I'm on a quest to eat the most optimal diet. Food is so beautiful and nourishing if it's whole, pure, fresh, and grown on nutrient dense soil ( I wish all soil was nutrient dense).
My first question is....can supplemental vit. E in the d-alpha tocopherol form be better than sunflower oil or other seeds that are high in vit. E?
My supplement says it provides 400 IU. The pill is so TINY.
Can't a food source provide a TON more vit. e than a teeny, tiny supplement?
I once read a quote from a natural doctor who said a stalk of celery contains more vitamins than a bottle of supplements. (I don't remember who it was but if I run across it I'll let you know) It was a bold statement and shocked my thinking.
I wish I could see how vit. e was manufactured and what exactly it was. I feel the same way about magnesium.
Any chemists out there.....or pinballdoctor, "a walking talking wealth of health information."
Foods in general do not supply concentrated minerals or vitamins. How do we know this aside from spectrographic studies?
We know by the effects of eating foods compared to taking supplements.
Most people just can't eat enough food to get high medicinal dosages of vitamins and minerals. Many foods are depeleted of minerals and if they are depleted of minerals their vitamin counts will not be good either.
Eating a good well balanced diet of veggeis, fruit, seeds and nuts with some meat should provide most people all the things they need but most people do not eat well and in that behavior they have lost sight of what they should be eating.
I did an interview of someone who was having issues with osteoporosis and kidney stones recently. she and her daughter thought that she ate well. But when it came down to it she was only eating one veggie a day, and too often it was a potato.
Its no wonder her bones were degenerating! ... and they thought this was a good diet... so the doctor had her taking 20000 mg of calcium carbonate to build bones along with 10 years on fosamax!!!! no wonder she was having kidney stones.
She should have been eating green leafy veggies, broccoli, yams and flax seed, vitamin D3 and K2 and taking a slica supplement to restore her bones...not the prescribed crap. This doctor, though his ignorance and lack of understanding of nutriton, drove her into pain and illness. Now she wants to try to undo it. I hope she has the determination to do so... kidney stones can be a pretty big motivating factor!
Supplements are best used to build and restore from the detrimental effects of a bad lifestyle and mineral depeted food sources but vitamins and minerals can also be very helpful for opening pathways of detoxification from the polluted world we live in. compared to 200 years ago there are many many reasons in our environment to supplement with exta vtiamins and minerals as well as phytonutrients
So what do you eat that supplies vitamin E. Do you even know? Do you know how much vitamin E is in a portion and do you eat it everyday? Do you have any early or chronic signs of vascular disease? If so how much vitamin E do you think you should take? are you getting it from your food daily? What other nutrients combat vascular disease? Vascular and cardiac disease is the number one killer of women. Most women know not what to do to prevent this desease.
Scientific research has demonsatrated that extra vitiamin holds significant healing potiential, that is dosages above and beyond what one normally consumes in a good diet.
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"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." Marcus Aurelius
Foods in general do not supply concentrated minerals or vitamins. How do we know this aside from spectrographic studies?
We know by the effects of eating foods compared to taking supplements.
Most people just can't eat enough food to get high medicinal dosages of vitamins and minerals. Many foods are depeleted of minerals and if they are depleted of minerals their vitamin counts will not be good either.
Eating a good well balanced diet of veggeis, fruit, seeds and nuts with some meat should provide most people all the things they need but most people do not eat well and in that behavior they have lost sight of what they should be eating.
I did an interview of someone who was having issues with osteoporosis and kidney stones recently. she and her daughter thought that she ate well. But when it came down to it she was only eating one veggie a day, and too often it was a potato.
Its no wonder her bones were degenerating! ... and they thought this was a good diet... so the doctor had her taking 20000 mg of calcium carbonate to build bones along with 10 years on fosamax!!!! no wonder she was having kidney stones.
She should have been eating green leafy veggies, broccoli, yams and flax seed, vitamin D3 and K2 and taking a slica supplement to restore her bones...not the prescribed crap. This doctor, though his ignorance and lack of understanding of nutriton, drove her into pain and illness. Now she wants to try to undo it. I hope she has the determination to do so... kidney stones can be a pretty big motivating factor!
