Why do we need vitamins and supplements?

Friends and family always looked surprised when they open my cupboards to see shelves of different vitamins or super foods and ask why I take all these different pills? Food supplements are a necessary part of any serious health building program, for the following reasons:

• To compensate for an inborn error of metabolism that makes humans incapable of manufacturing their own Vitamin C internally
• To compensate for nutrient losses in our foods due to mineral depletion of the soil
• To compensate for the uneven distribution of nutrients in our natural food supply
• To replace nutrients lost during food transportation, storage, processing, preserving and cooking
• To respond to the extra nutritional demands created by junk foods, refined sugar, alcohol, caffeine and drugs
• To help support the body against stress, pollution, and demanding lifestyles
• To compensate for inadequate physical activity
• To compensate for digestive weakness and/or unusually high needs for specific nutrients required by 'biochemical individuality'
• To help counteract the nutrient depleting activity of prescription and over-the-counter drugs
• To achieve superior nutritional health and not merely the absence of disease