some deficiency disease. . . .”
Since vitamins occur in all organic material, some containing more of one vitamin than another and in greater or lesser amounts, you could say that if you ate the “right” foods in a well-balanced diet, you would get alt the vitamins you need.
And you would probably be right. The problem is, very few of us are able to arrange this mythical diet. According to Dr. Darnel T. Quigley, author of The National Malnutrition, “Everyone who has in the past eaten processed sugar, white flour, or canned food has some deficiency disease, the extent of the disease depending on the percentage of such deficient food in the diet.”
Because most restaurants tend to reheat food or keep it warm
under heat lamps, if you frequently eat out you run the risk of vita-
min A, B1, and C deficiencies. (And if you’re a woman between the
ages of 13 and 40, this sort of work-saving dining is likely to cost you
invaluable calcium and iron.)
Most of the foods we eat have been processed and depleted in nutrients.
Take breads and cereals, for example. Practically all of them you find in
today’s supermarkets are high in nothing but carbohydrates.
“But they are enriched!” you say. It’s written right on the label:
Enriched.
Enriched? Enrichment means replacing nutrients in foods that once
contained them but because of heat, storage, and so forth no longer do.
Foods, therefore, are “enriched” to the levels found in the natural product
before processing. Unfortunately, standards of enrichment leave much to
be desired nutritionally. For example, the standard of enrichment for white
flour is to replace the twenty-two natural nutrients that are removed with
three B vitamins, vitamin D, calcium, and iron salts. Now really, for the
staff of life, that seems a pretty flimsy stick.
I think you can see why my feeling about taking supplements is clear.
