
16. Supplements Can be Used by Everyone to Protect Against Disease, Eliminate Deficiency States, Prevent Future Illness & Balance The Body Chemistry.
17. The Nutritional Standards Set by Governments Around The World Are Much Too Low.
As a result, people do not make an effort to eat a higher nutrient diet.
Sources: Lawrence Wilson, MD © September 2014, The Center For Development
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