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Getting my A, B, and C's - Have multivitamins become a basic food group?
February 15, 2007 - 12:08pm
Though if foods have gotten less nutritious over the last 50 years, why are kids bigger than ever? I don't mean obesity; I mean height. Seems commonplace these days for teenage boys to be well over six feet.
One of these shakes a day and I feel great the entire day, have much more energy and feel healthy physically.
yeah, i hear you...girls too...but i'm not sure this is a matter of mere nutrients...i'm sure genetics play some role as well...
thanks for the tip! i will have to investigate...i forgot to mention i'm a student with little income to spare...
Any time malex. I think I paid about 25 dollars for a decent sized jug of the Multi-Force. It probably will last about 3 - 4 weeks at one scoop a day. Much cheaper than buying all of the vitamins in pill form separately. That costs far too much.
Weird though how I still hear people say using Creatine is okay and natural. Yes our bodies produce creatine through eating meat but taking creatine in powder form to bulk up seems like cheating to me. Plus it's mainly water retention so I'm not sure what the point is really. Have you heard of this?
Thanks for that link 500. Looks like a good source.
When I was in school, we were taught that taking large amounts of fat-soluble vitamins had the potential to be toxic (such as Vitamin A) and taking large amounts of the water-soluble vitamins made for expensive urine. In the past twenty years, I have seen or read nothing to moderate this opinion. Basically, I figure looking after your health in a general way is going to do more for you than popping bee pollen or cider vinegar, whatever.
Though speaking of not looking after your health, in my younger days, when I would go out drinking and then have to open the drug store way early in the morning, I would take Maltlevol to help set things right. I haven't worked regular retail in a while and don't know if they still make the stuff, but basically it's sherry with lots of B vitamins and was my favourite hangover remedy especially if one has to work an 8 to 10 hour shift under banks of painfully bright fluorescent lights.
I think the extra water helps you lift more, but once you've lifted more you've lifted more and so you build up more strength. If I ever tried again (I'm moving out in the fall), I'll try with the whole "loading-cycling" procedure.
I'm wary of supplements, thinking of snake oil. When people start taking pills, or ingesting supplements, to make themselves lose weight, or gain weight, or gain whatever percieved benefit, I start to wonder strongly about who is benefitting, in the end.
Charles is a strength training coach and has trained Olympic medalists in over ten different sports. He's from Ottawa.
The placebo effect is enormous and necessarily has to be ignored by everybody who promotes supplementation.
And I've sometimes wondered how many body-builders have claimed to bulk up through the use of protein powders and other supplements in order to hide their use of anabolic steroids.
There's many a pro level athelete (Shawne Merriman being most recent) who claim "tainted" supplements as a reason they've failed performance enhancing drug tests. Maybe they aren't all lying.
My goal is not to bulk up, but to gain weight through adding muscle mass naturally. Your body needs carbs and protein in order for it to work at this level. I also prefer the defined look. To me the back is incredibly sexy and a nice defined back is even better. Likewise arms and abs.
Thanks for that info 500_apples. I'm not really aware so much of the effects of creatine. All I have heard is that it increases water retention but what you said makes sense.
Here is a good link on protein:
Protein for Active People
The presence of vitamins and supplements is, to me, indicative of the awful state of the food industry.
Farmpunk, what's your opinion of organic produce/meats? Better? A scam? I have sometimes bought them, but it makes me uneasy to spend all this money when often I can't tell the difference. I've noticed the organic meats taste a lot better, however. But with something like carrots, well, a carrot's a carrot.
Of course, that's where I get into discussions with vegetarians and vegans.
There's also quite a lot of evidence about organic veggies producing more nutritous food, but the lines aren't as clear, to me, and the gains not as obvious.
Taste is very subjective. Being honest, picky eaters make me cringe.
The cost of organics is also hard to put a finger on. I've argued on many occasions that high quality, low cost food would be one of the easiest societal changes to enact through the political process, and should be high on the list of any progressive person's agenda. But the food industry and government status quo is so immensely stacked against a change like that (farmers as paid public servants, for instance; rural-urban partnerships) that it's not even on the radar.
Would people rather get their vitamins from a plastic container labeled Multivitamin, or eat apples? I know, as a consumer, exactly what an apple is. I don't know what a supplement is made of, where it comes from, how far it's traveled to get into my system, nothing. It's a manufactured product, in every sense. There's nothing a supplement can do that nature hasn't provided in one food or another.
Canada's Food Guide
I don't consider being a 'picky eater' a bad thing. After all, isn't that what you are advocating? Picky eating? Jesus what is with the people who have issues with other people's food intake? I eat what is healthy for me. Not to please you or other vegan\vegetarian haters. Meat is NOT healthy, especially the crap bought at grocery stores. No amount of propaganda from anyone is going to convince me eating anything without first doing research and deciding what is best FOR ME is an issue they need to be concerned with.
You don't see or hear me deriding meat eaters for all their shitty choices in food do you? How about I start in on people who eat eggs, and fast foods, and fill their bodies up with junk food.
What I put in my body is my business. I'll be 42 next year and I can guarantee you my health is better than a lot of people half my age.
For instance, now that my kids are older, they are less picky. That is to say, they are now less likely to treat me like a server in a fancy restaurant who will take the food back and switch it if there's too much pepper or if the peas accidently got mixed in with the mashed potatoes.
AND, because my kids are now less picky, I am finding it easier to make appropriate food choices because they are more willing to eat (or at least try) tofu, sweet potatoes, bok choy, and other healthy things.
I would even argue that pickiness is an enemy of good nutrition. Picky eaters like a small number of foods, good for them or no. Two-year-olds who will only eat macaroni and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches on white bread would be a classic example.