Want to hear something crazy?
One of my best friends believes that multivitamins can replace his daily dose of vegetables. Good health strategy? I don’t think so! At this point, I can no longer talk to him about this topic. It’s too frustrating.
To get a better understanding, I’ve done some research on vitamin supplements.
Growing evidence suggests that most multivitamins are useless. In some cases, supplements can be harmful, especially in combination with other medications. Supplements don’t have the same regulations, so it’s harder to know what you’re actually taking and what the side effects might be. You have a better chance of meeting your nutritional requirements with a healthy diet.
Disclaimer: There are likely some supplements that can help you, and you should always consult with your doctor before taking anything.
Why it should be a ‘Yearly Recommended Intake’ and not a ‘Daily Recommended Intake’
Nature will never provide your daily nutritional requirements for the day. There’s no superfood that can meet all your dietary needs and grows annually.
With the changing seasons, different food is available at different times that provides different nutrients.
Our species never would have survived if we hadn’t evolved to the ability to store certain nutrients.
Our body is designed to absorb nutrients, energy and water that we need immediately or that we might need later.
One WildFit principle is: in order to be healthy we must mimic the diet of when our DNA was evolving.
In other words, eat according to what the different seasons would have been like in Africa a couple hundred thousand years ago.
If you want to get a large variety of nutrients, make sure to eat a variety of vegetables, fruit (occasionally), a few nuts and some meat.
Why Eating Healthy Should Be Your First Priority
One of the more frustrating topics that I encounter when talking with others about their health is when they’re trying to solve health issues from malnourishment with medication and supplements.
My perspective is this is entirely backward.
I believe that you should meet your nutritional requirements through food. If you’re lacking certain nutrients, solving it by eating ingredients that contain those nutrients. If that isn’t enough, go and seek out addition supplements to meet your nutritional requirements.
Remember, the body is designed to absorb the required nutrients from food. When we were hunter-gatherers back in the day, we had no supplements to supply us with nutrients.
WildFit’s Stance On Supplements
WildFit believes that you can meet ALL your nutritional requirements through diet.
If you can’t, MAYBE you need some form of supplements.
If this is the case, we encourage that you find the best quality supplements, together with the recommendation from your doctor.
We recognize that food can contain fewer nutrients depending on soil depletion. Meaning a carrot today may provide fewer nutrients than a carrot 100 years ago. However, if we compare this carrot with some of the food that’s produced today, it’s likely to still be the better choice.
Get Creative With Your Diet
Eating boils down to three things: getting nutrients, energy, and water. That’s it.
Providing enough food and reproducing were the top priorities of our tribe. It’s what we lived for! Today food is used for so much more.
We experiment with food and use it to deal with emotions.
A common thing to encounter when starting to eat healthy is thinking healthy food is boring. I certainly did.
Today I get my absolute best experiences with healthy food. I love experimenting with new ways of cooking with healthy, raw ingredients.
My best advice is to start experimenting with food. Make it a fun activity you do with your partner, family, or friends.
There’s a ton of recipes available with a quick Google search.
Food Alternatives
Common questions we get from clients starting out with healthy cooking is
- “what can I use instead of rice?”
- “what can I use to substitute bread?”
- “what can I use instead for pasta?”
- “what can I use instead of white potatoes?”
To get you started here are some food alternatives you can try:
- Alternative to rice: Cauliflower rice
- Alternative to bread: Nuts and seed bread
- Alternative to pasta: Zoodles or zucchini noodles (try it with this yummy pesto recipe)
- Alternative to the white potato: Sweet potato
Pick one and test it out today!
Have you ever tried multivitamins? If so, what’s your experience with them? Comment below.