WHOLE FOOD NUTRITION
If you think that vitamins are vitamins are vitamins period, think again. High potency vitamins are almost always synthetic versions of those found in nature, and have drug-like effects on our bodies. The more crystalline and refined, the stronger the vitamin, and the more drug-like it is. Unfortunately, you can’t tell this simply by looking at the associated “educational” material, product insert, or product label itself. Here is some evidence for this. How do virtually all Nutritional Supplements describe themselves? All Natural”. The fact that a nutritional supplement is “natural” means nothing. This is because the word has not been defined by the FDA. Limestone (Calcium Carbonate) is “all natural” too. Do you want to ingest the stuff as a “Calcium Supplement”? Unfortunately, many people do (HERE).
Whole Food vitamins are different. Whole Food Nutritional Supplements are lower potency —- sometimes very low potency. Synthetic Vitamin C (always labeled as Ascorbic Acid on Health Food Store or Mal Wart supplement labels) usually comes in the form of 500 or 1,000 mg pills — sometimes even bigger. And believe it or not, many of the so called nutritional “experts” out there are telling people to take several of these a day. Whole Food Vitamin C is different. The 10 mg of vitamin C in a slice of lime can prevent scurvy! No matter how you slice it, 10 mg is low potency, which is enough to cause vitamins to metabolically activate the body’s various functions. High potency is usually too much — sometimes way too much. Sort of like the difference between the ultra-refined white sugar in an apple-flavored Pop Tart, and the natural sugar that God built in to an apple.
The venerable Dr. Tim O’Shea clarifies this concept when he writes, “Vitamins are not individual molecular compounds. Vitamins are biological complexes. They are multi-step biochemical interactions whose action is dependent upon a number of variables within the biological terrain. Vitamin activity only takes place when all conditions are met within that environment, and when all co-factors and components of the entire vitamin complex are present and working together. Vitamin activity is even more than the sum of all those parts; it also involves timing. Vitamins cannot be isolated from their complexes and still perform their specific life functions within the cells. When isolated into artificial commercial forms, like ascorbic acid, these purified synthetics act as drugs in the body. They are no longer vitamins, and to call them such is inaccurate.“
But I hear it all the time. Hey Doc; you got anything good for high blood pressure? I need to lose about 60 lbs; what have you got for weight loss? What about my heart problems? How about my stomach problems? What can you do for my hormonal problems, acid reflux, fibromyalgia, blood sugar, chronic fatigue, (insert your disease of choice here) ……cancer? This is how medicine is practiced in our modern, hi-tech medical culture. The patient has symptom A, so give the patient drug B. If you have Disease X, just take drug Y. This is what most people want. After all; it’s easy. It doesn’t require any effort from the patient (except maybe digging a few bucks out of their wallet to cover a co-pay). It’s a truth that is sometimes hard to face —- the fact that it’s far easier to pay someone else to do something for us than to actually take care of ourselves. That pretty much describes the society we live in. It’s not my fault. It’s not my responsibility. Gimme, gimme, gimme!
The question that people really want answered is, “Hey Doc, What have you got that will cure all my health problems, make me lose weight, and keep me functioning in the bedroom, but allow me to keep eating the same crap, continue my same habits, and living the same self-destructive lifestyle that I have my whole life?” This isn’t health! Well; maybe on TV drug commercial. Remember those catchy commercials for Vytorin? It’s these bad genes I got from Uncle Alfredo! Disease, disability, and illness are never our fault. It’s the promise of modern government-run healthcare. Health is not our responsibility. It’s something that our doctors (and now our government) are supposed to do for us.
The truth is, when it comes to our health, we want things easy. Doctor appointments, diagnostic testing, MRI’s, procedures, drugs, more drugs, and still more drugs. And then we start down a bit rougher path — only now it’s not drugs; it’s surgeries. A few more turns on the MEDICAL MERRY GO ROUND and maybe they’ll figure out what is wrong with me? We want someone else to do it all for us. Like I said, it’s easier that way. Give me something doc. What can you do for me doc? Oh no, I don’t like the taste of water. Oh doc, I can’t stand vegetables. Sorry doc, I could never give up my nightly carton of ice cream. Participating in our own health is far too difficult —- except to let doctors do things to us and prescribe things for us. But occasionally, someone sees the light and breaks free of this enslaving paradigm. What does it take for the light bulb to come on?
