The following is a guest post, about a very basic but essential topic: vitamins and minerals.
Getting your vitamins and minerals is much more important than a lot of people give it credit for. While most of us realize that it’s important to eat vitamins and minerals, we still tend to think of this as something that you would do in an ideal world if you could – not something that you absolutely must achieve. However this is a big mistake when you consider what a crucial role vitamins and minerals play in our bodies.
For starters, calcium makes up the vast majority of our bones. Then there is the role that vitamins and minerals have in defending your body by enhancing your immune system. Vitamin C is important for supporting your immune system and is also an antioxidant that helps defend your cells from damage that leads to ageing and ultimately cancer. This means getting a good amount of vitamin C can actually increase your lifespan and protect you from serious disease. Other key vitamins and minerals include:
- iron which helps us to carry oxygen around our blood,
- B6 which is crucial for brain function,
- potassium which prevents cramping…
- The list goes on.
- And on.
So how do you go about getting the vitamins and minerals you need? Here we will look at a rough guide to ensuring that you get more than just the minimum amount.
Eat Your Fruit and Vegetables
You should ensure you’re getting lots of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Vitamin and mineral tablets are not a substitute for a healthy diet. Fruits and vegetables are the original source of vitamins and thus are more bio-available; in addition, this way you also get fiber and other benefits.
There are many ways to ensure you get adequate fruits and vegetables. For instance, you can make yourself veggie-fruit smoothies or juice which will provide a huge amount of minerals and vitamins in a single drink. Alternatively, you can use a lot of vegetables in your cooking – making a bolognaise? Then why not add onion, mushroom, carrot and more. You’ll hardly even taste it but it will do a world of good for you and your family.
We live in a very different environment to the one our bodies evolved in, and our lifestyles are vastly different. This means that we rarely get enough of many of the vitamins and minerals that we should be getting from our regular diets without taking in a lot of sugar, or buying some very bizarre tropical fruits and vegetables. The simple solution then is to supplement your diet with vitamins and minerals in tablet form. Don’t worry about RDAs either – despite being phrased ‘RDA’ that is actually a very minimum suggested dosage and the optimal amount is, in most cases, much, much higher.
You should also think about when and how you are using supplements; it’s important to bear in mind that while some supplements work best when taken on an empty stomach, others are better when consumed with food. Look up which is which and take them accordingly.
James Fowler is very health conscious and works with a Vitamin Store. He likes writing about health and believes in ‘health is wealth’ motto.