Should I Be Taking Supplements?

We are all more mindful of our health these days, almost certainly because not so many of us work strenuously physically any more, our diet of junk food has turned us into fat lumps and the health care industry is constantly telling us how unhealthy we are in order to sell us more treatments. Whatever the reasons, most individuals are trying harder to take care of themselves.

There are different methods to approaching this problem of being unhealthy and some of the reason for this depends on why you are unhealthy and some of it on your personal approach to things. For example, some people will know that they have got into an unhealthy rut and will attempt lifestyle alterations like exercising more and eating more healthily, whereas others will purchase a load of pills and hope that they do the job.

Then there is the middle road. We are busy and we do not all have an hour a day to spend at the gym and some of us could not work out even if we wished to. So, the middle way, might be to exercise as frequently as you can by hiking or practicing yoga at home; eating more healthy food, that is foodstuff that you can eat raw or that you cook yourself and by taking a few supplements.

Which supplements might you decide on? Well, that really depends on your diet. There is not much use in taking calcium tablets if you eat cheese sandwiches for luncheon, a T-bone steak for dinner and drink milk each day, but there might be a decent reason for taking calcium supplements if you are a vegan.

I have a friend who will not eat vegetables and particularly greens, but, realizing that his diet lacks roughage amongst other things, he eats porridge for breakfast and snacks on fruit. Another friend hates fish, he cannot even look at it, but he is conscious of the value of omega 3 essential fatty acids and so he takes it in the form of capsules. He probably gets more omega 3 than I do and I love fish.

So, the first thing to do is note down everything that you eat for a week or two and then analyze what is lacking in your diet. The analysis may be beyond you, although it almost certainly is not, but you could take your diary or food to your doctor or dietitian. It might surprise you a lot to find out exactly what you eat during a week.

As a point of interest, the majority of rural Thais do not eat beef or produce cheese or drink milk, so over the centuries they have added small bones to their diet. In the West if we get a small bone in our mouth, we tend to remove it, but a Thai will crunch it to tiny pieces and swallow it – fish bones, small bird bones, frogs bones. Not only does it replace the missing calcium but it keeps their teeth strong in a country that is only just developing dentistry for the masses.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, and is now concerned with pure omega 3. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Omega 6 9