Can Less Be More?
How many grams of protein do I need? How about vitamin C — how much of that? And calcium — what percentage of the recommended daily allowance?
When speaking about foods, food products, or supplements, do any of these questions make a difference? Yes and no. We all realize that we need nutrients to live. Not enough vitamin C results in scurvy. Calcium helps build strong bones. All too often though, we focus on the quantity of nutrients we get and do not consider the quality.
We think of the human body as a vast, complicated machine. It runs on the nutrients found in foods, and science and medicine act like the neighborhood mechanic, telling us which fuels we need and how much of each one: so much water, so much protein, so many vitamins, so many minerals. Where we get these fuels is largely ignored. But where we get them is important, as is the mixture we consume — the proportions.
Supplements and "Nutrition Facts" labels are geared to this body-as-machine thinking. Supplements boast how much and labels require how much. When we see mega-amounts on labels, we should ask ourselves, "How did they get there?" How can you get more vitamin C from a pill than that which exists in a natural source? Do supplement manufacturers use bushels of rosehips to get these large nutrient amounts? Generally, no. Manufacturers pump up nutrient amounts by creating them in a lab.
This, of course, brings us to nutrient sources and the synthetic versus natural debate. Some claim that a nutrient is a nutrient and a molecule is a molecule, no matter whether the nutrient is made in a laboratory or found in nature. I, for one, believe there is a Big Difference!
One important difference between a synthetic source and a natural source is that a natural source contains the sum of many nutrients. Beta carotene, for example, can be easily isolated, manufactured, and sold in large amounts. The danger in this, however, is that manufacturers of synthetic beta carotene supplements ignore the fact that natural sources contain much more than beta carotene. Carrots, which are a natural source of beta carotene, also contain water, protein, carbohydrates, iron, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, B vitamins, fiber, vitamin C and alpha carotene (another member of the carotenoid family). These nutrients are all important to our health and no doubt work together to form a greater whole. When you isolate and "create" beta carotene in the laboratory, you can end up with large amounts of beta carotene, yes, but not the other nutrients.
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