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   Vitamins and Minerals: A question of Balance
The presence of many complex arrangements of vitamins and minerals and the vast array of combinations necessary for the body to utilize them has led nutritionists to recognize the fact that all of the factors necessary for life cannot be taken in a pill form.  While supplementing the diet with vitamin and mineral pills is sometimes necessary to treat health problems caused by deficiencies, the best source of vitamins and minerals is properly prepared whole foods.  For this reason, the importance of eating foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals cannot be over estimated.

Vitamin and mineral content in food varies greatly with the different kind of farming methods used in roducing the food.  For instance, artificial fertilizers initially help produce higher yields of food crops in part by pulling extra minerals out the ground.  With most modern farming methods, these minerals are not replenished in the soil.  In time, commercially fertilized soil becomes depleted and the quality of food declines accordingly.  Organic farming is a method of farming using compost and natural fertilizers, rich in minerals including the trace minerals.  Foods grown with proper organic methods tend to be healthier due to a better balance of minerals.

Food processing and preparation can also affect the vitamin and mineral content in the food we eat.  Foods that go through different manufacturing steps that alter their natural form in order to be combined with other foods, made more convenient to prepare or for packaging and storage purposes, are called processed foods. The most common characteristic of processed foods is that they are put in packages.  This is in contrast to whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, meats and grains that can be purchased in a relatively natural or unaltered state. The processes used for creating packaged foods such as chips, cookies, white bread and conveniencefood, severely alters the vitamin and mineral content of the food.  Likewise, the manner in which a food is prepared for eating can also affect its vitamin and mineral content. 
Vitamins and Minerals: 
​An Essential Part of Recovering and Maintaining Good Health
Some vitamins are heat sensitive and are destroyed or degraded by heat while others tolerate heat fairly well.  Steaming, waterless and low heat cooking methods tend to preserve vitamin content better than rapid boiling and high heat methods of cooking.  Cold temperatures and freezing have little effect on vitamin content while prolonged periods of high heat used in canning are destructive to some vitamins, but not all. 

Vitamins and minerals are not static substances in our bodies.  They are used as part of a very complex and dynamic process in which our body sustains the life process.  During every moment of our lives, our body is using up our supply of vitamins and minerals to support body functions; therefore we need a consistent high quality source of vitamins and minerals in our diet.  The amount of vitamins and minerals that a person's body needs to be healthy is dependent on factors such as age, body size, body type and activity level.

It is understandable that a very physically active person such as an athlete will use up larger amounts of vitamins and minerals throughout the day than a person who is less active.  Consumption of sugar, white flour, hydrogenated oils​14 alcohol, coffee and most drugs deplete the body of nutrients.  This results in a higher rate of vitamin and mineral depletion for those who use these products.  Stress of any sort can also cause the body to use nutrients at a faster than normal rate.  In cases of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, the body can become severely deficient in vitamins and minerals due to the lack of sufficient ingestion and digestion of foods rich in vitamins and minerals and the loss of minerals through vomiting and the use of purgatives and laxatives.

When looking at the subject of vitamins and minerals we can recognize that it is not only important to have a consistent high quality source of vitamins and minerals in our diet by eating whole organically grown food, but it is also important to limit activities that deplete our bodies of vitamins and minerals.  Seeking a proper balance of vitamin and mineral intake and use is a vital part of building a healthy body.


​  
  9. inorganic- composed of matter that is not animal or vegetable, not having the organized structure of living things
10. crust- the solid, rocky outer portion or shell of the earth
11. ingest – to take into the body by swallowing or absorbing
12. ionized – changed into electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms
​ 13. whole – complete; containing all the elements or parts​  
14.hydrogenated oils – vegetable oils treated with hydrogen to produce a solid fat. 
 

Today when the word nutrition is used, many people immediately think of vitamins and minerals.  Even though this is a correct association, there is a great deal of misunderstanding on the subject of vitamins and minerals among both lay1 persons and professionals such as doctors and scientists.  By taking a closer look at the subject of vitamins and minerals we can gain a better understanding of this important part of restoring and maintaining good health.

Vitamins​
​Scientists who were investigating diet and nutrition first discovered vi tamins in the early part of the 1900’s.  It was discovered that certain unknown substances in food were essential for life.  They began to isolate some of these substances and label them as vitamins.  It was also discovered that if certain vitamins were deficient in the diet, the result was ill health and disease.  For instance, it was discovered that certain fat soluble vitamins such as A and D and water soluble vitamins such as B and C were necessary to prevent such diseases as scurvy2, , beriberi​3  and pellegra4.
​ In the following decades, many more vitamins were identified and there effects recorded. Since then, a great deal of public interest has been generated on the subject of vitamins and minerals. Vitamins consist of a number of unrelated, complex organic 5 substances found variously in food and sometimes synthesized 6 in the body, in small amounts, for the regulation of body functions such as metabolism, normal growth and repair of tissues.
Since the early days of research, the discovery of new vitamins has continued and has proved to be much more complex than originally imagined.  Some of the early discoveries about the actions of vitamins led early researchers to believe that all vitamins necessary for good health could be isolated and given in the form of vitamin pills.  We now know that vitamins do not act as single compounds, but are co-factors7 that exist in act in a complex of compounds that promote and sustain body functions. As many as seventeen different water soluble vitamins have been given the B label and are present in various amounts in food, yet all work together and function synergistically8. Vitamin D has been found to have at least twelve components while Vitamin P has at least five.  We now know that now know that vitamins produce optimum effects in the presence of naturally occurring co-factors such as minerals, enzymes and other vitamins.  

1. lay - not belonging to or connected to a given profession; nonprofessional
2. scurvy - a disease resulting from a deficiency of ascorbic acid in the body, characterized by weakness, anemia, spongy gums, bleeding from the mucous membranes, etc.
3. beriberi - a deficiency disease caused by the lack of vitamin B1 in the diet, characterized by nerve disorders and sometimes, by accumulation of fluid due to heart dysfunction
4. pellagra - a chronic disease caused by a deficiency of nicotinic acid in the diet, characterized by gastrointestinal disturbances, skin eruptions and mental disorders
​ 5. organic- having the characteristics of, or deriving from living organisms
6. synthesized- formation of a complex compound by having combined two or more simple compounds
7. co-factors- circumstances, conditions or elements that work together to bring about a result or make something what it is
​ 8. synergistically- the simultaneous action of separate entities, which, together, have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effect  
 Minerals
Minerals are a group of inorganic9 substances occurring naturally in the earth's crust10   which are needed in small quantities in the bodies of humans and animals for proper function, growth and tissue repair.  Much like vitamins, minerals have also been isolated in our food.  Some minerals appear in larger amounts in food and are referred to as macro-minerals.  Macro-minerals include some of the more commonly recognized minerals such as calcium, magnesium, chlorine, phosphorous, potassium and sodium. A larger group of minerals known as trace minerals occur in very small amounts in food. These are needed in only minute amounts, yet their absence can cause ill health and disease.  Some researchers now believe that for optimum health, a person must ingest11 every substance found in the earth's crust.  Along with familiar trace minerals such as iron and iodine the body also needs many lesser-known trace minerals such as cobalt, boron and selenium.

​A history similar to vitamins, early researchers thought that minerals could be isolated and taken in pill form in order to meet all of the body's requirements. It is now known that the body more easily recognizes and utilizes minerals that are ionized12 or attached to organic compounds such as vitamins and enzymes that are present
in whole13 foods.