Isolated Nutrients V.S. Whole Foods

by Jamey Dina N.D.

Nutrients never occur as isolates in natural foods. They are integrally related with many other natural molecules that are required for their absorption, assimilation and non-toxicity. The traditional vitamins and minerals that are offered are only a part of the whole vitamin or mineral complex. Isolated and synthetic nutrients are foreign to the body, completely unnatural, are poorly absorbed, offer incomplete results, imbalance body chemistry, deplete the body of co-factor nutrients, and usually have significant toxicities.

How do you know if a supplement contains isolates and/or synthetics? If the nutrients themselves are listed as actual ingredients (i.e., Thiamin, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Chromium Picolinate, Calcium, Magnesium, etc.), rather than constituents of the ingredients, they are isolated and/or synthetic. Synthetic and isolated vitamins and minerals are used almost exclusively for traditional vitamin and/or mineral products! There are problems when using this type of material. Please read on.

Although some isolated/synthetic nutrients can and do have benefit, and there definitely are cases that the benefits out-way the risks (especially when compared to the use of drugs), they are a vastly inferior, incomplete, and sometimes worthless way to get nutrients into the body. The body can not absorb and utilize a synthetic or isolated nutrient as is. It must reform them into organic complexes (as they are in whole foods). Only a small percentage is able to be re-formed (by drawing the synergistic nutrients from the body) into absorbable, usable matter. The remaining unusable portion either, at best, settles out in the tissues as harmful deposits, or taxes the liver and kidneys before it is excreted in the urine. And that's mighty expensive urine, with most of your supplement dollar going straight down the drain! Furthermore, when the body attempts to reform isolated/synthetic nutrients into absorbable, usable nutrients, it nutritionally depletes the body of these other nutrients (many of which are other vitamins and minerals). This causes widespread deficiencies. At worst, some isolated and/or synthetic nutrients actually cause you to excrete more than you took of them, adding to a nutritional deficiency (while draining the body), rather than correcting one. Many synthetic and/or isolated nutrients actually suppress beneficial (and vitally essential) bodily cleansing methods, and can be quite toxic and inbalancing!

If an isolated or synthetic nutrient is an antioxidant, it may actually weaken the body's immune system. The body's white blood cells use free radicals to destroy foreign bacteria. Isolated or synthetic antioxidants (including preservatives) may weaken the body's ability to do so. They can also interfere with the body's use of oxygen. Antioxidants in whole foods (in addition to being much more effective), do not interfere with the body's ability to use free radicals constructively or it's ability to use oxygen (they enhance both).

Despite modern advances in the health field, the best source of nutrients, by far is food! However, almost no one is totally nourished today. Commercial agriculture and depleted soils have resulted in far less than ideal nutrient levels in most foods. If the soil is deficient (as it almost always is today) then the food is...and therefore you are deficient too! Even today's organically grown produce (although vastly superior to commercial produce) is still not nearly as nutritious as it was 100 years ago. Furthermore, few people are consuming ideally grown, raw foods from the vegetable kingdom 100% of the time, and all of us are exposed to a tremendous amount of stress due to living in our modern world.

To try and replace the missing minerals in our diets today, many people are turning to colloidal minerals from ancient plant sources. This can be a good way to obtain missing minerals and has helped many people. However, a large percentage of these products also have very high concentrations of Sulfur (40%) and Aluminum (19%), which are not healthful in such amounts. Not all of the mineral material in colloidal mineral products is of plant origin. Some or much of it comes from inorganic, elemental mineral deposits. There is much confusion and mis-information in the marketplace regarding colloidal minerals. Eight years ago, I began investigating and using liquid colloidal minerals. There are definite benefits from these minerals, yet there are drawbacks as well. I am currently convinced that liquid colloidal minerals are not the best way to obtain additional minerals (nutritionally or financially), and they are not the only source of these minerals in an absorbable form. I base this statement on a substantial amount of on-going research (something your local MLM colloidal mineral distributor, or health food store employee most likely can't say in truth).

The need for extra nutrition is great, and you cannot get this extra nutrition from multi-vitamin/mineral supplements* (see note at bottom), so what do I suggest? Look to superfoods (foods which are naturally extremely high in a full spectrum of needed nutrients and are still grown optimally), such as Vitamineral Green tm (a complex of 31 superfoods specifically designed to more than replace traditional isolated/synthetic multi-vitamin/mineral products and colloidal mineral products), Greener Grasses tm , and Spirulina which are sold at this website. These will provide the body with SUPERIOR nutrition compared to synthetic/isolated multi vitamin/minerals and colloidal mineral supplements as well (they contain minerals that are colloidal and better). These superfoods also have no toxicity! They also offer greater health benefits and a much better cost to benefit ratio (you spend less money for better results)

Note from Pete Aldo at NaturalHealthWay.com :                                                                             While the above green superfood products are truly excellent and are sold at this site, it is also important to get a great deal of absorbable minerals and vitamins from fresh plant foods, especially from a variety of leafy greens such as parsely, dandelion, leaf lettuce, kale, chard, spinach, etc. Juicing them is a great way to load up on these nutrients.

Also, to overcome serious deficiencies, I believe (based on personal experience and clinical studies) that extra large doses of vitamins and mineral are very helpful or necessary, especially  in cases of poor digestion and assimilation. There are certain "food state" vitamin supplements on the market that contain no isolated,synthetic vitamins. I have had very noticable health improvements taking Lifestar vitamins (no affiliation). I took them after tests showed I was deficient in several B vitamins. According to Lifestar, their vitamins contain no isolated synthetic vitamins.

Also, I have personally obtained very noticable health improvements with ionic minerals from Wateroz  which are highly absorbable and non-toxic (again, no affiliation). For more info, see this article about the Mineral/Disease Connection.