Supplements: The Diet Crutch
by Drew Rivetty

Before I get buried in hate mail from my personal training colleagues for bashing supplements, let me explain what I'm trying to stress here: Ladies and gentlemen, fix your diet first. I've seen cabinets in homes filled with dozens of vitamin bottles in an attempt to remedy or prevent numerous conditions. But then I also see a that sizable portion of their food comes from cardboard boxes, tin cans and plastic containers that sit on shelves for months or get frozen to be conveniently zapped in the microwave. The labels on these products are happy to report that vitamins have been added, because lord knows that any vitamins these foods used to contain have been cooked and processed out.

Believe it or not, real food (preferably organic ones) already contain many of the nutrients your body is craving. There are some things you can never bottle, like digestive enzymes, that can only come from raw or properly cooked food. If you are eating dead food like the ones I just described, don't spend another dime on supplements. Instead, buy some quality groceries. If your idea of breakfast is a bowl of cereal or a bagel or a pop tart, fix your diet first. If you consume sugar, alcohol, or tobacco on a daily basis, well, you get the point. Despite the warnings of your doctor, you will most likely continue to feel compelled to pop a vitamin in your mouth. I know this because I'm an addict myself. And I'm not alone. More than 50 percent of Americans consume dietary supplements on a regular basis, ballooning the business into a $23 billion industry, according to the National Institutes of Health. To me, those numbers raise suspicion that I'm being brainwashed into taking vitamins. It's not a stretch to say that, considering how the pharmaceutical industry hooks customers with countless gimmick pills, so... let's be cautious. Here are some other facts I gathered from several nutrition professors at UCLA that you might want to know: Studies show that many people taking multi-vitamins are already eating other nutrient rich foods and exercising regularly. Therefore, researchers can't really tell if the vitamins make any difference. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs and food additives, dietary supplements are largely unregulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for consumer protection. This is largely due to heavy lobbying by the health food store industry, which led to the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) in 1994. The DSHEA made the following legal: Supplements do not have to prove they work to be sold; supplements do not have to prove they are safe to be sold; supplement manufacturers can put “structure-function claims” on their labels, so long as they don’t claim to “prevent” or “treat” a specific disease. Supplements do not have to be manufactured according to any standards.

I take a handful of multivitamins, zinc and magnesium capsules every day. I also put powdered protein in my post-workout shakes, and I can't say for certain that I will stop there. Why? Because the argument for taking at least some supplements is still strong. Studies show our foods do not contain all of the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids and enzymes we need to function. North American farms and range soils have become 85 percent depleted over the last 100 years, according to a 1992 Earth Summit Report. I was never good at 4-H, so I'll let naturopathic doctor and herbalist Dave Carpenter explain why this is a big deal: "Here’s what happens. Minerals are rocks. Rocks are not easy for most of us to digest so we eat plants that grow in these rocks (soil is broken down rocks, etc.) or animals that feed on these plants. These plants convert these elemental minerals (rocks) into ionic minerals which are much smaller and are water soluble so that our cells can absorb them. If the soil the plant is growing in doesn’t contain these minerals then the plant will not either, which means we’re eating foods that are nutritionally deficient."

So, our soil is crappy. However, this shouldn't usher in the age of astronaut food where your dinner is inside four to five capsules. Fix your diet first by eating quality groceries. If you still feel like something is missing in your life, then consider the facts about supplements and do some research to find out what you really need.