WGP 022: Do You Need to be Taking Dietary Supplements? - Whole Guidance

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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Supplements:

I’ll explain why supplementing with vitamins and minerals is a necessity
I’ll talk about some vitamins and minerals that you need on a daily basis
I’ll give some supplement and food recommendations for these vital nutrients
Finally I’ll share how you can lower your supplement requirements

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN

Today human society of the western variety follow many practises that are not very beneficial to life on this planet. One of these practises is modern agriculture.

Way back in the day about a few generations ago farmers and growers did not need to use chemical fertilisers, man-made pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, and other chemicals or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in order to grow plentiful and bountiful crops that were also packed full of nutrition. Farmers did not grow a single crop time after time on the same plot of land and soil, also known as a monoculture. Farmers did not grow and breed vegetables and fruit just so they could make them bigger and sweeter.

Today the way society practises farming leads to a lot of these agricultural chemicals leaching into the soil poisoning the microorganisms and worms needed to create a healthy soil. This sick topsoil that is depleted of vitamins and minerals creates sick plants, sick animals, and sick humans. Not only do the chemicals poison the soil, but they get into waterways and flow into local rivers and lakes and eventually hit the ocean creating more sickness and disease for sea life.

The vegetables and fruits of today have lost their medicinal properties and have less fibre and a lot more sugar. The bland iceberg lettuce and sweet supersized apple you’re eating today are not the same bitter and tart, smaller varieties your grandparents had in their day. Before agriculture you could actually gather lettuce that was quite bitter and full of plant nutrients that would act as medicine in the body. Today that bitterness and medicine has been lost due to the commercialisation of the food industry and also due to consumer demand. So it’s not all the producer’s fault as buyers over the years wanted bigger and sweeter tasting foods so society has to take some of the blame here for why food today does not have the same nutrition density and medicinal benefits as the foods of previous generations.

Not only is the food supply low on nutrition, but the environment is high in pollution. Industrial chemicals are being pumped into the air, land, and oceans all over the world every second of every day and the more toxins your body is exposed to the more work your innate detoxification system has to do and this detox process requires nutrients. So unless you live in a bubble your body is already working overtime to detoxify the chemicals you’re exposed to on a daily basis and this detox process is soaking up all the nutrients it can find within your body.

Another thing that soaks up a lot of nutrients in your body is stress. Whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional stress will drain your body of the nutrition it needs to thrive leaving you with a body that has barely enough to survive. The more physical stress your body is dealing with and the more perceived emotional and mental stress you believe yourself to be under then the higher your vitamin and mineral needs become.

So because it’ll take you a few heads of broccoli today to get the same nutrition from one single head of broccoli grown 100 years ago and due to the constant barrage of toxins your body is being exposed to and the increased amount of stress in modern life these all cause an increase in your nutrition requirements meaning that supplementing with vitamins and minerals and other vital nutrients is a necessity to achieve optimal health in this day and age.

Now with so many vitamin and mineral supplements on the market today where do you start or how do you know which to take?

Well I’ll talk about just a few vital nutrients I believe everyone should be supplementing with on a regular basis.

First up are probiotics. Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms that live on, in and throughout your entire body. Most of your probiotics live in your gut, your intestines. These little friendly single-celled organisms help maintain the health of not only your gut, but your whole bodymind. Your gut is where 80% of your immune cells live and your immune system needs probiotics in order to function properly so it’s crucial to keep your gut probiotic population in a happy and healthy state as a weakened immune system may eventually leads to many many diseases including cancer.

Next is magnesium. Now magnesium is required for over 300 chemical reactions in your body. Adenosine triphosphate or ATP is one of the energy molecules used by your cells and ATP needs to bind to magnesium for it to be used. During the replication of your DNA magnesium is needed by enzymes that make sure no errors or mutations occur and when there is a mutation these enzymes need magnesium to repair the damaged DNA. Damaged DNA is one cause of cancer. Magnesium is also needed to move calcium around the body and helps muscles to relax and work more efficiently making it the perfect mineral to support the health of your heart.

Probably the most important vitamin today, actually a hormone, is vitamin D. This hormone that we mainly get from the beautiful unconditionally loving sun regulates the expression of over 1000 different genes. Meaning vitamin D can turn on or off about 5% of your entire genetic code. That’s pretty powerful stuff. Vitamin D does so many things including helping the body to absorb calcium supporting bone mineralisation, boosts your immune system reducing cancer risk, reduces inflammation, and makes you feel good as it helps with converting the amino acid tryptophan into the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin.

Alongside vitamin D I must mention vitamin K. There are many types of vitamin K and I’ll focus on K1 and K2. Vitamin K1 is responsible for helping your blood to clot properly. Vitamin K2 helps prevent the calcification of your arteries by activating proteins that will pull calcium out of blood vessels and arteries and bring it to the bone where vitamin D then does its job of helping calcium absorb into the bone.

Another vital nutrient is vitamin A. Now I’m not talking about beta-carotene found in the orange pigments of vegetables and fruits. I’m talking about real vitamin A found in animal fat. Vitamin A works synergistically with vitamins D and K2, meaning the beneficial effect of these three vital nutrients is multiplied to a whole new level when they combine and altogether they help ensure that calcium gets to your bones and not stick in your arteries. Not only is vitamin A needed for proper bone formation, but it’s also used in new cell formation and growth and development and so helps prevent birth defects, it’s required for healthy eyes, skin, and hair, for protein metabolism, and for the production of hormones.

