Is Your Vitamin Hurting or Helping?

To help unravel the complexities of diet and supplements I've enlisted the help of Michelle Poliski. Michelle is the mother of three and is currently studying nutrition at Bauman College. She is passionate about making a positive shift in the world "one bite at a time". After speaking with Michelle it became clear her knowledge is vast and to cover all vitamins in one blog would be impossible. Women have a special need for Vitamin D and Calcium (and strength training) to protect their bones - so let's start with Vitamin D. I hope you enjoy this series of blogs from me and mostly Michelle!

Nothing will replace a balanced diet. Optimally our diets should consist of whole raw foods as much as possible with no processed or very minimal processed foods. Eating seasonal and organic is a plus. Foods lose nutrients the longer they sit. They also lose nutrients the more that we cook them and freeze them. If you eat or drink anything out of a microwave you are actually taking away life source from your body as it tries to assimilate and get rid of the toxic dead food. Besides the radiation, broccoli for example loses 95% of its nutrients in the microwave.

Supplements are no different. We need to ask ourselves with every supplement. . . how was this processed? stored? what is the source? Vitamin D for example. . . D3 is natural yet D2 is synthetic and can be toxic. D can be toxic in general and should be regulated with blood tests since everyone's sweet spot is different. The general rule is 35 IU per pound of body weight i.e. 125 lbs. = 4375 IU's of vitamin D. The question to ask - is it bioavailable (absorbed by the body) or synthetic (typically gets stored in your fat and becomes toxic) For the most part you will find synthetic rather than bioavailable vitamins in your local grocery stores. Dr. Mercola has a great natural D3 spray that is also easy for kids to take as well.

I would love to get into our need to get enough sun and not use toxic chemical ridden sunscreens. The sun is not our enemy. We need sun so that we get a coating of cancer protecting vitamin d oil on our skin. We need the sun to heal, and most sunscreens have chemicals that actually cause cancer! There are safe and natural sunscreens available.

If you are a mother, a grandmother, aunt, father, or just love kids go here and check out Michelle's website, "Lil Peeps Nutrition".