Supplements are best used to build and restore from the detrimental effects of a bad lifestyle and mineral depeted food sources but vitamins and minerals can also be very helpful for opening pathways of detoxification from the polluted world we live in. compared to 200 years ago there are many many reasons in our environment to supplement with exta vtiamins and minerals as well as phytonutrients
So what do you eat that supplies vitamin E. Do you even know? Do you know how much vitamin E is in a portion and do you eat it everyday? Do you have any early or chronic signs of vascular disease? If so how much vitamin E do you think you should take? are you getting it from your food daily? What other nutrients combat vascular disease? Vascular and cardiac disease is the number one killer of women. Most women know not what to do to prevent this desease.
Scientific research has demonsatrated that extra vitiamin holds significant healing potiential, that is dosages above and beyond what one normally consumes in a good diet.
Love this reply! Love the acknowledgment of the role silica plays in building new bone, and the hazards of calcium supplementation.
Another really important thing to remember when considering food versus supplements is that food is endowed with hundreds of co-factors, each playing a different role in the body's absorption and use of the nutrients. Extracting one or two nutrients or phytonutrients is not natural. If you are going to supplement to treat a specific condition, better to find a whole food derived supplement, not synthetic.
My first question is....can supplemental vit. E in the d-alpha tocopherol form be better than sunflower oil or other seeds that are high in vit. E?
There are at least six different forms of natural vitamin E, therefore, its best to get all forms on a daily basis.
Linus Pauling suggested many years ago that the RDA for E was much too low, and that he personally took 2400 I.U. per day.
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My supplement says it provides 400 IU. The pill is so TINY.
400 I.U. is really nothing, and taking 400 I.U. of E would be the same as taking 400 I.U. of D3, which again, is nowhere near an optimum amount.
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Can't a food source provide a TON more vit. e than a teeny, tiny supplement?
Yes, raw organic sunflower seeds are packed with E, however, store bought sunflower seeds contain very little E because they are baked, and E is sensitive to heat.
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I once read a quote from a natural doctor who said a stalk of celery contains more vitamins than a bottle of supplements.
This would only be true if the supplements were synthetic rather than made from whole foods.
Imagine juicing 10 stalks of celery. The machine separates the juice, which contains about 90% of the nutrients, from the pulp, which contains about 10% of the total nutrients, since the pulp is mostly fibre.
Now imagine evapourating the juice at low temperature. What you are left with is a very small amount of powder that contains most of the nutrients that were in the celery stalks. This powder could then be placed in a couple capsules and swallowed, rather than drinking 2 or 3 glasses of juice or eating 10 celery stalks.
Now imagine doing the same with broccoli, kale, blueberry, mangosteen, goji, as well as several other fruit and veggie.
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pinballdoctor, "a walking talking wealth of health information."
Its very lonely up here on this soap box.
As long as your diet contains plenty of fruits, veggies, seeds, and nuts, you will be getting enough vitamins and nutrients to keep you healthy.
Keep in mind that a good diet will not prevent aging, thats where the supplements come into play. In order to reverse damage done to the DNA, you must overcome this damage, and the only way to do that is to flood the body with phytonutrients and antioxidants.
Small amounts will do nothing.
As far as magnesium goes, you can get enough through the dark green veggies in your diet, provided the soil in which they were grown is not depleted or contaminated with chemicals and pesticides. Thus, its always best to buy from a farmers market, and organic if possible.
Having headaches/migraines, as well as sore bones/joints, is a symptom of being deficient in magnesium.
If you decide to supplement I would suggest you read the labels and avoid any supplements that contain colors or dyes, or flow agents such as magnesium sterate, and by all means, don't buy pills from Walmart.
Very good reply!! I can't get my father-in-law to understand that the food that is available to us does not have the nutritional value that it once had, due to chemical treatments to the plants and to the soil, and the fact that food generally sits on the shelves longer and the heat and light depletes them of nutrients. I read about a study that was done on oranges, and they found some oranges with NO vitamin C in them at all! That's a good reason to buy locally whenever possible, because the food is usually fresher.
What an incredible reply...full of clarity, knowledge and wisdom. I appreciate it!
I want to live on the offense not the defense when it comes to our modern diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Stress reduction is a big factor as well as nutrients for the body.
Vit. E is a supplement I just began taking. I looked online to find foods highest in vit. e. Wheatgerm oil came up as the highest with providing 4 g. per tsp.. I won't eat wheatgerm oil but I'll eat sunflower oil that provides 4g......no, wait....that isn't vit. e it's just the weight of 1 tsp. of oil.
