Ok let’s talk about multivitamins. What are multivitamins? Well they are the micronutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals that the human body needs.
Multivitamins are essential for our growth, digestion and for our regular nervous system function.
Vitamins come in either fat soluble or water soluble form.
Important fat soluble vitamins would include vitamins A, D, E. and K. These are typically found within salads and vegetables and generally get stored in our muscles.
Important water soluble vitamins include vitamins C and B complex. These are two very important vitamins that the human body needs.
The best time for absorption of vitamins and minerals is at breakfast time, as we’ve just come off a seven to eight hour fast through the night, while we were sleeping.
Vitamin C is extremely important to help cortisol reduction, overall stress release and aid our immune digestion.
It’s important to top up our vitamin C and B complex vitamins daily, as they generally deplete after 48hrs-72hrs, as they pass through our urine.
Minerals are elements that come from the earth and they are extremely important in the healthy functioning of our nervous system, muscle repair and our brain function. Now there are three very important mineral elements that we need.
They are:
* Magnesium
* Zinc
* Calcium
Magnesium is extremely important, as it supports healthy muscle function, nervous system operation and assists with energy production.
It also aids in stress reduction and helps the muscles to relax.
Magnesium is best used with food, as it helps with the absorption.
Zinc is really good for raising our testosterone and is very good with vitamin D.
Vitamin D and zinc go really well together and help pump up our testosterone levels. Again have these with food and do not have your zinc/vitamin D with dairy. This will be detrimental to the absorption rate.
Calcium is well known for its support and development of bone development.
Typically a multivitamin tablets will not provide sufficient amounts of calcium, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D, as you certainly will not be meeting the recommended daily intake for those vitamins and minerals. So we recommend taking a multivitamin tablets with extra magnesium, calcium, zinc and vitamin D every day.
It’s important to note that cheaper multi vitamins can contain fillers, such as starches and silica. So if you are going to buy a multivitamin, make sure you buy really high quality products that have a quality guarantee and are backed up with scientific research. When you’re looking at the label avoid too much phosphorus, we don’t want too much phosphorus in out diet.
The effectiveness of taking multi vitamin tablets daily is a hotly debated topic within the health and fitness community. Their are professionals out there who are really against taking some of these multi vitamin tablets, especially the synthetic kind. You’ll find warnings about some of the synthetic vitamins containing highly toxic chemicals fillers and excipients. One example is if you find magnesium stearate on the back of your multivitamin tablets, then we would suggest avoiding that particular brand, as that is actually chalk. The same chalk that teachers use to use on the blackboard. The body has a really difficult time in absorbing and getting rid of that substance. Another hotly debated ingredient that is found in many multi vitamins is ‘folly acid’ and professional scientists that have a lot better understanding then us, suggest that the body actually has a very difficult time in processing folic acid. We think too much is not good, so keep an eye out for phosphorus, folic acid and magnesium stearate, we want to stay away from those particular ingredients.
There are some really good new superfood multivitamin combinations that are coming out on the market now. These contain actual real fruit and vegetables that have been freeze dried, are compressed and have maintained their natural state. They have not been denatured, processed and synthesized in anyway. If you open the capsules and leave them on the counter overnight, you would see that within twenty four hours to forty eight hours, the substance inside starts starts to decompose. This is a good indication that it’s actually natural and hasn’t been tampered with and pumped full of preservatives. Unlike some of the synthetic multivitamins you can leave on the table for years and nothing will happen to it.
So you really have to wonder just how much benefit you’re actually getting from some of the synthesized multivitamins and if your body is actually absorbing the micronutrients.
Now certain types of vitamins especially vitamin E contain antioxidants, which really help to reduce the aging effect. So we want to try and get as much of that obviously into our system as we can. So in general whether you buy into the fear campaigns that are out there about multivitamin or not, obviously organic is going to be a better choice. They haven’t been genetically modified, contain preservatives or pesticides. Some people argue that you can get all the micronutrients you need from a well balanced, colourful, organic, plant based diet and then others would argue that you don’t get enough micronutrients, so that’s why it’s important to have a multivitamin tablet on a daily basis to ensure that you’re getting what you body needs.
In summary, your body does need vitamins and minerals in the form of micronutrients to support healthy growth, improve digestion and help with your regular nervous system function. So we absolutely do you need to get these micronutrients into our body. Whether you only choose to do an organic plant based diet to meet that requirement or if you like to substitute it with a daily multivitamin tablet, that’s completely up to you.
Personally we like to do both and try to eat a balanced organic plant based diet while taking a daily multivitamin tablet as well. But just being mindful of some of those synthetic substances that should be avoided. We also only buy really high quality multivitamin tablets.
So do your research, only buy high quality, find out what works best for you and feed your body the absolute best nutrients possible.
