DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VITAMINS AND MINERALS VERSUS WHOLE FOOD COMPLEXES What Is Wrong With Ordinary Vitamin & Mineral Supplements? Irregardless what vitamin companies Would have you believe, the truth is that the vitamins and minerals in food is not the same as those found in most supplemental vitamins and minerals. In fact, the vitamins and minerals promoted by USP vitamins cannot be found in any food! Even the word "natural" is completely different! In the forementioned "natural" supplements, the ingredients are USP (United States Pharmacopoeia) vitamins which means that they are isolated pharmaceutical (drug-like) chemicals and many of the minerals are mined from the ground. Vitamins Supplements Versus Food Vitamin B-6 found in ordinary supplements is pyridoxine hydrocholine, a synthetic USP chemical. This is not even similar to the vitamin B-6 in food. You will not find pyridoxine hydrochloride in any food. The vitamins in good whole-food nutritional supplements are in a high-complex food form, and we might call these a "food matrix" which our bodies can readily recognize and utilize. These food matrixes contain proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, bioflavonoids and other food factors. The USP vitamins in supplements are NOT found in a food matrix, instead, they are isolated chemicals which your cells cannot readily recognize and utilize properly. Your body does the most that it can to absorb a small amount of these elements but most them are excreted. The cells of your body were orginally designed by nature to be nourished by natural foods not by pharamaceutical chemicals. Mineral Supplements Versus Food All minerals orginally come from the ground. The minerals come up from the soil through the roots and are transformed inside the plant cells into complex structures our bodies can utilize (photosynthesis). They become part of the living plant tissue of food matrix found in the plant - this explains why the iron in your cast-iron skillet does not appear the same as the iron in your spinach - the USP minerals are mined from the ground. Let's look at calcium supplements for a moment: If you knew how to read the labels, you could translate calcium carbonate into limestone, calcium sulfate into plaster and you could translate calcium phosphate into chalk. These elements can react with chemicals. Another example would be, calcium citrate, lactate and ascorbate are limestone reacted with acids - other natural forms of calcium would include amino acid chelates, colloidal minerals and hydroxyapatite (The apatite form of calcium phospahte present with calcium phosphate present with calcium carbonate in the bones and skeleton. In teeth it is soluble in the acids of soft drinks or carbohydrate fermentation, but it becomes decay-resistant fluorapatite after combining with fluoride ions present in fluoridated water or fluoride supplements). If we could assimilate rocks and metals from the ground; and this is not so, we wouldn't need to grow food. We could eat dirt - worms do!! Our bodies were not designed to be nourished by rocks - God gave this power to the plant kingdom. No civilization has ever tried rocks for its nourishment; nor have they tried to eat shells or bones! Yet this is what you get in USP supplements. Your body does the best it can with the rocks, shells and bones to make these into complex molecules and execretes the rest through the kidneys. Do you think the small amount that we assimiate has any nutritional value? And what about the extra load on your kidneys? Mega-dosing can cause side effects! Are colloidial minerals different? They are minerals that have been suspended in their own salts. These salts can be broken down easily by the acid/alkaline balance in the stomach (if it exists) and have a better chance of being assimilated than the simple minerals but they are not the same as those minerals found in food matrixes. Do You Know Your "Food-Based" Vitamin/Mineral Supplier? Many times the "natural" or "food-based" supplements are formulated with the same USP chemical vitamins and minerals as mentioned above. They simply put them into a big blender and add a small amount of powdered food - then they are sold as powders, tablets or liquids - this does not change the USP vitamins and minerals. Your body will still not recognize them. You can fool your mind but you cannot fool the cells of your body. Does the label on your vitamin minearl supplement list the whole-foods it contains? Who Needs Natural Food Component Supplements? With our fast-paced lifestyles, polluted environment and long work hours, virtually no one eats a perfectly balanced nutritional programs every day. So, who needs natural occurring food components or whole-food complexes - we all do! ASK DOC WHERE TO FIND THESE ELEMENTS IN THEIR NATURAL FORM!! DOC KNOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE "REAL" WHOLE-FOOD NATURAL ELEMENTS!! *None of the statements in this article have been reviewed by the Food & Drug Administration.