It usually does not happen until people hit the tipping point —- rock bottom —- the point of utter hopelessness, helplessness, and desperation. The point where you not only realize that the salvific promises of modern medicine are not true; but you can no longer stand looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing how far you have let yourself go. Unfortunately, many of you will have to go all the way to the bottom before the little light bulb flashes on. Here at Schierling Chiropractic, LLC, I do not carry hundreds of different nutritional supplements — nor do I sell supplements online. However, for my patients who are seriously interested in health, I recommend that excepting very extenuating circumstance, they take only Whole Food Nutritional Supplements —- supplements and vitamins made from cold-processed plants or animals. Why are Whole Food Nutritional Supplements such a big deal?
To understand the difference between whole food vitamins and the synthetic vitamins found in most health food stores or Mal Wart; all you have to do is grasp the difference between the natural sugar found in an apple, and the white, crystalline stuff that those of you who have not read my INSULIN PAGE put on your Special K every morning. It’s not rocket science folks. It’s like understanding the difference between natural sugar in a garden-raised sweet pepper, and the refined, white sugar in your Dr. Pepper. No matter what anyone tries to tell you, it’s not the same stuff! If you understand this, you’ll understand why Synthetic Nutrition is inferior.
But unfortunately, the marketing of Synthetic Nutrition has been so successful here in America, that Whole Food Principles have been all but totally forgotten. Embarrassingly enough, most doctors and nutrition “experts” HAVE SO LITTLE TRAINING IN THE FIELD OF NUTRITION, that they do not even realize they have been conned. The dirty little secret of Big Pharma is that vitamin manufacturers are all using the exact same chemical raw materials —- and most bought their “vitamins” from the same drug company (Synthetic Vitamin C, which is known as ascorbic acid [the only substance that can legally be called “Vitamin C” in America] is made by combining corn starch and sulfuric acid. The vast majority of America’s supply is made at Hoffman-La Roche Labs New Jersey plant). Since all of this stuff is the same, the only thing the vitamin company can do is to increase the amount of product in each capsule and then claim that theirs is the most potent on the market. Our vitamins are stronger than yours are. Nah nah nah-nah nah.
Dr. Tim O’Shea writes, “What is the marketing philosophy behind the prevalence of the type of synthetic vitamins so widely (and cheaply) available today? Simple: profits at any cost! Once the public is shown that vitamin supplementation is both beneficial and necessary, the rest boils down to marketing. Marketing is the art of suspending logic and persuading people to believe twisted data and junk science. Example: what’s the actual difference in composition between Wheaties and Total, two cereals manufactured by the same company (General Mills)? Everyone knows that Total is much more nutrient-rich than Wheaties —- just look at the labels. What’s the difference? 5¢ worth of synthetic chemicals (“vitamins”) sprayed on Total. That’s it! That’s what “vitamin enriched” always means. The other trick word is “fortified.” Generally that means that the food itself is devoid of nutrients or enzymes, so they tried to pump it up a little with some “vitamins.” Cheap synthetic vitamin sprays are all that is required for the manufacturer to use labels like “enriched” and “fortified.” These words are giant red flags! If a food needs to be fortified or enriched, you can bet it was already dead.“
M.E.D. stands for “Minimal Effective Dose”. Everyone wants you to believe that more is always better. Not true. Think of sunshine. Most Americans are deficient in Vitamin D, a vitamin that is made in your own body from cholesterol, via exposure to the sun’s rays. If it takes you 15 minutes to get the perfect amount of sun, anything over that amount is too much. The same holds true with exercise. Just because 30 minutes of intense exercise is good for you, does not mean that four times that much is good for you. And guess what —- the same is true with vitamins.
Mega doses of vitamins fall into this category as well. You know; if a little is good, then more must be better —- and a lot must be really really good. Mega doses of many of our Essential Vitamins have been shown to actually cause health problems. But why not? Vitamins, by their very definition, are necessary only in very small dosages. The brilliant Polish biochemist who discovered vitamins, and then coined the name (“vital amines”), Dr. Casimir Funk (1884 – 1967), had this to say about synthetics nutrition, “Synthetic vitamins: these are highly inferior to vitamins from natural sources, also the synthetic product is well known to be far more toxic.” Whole Food Nutritional Expert, Judy DeCava, stated it this way, “Natural food-source vitamins are enzymatically alive. Man-made synthetic vitamins are dead chemicals. What is the difference between Natural and synthetic? In short, it’s the difference between something that’s living and something that’s dead.”