It's complex to convert iu's to g. but with some googling it could be figured out. The coversion factor is 1.49
I would avoid taking sunflower oil as a supplement. Look into essential fatty acids and see where sunflower oil stands on the list.
There are 3 oils that are suitable being olive, grapeseed and coconut.
It is my opinion that vitamin e has great benefits if one is in a disease state and should be taken primarily in supplements in the form of mixed tocotrienals... In the natural order of things vitamin E is limited in foods and hence you found wheat germ oil, which is an oil that is actually only a recent development and not suitable for daily consumption.. same with flax seed oil, although ground and whole flax seeds have been with us for a very long time and more suitable in a whole form.
Most vitamins should not be supplemented if we live in a natural state, with good digestion, and outside of the influence of toxic microbes and pollution in our food, air and water... so this is exactly why we talk of supplements here so much.
You would do better to eat raw sunflower seeds, hazel nuts and almonds daily. Make sure your protien capabilities are up to par,,, in other words that these types of protiens do not cause indigestion for you.
Sunflower oil is very unbalanced in essential fatty acids. It's very high in omega 6 and low in omega 3. I was considering taking it for the vit. e while taking cod liver oil to balance out the omega 3's.
I LOVE nuts but have a difficult time digesting them. I've soaked and sprouted them but there are still problems. The next thing I could try is cooking them after being soaked to break down their cell walls. Or I could take betaine hydrochloric acid along with them. sigh
I'm beginning to understand that it isn't possible to get what our body needs from food alone. It's still hard for me to fully grasp that concept because mankind lived on food for thousands of years. They didn't have tiny pills of vit. e for their nourishment. It's the TINY part that really gets me. The vit. e in the pill is less than the eraser of a pencil. The quantity of food I eat is so much greater. How can this tiny drop of oil be better than the large mass of food I eat especially since nutrients are synergistic?
Certainly we now have toxins that surround and penetrate us and because of that our bodies need vitamins as medicine to detox, heal and be nourished. Hippocrotes would be discouraged at the state of our planet.
I want to have peace with this but I'm not there yet.
So what do you eat that supplies vitamin E. Do you even know? Do you know how much vitamin E is in a portion and do you eat it everyday?
---It is not clear to me how much vit. e is in food. I'm aware that nuts, seeds and fish provide vit. e but how much related to iu's, i do not know. I do not eat fish frequently. I'm recently releasing my fear of fish being full of toxins especially mercury. Nuts are difficult to digest for me. I"m probably deficient in vit. e as well as many other nutrients.
Do you have any early or chronic signs of vascular disease?
----I have cold extremities, a blue toenail on my big toe when I'm cold otherwise it is pink and normal. I have no moons on any of my fingernails besides my thumb. I do not have a lot of energy or stamina. Don't many people die of heart attack without any warnings? My blood pressure is low and that is confusing.
If so how much vitamin E do you think you should take? are you getting it from your food daily? What other nutrients combat vascular disease? Vascular and cardiac disease is the number one killer of women. Most women know not what to do to prevent this desease.
-----I do not know how much vit. e to take. I know vitamins work synergistically but the exact amount of vit. e for my body and particular metabolic state I do not know. Antioxidants are very important.
May I ask if you take vitamins and if so what do you trust and use?
So what do you eat that supplies vitamin E. Do you even know? Do you know how much vitamin E is in a portion and do you eat it everyday?
---It is not clear to me how much vit. e is in food. I'm aware that nuts, seeds and fish provide vit. e but how much related to iu's, i do not know. I do not eat fish frequently. I'm recently releasing my fear of fish being full of toxins especially mercury. Nuts are difficult to digest for me. I"m probably deficient in vit. e as well as many other nutrients.
Do you have any early or chronic signs of vascular disease?
----I have cold extremities, a blue toenail on my big toe when I'm cold otherwise it is pink and normal. I have no moons on any of my fingernails besides my thumb. I do not have a lot of energy or stamina. Don't many people die of heart attack without any warnings? My blood pressure is low and that is confusing.
If so how much vitamin E do you think you should take? are you getting it from your food daily? What other nutrients combat vascular disease? Vascular and cardiac disease is the number one killer of women. Most women know not what to do to prevent this desease.
