Vitamins, Minerals, and Phytochemicals

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General Recommendations:

Overall Supplement

So the question remains, what's the best overall (one-a-day kind of thing) supplement? the best way to look at the question of an overall supplement is to break it into three categories: Optimum, Acceptable, and Avoid At All Costs.

Optimum

• One good choice is to use concentrated "food-based" vitamin complexes. Such supplements will contain concentrated forms of liver, yeast, and wheat germ for example.
  
• Another good option is to use "food-grown" supplements. Instead of being chemically manufactured, food-grown supplements are cultivated using a live biodynamic growing process. Literally, by growing nutritional yeast in a "super-dense nutrient-broth," you end up with a "Living" vitamin/mineral complex that is comprised of a highly complex interlocking system of vitamins, enzymes, minerals, active bioflavonoid groups, microproteins, complex carbohydrates, and countless other naturally occurring food constituents.
• A third alternative is a superfood combination that contains things like spirulina, chlorella, flower pollen, nutritional yeast, wheat grass, barley grass, powdered beets, ect. to provide a full complement vitamins and minerals. The actual amount of vitamins and minerals you get will be less than in other options, but the bioavailability will be good.
  

• Watch out for fillers. Superfoods are expensive, and many manufacturers cheat their formulas down by adding large amounts of things such as low-grade rice bran and lecithin. Also, it's important to make sure that your superfood provides good sources for the B vitamins and for vitamin D.
• For many years, it was thought that edible seaweeds, fermented soya foods, and spirulina contained high levels of B 12. They don't. What they contains are b12 analogues (chemical lookalikes) which your body cannot use. You need another source of B12.
• Recent studies have found that more than half of all people have too little vitamin D in thei bodies. The big surprise was that 1/3 of those who were deficient were taking vitamin D - and get some sunlight on your body.

• Probably the best choice, however, is to use "food-formed" supplements. Instead of being chemically manufactured, food-formed supplements are cultivated using a live biodynamic growing process. Literally, by growing nutritional yeast in a "super-dense nutrient-broth," you end up with a "living" vitamin/mineral complex that is comprised of a highly complex interlocking system of: vitamins, enzymes, minerals, active bioflavonoid groups, micro proteins, complex carbohydrates, and countless other naturally occurring food constituents.

Acceptable

• It's possible to find high-quality vitamin/mineral supplements at the health food store that use only co-natural vitamins and no synthetics. The problem with supplements based on co-naturals is that they can never be complete. What co-naturals are useful for is "spiking up" a supplement based on one of our Optimum options. An example would be a "food-based" supplement augmented with co-natural vitamins E and C.

Avoid At All Costs

• Supplements made in whole, or part, from synthetics are not an option. At their best, they are only 50% as effective as a natural vitamin. At their worst, they actually may carry harmful side effects.

Essential Fatty Acids

Since the Omega-3 EFA's have been removed from virtually all of the food we normally eat, supplementation is essential. The best sources for EFA's are:

• If you're taking your daily dose of ground flaxseed as recommended in Chapter 3, you will be getting all of the alpha-linolenic acid you need. Otherwise, you will want to supplement with 1-3 tablespoons daily of organic, cold-pressed, high-lignan flaxseed oil.
• Borage oil is more potent and less expensive that evening primrose or black current oil and is the best choice for gamma linolenic acid.
• Fish oil provides DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenic acid).

Recently a variation of a long-chain fatty acid cetyl ester called Omega-9+[tm] has been discovered. Although not yet officially designed an Essential Fatty Acid, supplementation with this fatty acid has shown a remarkable ability to reprogram the immune system, relieve pain, reverse the effects of arthritis, and relieve the symptoms of a whole host of disease.

Trace Minerals

There are now many good sources of trace minerals available. You will see them described as colloidal minerals" or "ionic minerals" or "sea minerals." Take your pick and use one. Trace mineral deficiency is epidemic in America because of the poor quality of our diet. Supplementation is essential. Note: you will find it almost impossible to get the trace minerals you need in an overall supplement. Trace minerals are hard to absorb unless they are in a "liquid" form that the body can use.

Phytonutrients

At the moment, the best source is still real food. Foods you will want to include in your diet include things such as:

• Soy products of all kinds for the genistein and isoflavones
• Broccoli, brussel sprouts, and kale for the sulforaphane
• Garlic and onions for allyl sulfides
• Red grapes (including seeds) for the proanthocyanidins and the resveratrol
• Green tea for the polyphenols

Barron's Picks:

Super food

Trace minerals

Click on the links to check them out.