Why is this information so difficult to find? Other than just a few sources —– Dr. Bruce West’s Health Alert, Dr. Tim O’Shea’s Doctor Within, The Price / Pottenger Nutrition Foundation’s materials, The International Foundation for Nutrition and Health, or a few others, you won’t even find this information in “alternative” health publications! And no one in the mainstream media seems to be talking about this issue. Think about the reasons why? Mega Dose Vitamins = Mega Dose Profits! If your business has to own a huge organic farm, and raise, harvest, and then cold process all of the plants and animals that you formulate your nutritional supplements from, you can understand why it is a time consuming and expensive process. If, however, you can mass produce your company’s supplements from cheap, synthetic, everyday chemicals (Corn Starch + Sulfuric Acid = Ascorbic Acid, the only substance that can legally be called Vitamin C in America), then it stands to reason that there is going to be a much larger profit margin.
DRS. ROYAL LEE and WESTON PRICE are all but forgotten. Few people today have as much as ever heard the names of these nutritional ground-breakers. This is the power of marketing —- and there is a definite purpose behind it. Too many Americans know little more than what big corporations, whose sole purpose to exist is to get you to buy their stuff, want you to know! And what it it that everyone in America does know? They know that Rolaids spells relief. And that Coca Cola is the real thing. And that Budweiser is the king of beers. And that they’re “loving” Micky D’s. And erectile dysfunction, and Angioplasty, and white bread, and Prednisone, and the “Purple Pill”, and Big Macs, and Tums for the Tummy, and Vaccination Schedules, and KFC, and Walgreen’s, and deep fried Twinkies, and Colonoscopy, and Chemo, and Krispy Kreme, and Tylenol, and Tiger Woods, and Triple Bypass, and Spaghetti-O’s…………………. And Mal Wart vitamins: synthetic, junk nutrition.
A doctor rarely saw cancer prior to the 1900’s. If he did, he called his fellow physicians to come see it as well —- after all, they might never see it again in their lifetime. Heart attacks? Hardly. The term heart attack had not even been invented yet. There was almost no incidence of AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES that are today all household names. Diabetes along with most of our modern killers were practically unheard of. Why? What’s the difference? What did our Great-grandparents know that we don’t? The truth is that it was not so much what they knew, it was what they did not know — and they did not know about processed foods.
What did they eat? They had their own orchards and vineyards. They knew which roots to dig and which herbs to gather. They had huge gardens and raised their own grains as well. All chickens were free range. All beef was grass fed. Wild game was plentiful, and hunting or fishing was a normal part of life. They ate bacon, eggs, whole milk, real butter, and homemade cheese. They pan fried meats in hog renderings (lard). And none of it was pasteurized, homogenized, or processed with hormones, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals! Listen as Dr. Tim O’Shea sums up this battle between two opposing paradigms —- Whole Food Nutrition and Synthetic Nutrition.
Stop for a moment and think about the people you know and love. Half of them will die of Cardiovascular Disease. Half of those remaining will die of cancer. For anyone born after Y2K, there is a 1 in 2 chance of developing TYPE II DIABETES (the seventh leading cause of death in America). Obesity is so widespread it can only be described as “epidemic”. Is that progress? If you are a food manufacturer it is! Or a drug manufacturer. In 2007 the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 39th in infant mortality. Just try and name forty countries! Male sperm counts are less than 20% of what they were in 1929. Infant mortality is up. Birth defects are up. Obesity is up. Disability is up. Depression is up. Common sense and intelligence? It’s down.
It’s hard to argue with Dr. Tim’s conclusions. Common sense and intelligence are down. Too many Americans don’t care much about freedom or personal responsibility. They do want the government to provide for their needs from cradle to grave. And despite the fact that America spends more dollars on healthcare (both grossly and per capita) than any other country on the planet; sickness, disability, and obesity are at all time highs. So; what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit there like a bump on log, eating crap, not taking care of yourself, and fooling yourself with cheap, synthetic vitamins? Or are you finally going to get serious about your health and the health of your family? I will warn you up front; getting serious is never easy. It means that you are going to have to start taking responsibility for what you put in your mouth. It also means that you will have to spend time educating yourself about nutritious foods, as well as what kind of nutritional supplements provide both real nutrition and the best bang for the buck. And it also means that you’ll have to change the way you shop and prepare your food. No; none of that is easy —- but it is certainly worth it!