-----I do not know how much vit. e to take. I know vitamins work synergistically but the exact amount of vit. e for my body and particular metabolic state I do not know. Antioxidants are very important.
May I ask if you take vitamins and if so what do you trust and use?
Sincerely and thanks in advance,
Julia
Feeling the cold, lack of energy etc. Sounds to me like you have an underactive thyroid....
Nuts: Try ground almonds, mixed in with a carrier base i.e. (my favourite) chocolate soya dessert.
Food supplements like brewer's yeast or esp. kelp, would be helpful to you too.
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....It is our deeds, the accumulated acts of goodness and kindness, that define us and ultimately are the true measure of our worth. Service is the coin of the spirit.
Hi Julia, welcome to the forum! First I'd like it to be clear that I'm not good in mathematics, nor am I an expert in nutrition. I believe that even with good healthy eating, we can't get all of the vitamins/minerals we need without supplements. Folks did without them years back, but if I'm correct, the life-expectancy then was also much shorter than it is today.
I don't know about your wheat-germ figures, but 4 grams of Vitamin E per teaspoon would equal 4,000mg (1 gram = 1,000mg). Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have an old nutrition book that shows 1 TABLEspoon of wheat-germ oil = only 28mg of vitamin E. { 1 IU of E = .67mg, so a typical 400 IU softgel should equal 268mg}
Soybean is 2.9mg Safflower is 13mg Olive is 5.32mg
For 1 stalk of raw celery they show (vitamins/mineral not listed are zero):
.2 mg calcium .15mg iron 11mg magnesium 14mg phosphorus 171mg potassium 120 IUs of vitamin A .02mg B1 .02mg B2 .03mg B6 .004mg folic acid .15mg niacin .21mg pantothenic acid 4.5mg vitamin C .19mg vitamin E
__________________ "We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~
With your calculations it would take approximately 8 T. to get close to 400 iu's if vit. e. The amount of calories would be ridiculous!
The celery doesn't look very high in nutrients at all. It's all very discouragaing.
Who was it that discovered vitamins and is it accurately measured within food as compared to supplements. It seems like the two can't be compared. I'm talking out loud here.
In biblical times people lived in the hundreds. People lived hundreds of years. No one today lives that long.
I certainly don't have the answers. It get's tiring trying to understand it all.
The highest food content of vitamin E is raw sunflower seeds. 1/4 cup raw sunflower is 18MG vitamin E. Almonds are the next best at 1/4 cup raw at 8.97MG.
Who was it that discovered vitamins and is it accurately measured within food as compared to supplements.
I certainly don't have the answers. It get's tiring trying to understand it all.
Julia, if betaine HCL works and allows you to digest nuts well then do it.
and take it as a sign that you are generally low in HCL and you would probably do well to take it at all protien meals.
On the other had some people cannot digest nuts due to more complex factors involving the gall bladder and the concentrated fat that it offers inside a protien matrix. You will have to figure that out/
We have a longer life expectancy these days because our children survive to be adults due to more food, less physical stress and the advent of antibiotics. It was not so long ago that most families endured the death of one or maybe even more children. On the other hand the incidences of severe chronic disease is way way up due to our denatured foods both processed and unprocessed.
Our 'unprocessed' foods (in other words fresh veggies) have been treated with chemicals and the soils are devoid of nutrients they need to develop their full capacity in vitamins and minerals.. so it is because of this that I say that supplemental vitamins are needed more frequently than not. Aside from that in our environment we are daily assaulted by a chemical barrage of irriatants and toxins both through the air and the water and the materials in our environment. Nutrients above and beyond what the body needs for general sustanence can help protect against these types of daily invasions also, especially concentrated phyto-nutreints.
If you can grow all your food in soils that are rich, eat it fresh and organic then perhaps no, supplement are not required... So far I know of no one in that category.
Also disease can have a basis other than in the nutrient realm.. yet nutrients can be a great help in combating some diseases or protecting yourself from them. This encompasess the theraputic application of nutrients with doses required well beyond what anyone could eat in a day.
Its a different world that we live in today and we can not do what our ancestors did and expect a good survival rate. Our raising levels of cancer and other chronic disease is proof enough.
Can supplements really be better than FOOD
Hybrid Mode
