5 Reasons to take a Multi Vitamin

We should all try to eat as healthy as we can. This may include eating plenty of coloured vegetables, fresh fruits, salads, quality meats, healthy nuts and seeds and healthy teas. But is this enough? Of course, it should be and in an ideal world, it would be. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world because even if we eat like this, our foods have changed.

Farming Today

Today’s farming practices have vastly changed as we strive for quantity over quality. After all, food is sold by the tonne so the more the farm can grow the better. This leads to the use of pesticide spraying and of course ‘mono-cropping’ (growing the same crop year after year), meaning the micronutrient levels of the soil and thus the nutrients in food has dropped dramatically. This means that even if you are eating all the right foods, you are still probably deficient in at least one micronutrient and probably multiple nutrients.

An Insurance Policy

The best way to ensure you are getting enough micronutrients is to supplement with a multivitamin. This should only ‘supplement’ a healthy diet and not replace a healthy diet. If you supplement your healthy diet with a multivitamin, you will be well on your way to optimal health. Here are 5 good reasons to supplement with a multivitamin:

1. An Insurance Policy. As mentioned, the nutrients in our soils have dropped over the past few decades. So even if you are eating well, the nutrients levels in your foods make it nearly impossible to get optimal nutrients.


2. Get your enzymes working. You are basically a big sack of chemicals that are running on chemical reactions. Most of these chemical reactions in your body require enzymes and these vital enzymes require nutrients. If you don’t have these nutrients, you won’t have the chemical reactions you need.


3. Connective tissue and structure. Your bones and connective tissues are made largely from proteins and nutrients. Your bones and connective tissue isn’t made from protein alone and vital, key, trace minerals and vitamins are required to literally keep you together.


4. Energy. No one can have too much energy. As a naturopath, I have never had someone come and see me complaining they have too much energy. In particular, the B vitamins and minerals such as magnesium are required to keep your energy producing Kreb’s cycle ticking along, keeping your vitality high.


5. Antioxidant defence. Oxidation is a major course of disease and can contribute to diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Of course, we need to avoid excessive free radicals (such as smoking) but we simply can’t avoid all free radicals (and we also need some for good health). The best way to avoid excessive free radical damage is to ensure you have antioxidants to mop up the excessive free radicals.

The take home message

Simply take a multivitamin to ensure you have good health.  It is relatively cheap and easy to incorporate into your daily routine of good eating, cleaning living and a proper exercise program.