Finally omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Now I’m not talking about the alpha-linoleic acid (ALA) that you get from plant foods. I’m talking about eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) that can only be found in animal fats. EPA and DHA are two critically important nutrients I highly recommend getting on a daily basis, preferably through food. EPA is needed for its anti-inflammatory properties and DHA is one of the building blocks of your brain cells.

Also the modern western diet is extremely high in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats found in grains and industrial seed oils. Now I’m not going to argue that croissants, bagels, fried fish and chips don’t taste good, but the way these are made today is causing fire in your body, more inflammation. By consuming more omega-3 fats and lowering your omega-6 intake you can help calm the inflammation in your body. Remember Yin Yang where we never want to go too extreme on one thing or the other, but today most people are just eating far too many omega-6 fats which are highly Yang.

Alright so as far as my supplement recommendations go, I have already created a page outlining the brands and supplements that I recommend in the resources section of my website. So if you go to wholeguidance.com/supplements you will find the list of supplements I recommend there.

Now for the best food sources…

For probiotics you have to eat fermented foods. Fermented foods are foods that have been prepared in such a way that after they’ve been made they are chockfull of probiotics. Examples of fermented foods include:

Fermented vegetables like sauerkraut and kimchi
Kefir
Aged cheeses
Kombucha
Lassi and
Fermented soy such as miso, tempeh, and natto

As for magnesium you can’t go past 100% cacao. I’m not talking about your typical chocolate bar, I’m talking about the whole cacao bean or raw cacao nibs, which is the bean chopped up, and raw cacao powder. A chocolate bar that says 100% cacao with no other ingredients added would also work. Most people know that chlorophyll is the molecule that makes plants green and at the centre of that molecule is magnesium. So all your green leafy and cruciferous vegetables are full of magnesium. Pumpkin seeds are another great source of magnesium.

For vitamin D your skin being exposed to the sun during the middle of the day when the sun is high during the warmer months of the year, this is your best source of vitamin D. As far as food is concerned cod liver oil, fatty fish, mushrooms, free-range pasture-raised pork, full-fat dairy, and everybody’s favourite liver are your best food choices. I love eating free-range pork crackling that I bake at home. I can just taste that sunshiny goodness, mmm mmm.

Okay vitamin K. Vitamin K1 can be found in green vegetables. Vitamin K2 can be found in grass-fed free-range pasture-raised animal fats such as full-fat dairy and eggs. So if you were to put some quality butter on top of your organic green veges you’d be getting a one two combo of both vitamins K1 and K2. Natto is very high in K2, but also tastes like crap… so not my first choice for K2. Brie and Gouda cheeses are fantastic foods sources of K2 as well.

For vitamin A grass-fed free-range pasture-raised animal fats are the only way to go. So egg yolks, butter and heavy cream, as well as liver will be the best sources of vitamin A.

You will find EPA and DHA omega-3 fats in cold water fatty fish like salmon, herring, sardines, and mackerel. You can also get EPA and DHA in grass-fed full-fat dairy and meat products as well as free-range pasture-raised eggs.

Now one superfood I recommend that combines vitamins A, D, K2, and omega-3 fats into one potent product is fermented cod liver oil mixed with butter oil. You can find this in a pretty little package from a company called Green Pastures. I list this on my supplements page, but will also put a link up for it in the show notes for this episode. It doesn’t taste the best, but it does the best for your body.

Okay now there are a few things you can do to lower your nutrition requirements and therefore lower your need for supplements.

First is to eat real nutrient dense food. Earlier I spoke about how modern food practises have created nutrient poor foods. Well in order to get nutrient rich foods you need to buy local organically grown produce and local grass-fed, free-range, pasture-raised farmed meat. You want food that has not been treated with chemicals and that has not travelled over great distances losing its nutritional value along the way. You want food that has been grown and raised naturally in and on healthy soil that is full of microorganisms and worms and vitamins and minerals. So fresh local organic foods will be packed full of nutrients.

You can lower your nutrient needs by lowering your exposure to toxins and chemicals in your environment. I did a whole podcast on how to support your detoxification system and the big takeaway there was to swap out all your commercial home care and personal care products for organic plant-based ones. The less work your liver, kidneys, lungs, and lymphatic system have to do the more nutrients you will have for growth and repair processes.

Finally if you can manage yourself when it comes to perceiving stress in your life and learn how to not take every little thing so seriously you will be doing your body a huge favour. The less stress hormones running through your veins then the more nutrition your body will have available to do more of the growth and repair processes. Go back and listen to the podcast I did about managing yourself and stress for more information.

I’ll leave you with this thought. You cannot supplement your way out of a poor diet and unhappy lifestyle. So to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to taking supplements make sure that as you’re popping those vitamins and minerals that you’re also eating real food and living a happy and healthy holistic lifestyle.

As Linus Pauling a Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry says:

“I believe that you can, by taking some simple and inexpensive measures, lead a longer life and extend your years of well-being. My most important recommendation is that you take vitamins every day in optimum amounts to supplement the vitamins that you receive in your food.”

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