The Case for Nutritional Supplements Part 3

My previous blog post stated some of the reasons why we can’t get all of our nutrients from our food.  Sadly these are not the only reasons.

Meat processing – The movie Food, Inc. game a great deal of eye-opening testimonials as to how our meats and vegetables are processed.  They showed the fact that the processing time for chickens has been cut in half due to the use of hormones and chemicals.  They also showed how we have bred chickens to have such large breasts that they are no longer able to walk on their legs without falling down.  Cows are given antibiotics to make them grow bigger faster and produce milk quicker.  The TV show Dirty Jobs showed us a turkey farm and the fact that we have bred our turkeys to be so large that they can no longer reproduce naturally and needed artificial insemination for reproduction.

Farm raised fish is another example.  Without getting too scientific, farm raised fish are fed corn, which alters their fatty acid ratio.  We are told that we can get Omega 3 fatty acids from eating fish.  Yet fish that eat corn produce higher levels of Omega 6 fatty acids with respect to Omega 3s.  Why is this a big deal?  Because Omega 6 fatty acids stimulate inflammatory processes in the body, whereas Omega 3s stimulate anti-inflammatory processes in our body.  In short, we are eating fish that can cause us physical pain.

All of this affects the nutrient content of the meat.

Our fruits and vegetables are not immune to these processing problems either.   In my previous blog, I discussed, the decreasing nutrient amounts in our soil.  Other modern farming methods, including the use of pesticides, and using “new and improved” genetic variants of plants have led to fruits and vegetables that may grow in a large amounts, but have lower nutrient density.   Farming today is much different from the family farms of old, including both the farms that my parents grew up on.

Add to this the fact that we a significant percentage of nutrients in the food after harvesting, and that we can lose a percentage of nutrients in cooking the food.  It’s a wonder that we receive any nutrition from anything we eat.  There are many articles in the literature that show that nutrient depletion can cause a variety of health issues.

So what can we do about this, and what supplements should we take?  Stay Tuned for my next blog post.

To Your Health!

Dr. Harvey