What happened to just eating a balanced diet and getting all the essential micronutrients we need from the food we eat? After all, isn’t that what our ancestors did?
The truth is that throughout most of history, our ancestors survived and thrived by simply eating the foods nature provided, allowing nature, in her infinite wisdom, to nourish and sustain them. Fresh, unadulterated, local vegetables, meats, fish, fruits, eggs, dairy products, and naturally pressed oils were able to provide the essential nutrition our ancestors needed to maintain their health and protect them from the barrage of health conditions and diseases we are now suffering from on a daily basis.
Approximately 10,000 years ago, people started farming to increase the production of food. Fast forward to today, and there are now more than 7 billion hungry mouths to feed every day! Because of the rapidly growing population, farmers around the world must employ every resource available to them to push their crop yields to the absolute limits, which has led to more food being produced now than ever before.
However, this food has very little in common with the food that nourished our ancestors just 300 years ago, especially when it comes to micronutrient content.
Credible scientists from around the world agree that our soil is in big trouble, and perhaps one of the biggest problems is mineral deficiency. While the human body can manufacture certain vitamins, like vitamin K and vitamin D, no organism—human or animal—can synthesize any amount of any mineral! The bottom line is that we either get our essential minerals from our food or a supplement or we don’t get them at all.
The absolute best defense against this growing problem is simple. Here are a few of our suggestions:
- Avoid eating foods with genetically modified organisms (GMO) such as corn, soy, milk, sugar beets, cottonseed, alfalfa, canola oil, and aspartame, to name a few.
- Eat a well balanced diet of micronutrient rich foods. This includes organic, pesticide-free produce, and grass-fed organic meat and dairy.
- Always look for the non-GMO project verified label.
- Take a multivitamin supplement that follows the ABC’s of Optimal Supplementation Guidelines.
We encourage you to take all of the steps above, as well as to know that the best way to become micronutrient sufficient is to put that goal first, and to let your diet philosophy follow behind. Regardless of your diet philosophy, we’ve simplified the process for you in our new book, The Micronutrient Miracle. Check it out here!