Vitamins:
Yes or No?
by
Danny Vierra of Modern Manna
Ministries
Vitamins: Yes or No?
If you do not know it already, I was the owner of two
health food stores for over 25 years. Therefore, I believe I am
qualified to give an intelligent opinion on whether or not a person
should take vitamins supplements.
I grew up on vitamin pills. My
grandmother would put five or six pills in front of me and tell me to
swallow them. I especially liked the Vitamin E capsules because they looked
like little footballs. My mother took vitamins most of her life and looked
very young for her age. My grandmother lived to 100 years old and
attributed her good health and longevity to vitamin pills.
On the positive side, I have seen vitamins and
minerals help many people. I have seen skin heal, bleeding gums heal, and bruising
stopped from customers taking Vitamin C (1,000 mg. or more a day). I
have seen blood sugar levels improve from taking chromium picolinate,
high blood pressure lowered with garlic pills and magnesium, arthritis
pain lessened from glucosamine sulfate and MSM, the sense of smell
return from zinc, energy increase from brewer's yeast capsules, and
muscles grow from creatine and growth hormone enhancing amino acids. And yes,
I used to take handfuls of supplements while I was a bodybuilder.
But even though I still recommend
supplements ("to add to something or supply a deficiency") when
necessary, I quit taking all those pills once I learned to eat a
healthier diet -- one that includes lots of whole plant foods and juices --
which provides all my nutrients. I still take herbs and superfoods, even
an occasional vitamin or two made from whole plant foods,
but not synthetic nutracueticals if I can help it.
Now I have customers walk into my office
at Modern Manna carrying a ziplock, gallon-size bag full of of vitamin
bottles and say: "I take all these vitamins and minerals every day and I
still feel terrible." "Evidently," I answer, "the
pills are not working very well, and adding one more miracle pill that
you read about in Prevention
Magazine are not going to fix the problem either."
I do not agree with some enthusiasts
who push the idea that a fix for everything that ails you is available in a
high-priced bottle, nor do I agree with the natural enthusiasts who argue
that you cannot assimilate any of the nutrients in a vitamin pill. If that
were true, I would not have seen the dandruff stop from
B-Complex vitamins, the cramps stop from magnesium supplements, and the
bleeding gums stop from taking Vitamin C. I do believe that many people, especially
the elderly have a hard time digesting calcium and other supplements because
of a lack of hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes, but that doesn't mean
everybody is going to pass their pills with the next bowel movement.
But let me now say that I do
believe the best way to get your essential vitamins is to get them from your
food. God put all the nutrients we need in plants and He is the Master
Designer. Ever since I quit eating the standard American diet of meat,
cheese, dairy, refined carbohydrates and sugar and donuts, and
started eating fresh fruits and vegetables, whole beans and legumes, drinking
fresh juices juices, and following the other health laws, I haven't
been sick in 17 years.
Too many people spend loads of money on
vitamin pills and this will not end as long as there is a vitamin business.
The latest craze is starch and fat-blocking supplements, because so many
overweight people want an easy way to lose pounds. The industry will
constantly search for new super nutrients like the news-worthy Resveratrol.
"One pill equals 1,000 bottles of wine," says the advertisers.
Good, maybe it won't encourage more wine drinking but grape eating. Yes, I
think Resveratrol, an antioxidant from grapes, is a good thing, but so are
pycnogenol from the white pine and grapeseed extracts from grapes. Get
your antioxidants in the selection of different foods. I tell people to eat
the whole plant because the nutrients work synergistically. Resveratrol is
only one ingredient, and one nutrient may need another to activate its
healing potential. Only God knows.
First there were antioxidants like
vitamin E, C, beta carotene, zinc, selenium, germanium, but more and more
super foods are being discovered and sold for a huge profit. Everyone seems
to be looking in the fruits these days and especially the exotic ones. Locate
a new phytochemical or antioxidant and bottle and market it and make a
million dollars. This will never end. But just because they feed you all the
hype and exaggerated claims doesn't mean the nutrient is a cure for all your
health problems. You can read Resveratrol as being a cure from diabetes to
cancer; just like they said about Noni Juice, Mangosteen, and all the others.
And watch out for the multi-level gurus that tack on another $25.00 to pay
themselves. Nothing---I repeat, NOTHING is going to substitute good living
practices incorporating Gods' eight laws of health!
Here is my take on the subject. I
believe the Dear Lord gave us all the antioxidants in the garden.
Blueberries, strawberries, grapes, oranges, plums, garlic, chard, mangoes,
and every plant food contains them. But as long as their is a market for
supplements, their will be new claims and discoveries of products that
work healing miracles. Take them if you want for they can be beneficial, but
they may come with a big price tag. I believe in eating them in their
whole form combined and not separated and isolated from each other. God is
complex and so is His Farmacy. Keep the foods in their whole form and enjoy
them. You may never notice a difference from taking Resveratrol,
anyway, but all the hype will convince you that you should take it or
die.
There is a good magazine called Life
Extension. I read it from time to time and like many of their products. But
after you read the magazine you are so convinced that you need everything
they are reporting and health cannot be maintained any other way. Save your
money and get your nutrients from healthy organic produce. Put your
hard-earned dollars into the foods God gave you for building and repairing
your bodies. Nothing works better than His whole food. If you would
simply eliminate all the processed foods and replace them with organic whole
plant food, you will probably need one- tenth of the supplements you are now
taking.
If you would exercise, drink pure water, eat
organic food and drink organic juices, take a whole food super formula
of the most powerful foods on earth like in our SuperManna, and cleanse
your elimination organs regularly, you will be a Super American and escape
most of the diseases caused by toxicity and deficiency. Don't make the
mistake that supplements will take the place of good food or make up for your
wrong lifestyle practices. Sooner or later it will catch up with you. But if
you cannot change your child's diet, give him a good whole food supplement
and grandma a whole food liquid vitamin and mineral supplement. If may be
good assurance in this day and age to take a whole food concentrate
supplement and extra Vitamin B complex when you are under stress. I
will recommend certain supplements for certain conditions to get someone
over the hump at times, but I always educate them to follow God's laws
of health first. After all, how long do you think it will take science to
identify all the phytonutrients God put in the garden? Eat rainbows and a
wide variety of organic whole plant foods. They are the best vitamins money
can buy. After all, all these miracle products come from the garden
anyway.
Danny Vierra, The Elijah Prophecy, Issue 37, July 10, 2009
----
As He Is: Issues in the ‘Character of God’ Controversy
Ch. 14 Now
Available:
“The Supreme Revelation”
www.noothergod.blogspot.com
|