Vitamin Myth Exposed
As far as the sciences have evolved in our incredible age of quantum physics and our understanding of cell biology, life is still an indefinable mystery. Only Mother Nature can make an apple. Only nature can make a cell. While scientists and chemists continue to try in vain to duplicate in a laboratory the molecular structure of many different isolated natural substances. When you analyze them with an electron microscope they can look identical, yet in some invisible, yet significant, way they are not. Although scientists can make seawater with exactly the same chemical structure as natural seawater, when you put a salt-water fish in this synthetic environment, the fish dies. What is it in natural seawater that sustains life? This is one of life’s great mysteries, and the foundation upon which this book is inspired.
VITA means life. Vita defines the difference between synthetic and what is now known as naturally-occurring. This book is about the consequences of this difference in our vitamins and nutritional supplements today, and is further dedicated to helping you understand their impact on your health and how you can become equipped to avoid unhealthful choices and benefit from healthy whole-food N.O.S. varieties.
Putting the word “Natural” on the vitamin label is deceptive. The word is constantly abused and as such its meaning has been diluted to a point where it holds little value. Many misleading labels on supplement products take advantage of the ambiguity of the word “natural” to project a wholesome marketing image – most often when the product does not merit it. Whereas the term “naturally-occurring” on a label means that a vitamin or nutrient is completely comprised of compounds from naturally-occurring sources – the plants themselves – rather than merely containing a naturally-occurring ingredient mixed with synthetic ingredients.
The best vitamin supplements are those with labeled potencies derived from naturally-occurring, full-spectrum food extracts. Naturally-occurring vitamins are obtained by taking a nutrient-rich plant, removing the water and the fibre in a chemical-free vacuum process, and packaging it for stability. The entire vitamin complex is captured intact, retaining its full-spectrum functional and nutritional integrity.
Another primary difference between real full-spectrum whole-food vitamins and synthetic vitamins is that real vitamins contain the essential trace minerals necessary for the vitamins’ synergistic operation. Synthetic vitamins contain no trace minerals and must utilize the body’s own mineral reserves. Ingesting real vitamins does not require the body to deplete its own reserves of nutrients to replace any nutrients missing from the false vitamin complex.
Mega doses of synthetic vitamins can have very serious toxic effects. Naturally-occurring whole-food vitamins are not toxic since the vitamin is complexed in its natural whole integral working form, and requires nothing from the body to “build” a vitamin. Naturally-occurring whole food vitamins are only necessary in small quantities on a daily basis.
Mainstream marketing of vitamins and minerals has created the myth that vitamins and minerals may be isolated individually and from one other, and that we can derive total benefit from taking these fractionated chemical creations. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Vitamins, minerals and enzymes work closely together as co-factors for each other's efficacy. If one part is missing, or is fractionated, or in the incorrect form or the incorrect amount, entire chains of metabolic processes cannot and will not proceed normally. Only nature can provide us with naturally-occurring vitamins as found in real, wholesome organic foods.
The overwhelming majority of vitamin products sold in groceries, drug stores or mass-marketing retailers contain synthetic ingredients. What our bodies require are supplement products made exclusively from naturally-occurring nutrients rather than toxic laboratory synthesized ones. Currently only conscious companies produce supplements with naturally-occurring ingredients. These companies should be commended and supported for offering natural health-promoting products to the consumer.
We are grateful to Amsar Pvt. Ltd., AmsarUSA and others for their efforts in establishing “Naturally Occurring” as a specific Standard of Quality. This standard should be applied for natural vitamins, ingredients and materials for the entire food, beverage, nutraceutical, and cosmetic industry, and consumer goods, including the entire SBS. The adoption of this proposed “Naturally Occurring Standard”* (NOS*) will bring a clarity to all purveyors and consumers of natural products. The NOS is an important step and regulatory guideline that has been missing from the product label information and literature since the beginning of packaged food sales. The NOS symbol on products will help to eliminate the confusion between truly natural and less than natural product ingredients.
We need more naturally-occurring vitamin supplements to counter the vast array of harmful synthetic vitamin supplements flooding our world markets. Consumers must request the production of more naturally-occurring supplements by petitioning the natural foods industry to provide us with only health-promoting products. Insisting that the designation “naturally-occurring” be put only on the labels of naturally-occurring vitamin and nutrient supplements, will allow the consumer to distinguish between what is a real vitamin supplement and what is not.