Vitamins - how do you get enough?

[Dutchie]

With all the talk of the swine flu and the winter coming I personally feel that it is important more than ever to try and eat as well as possible so that our immune systems can handle all the bacteria and stuff that is thrown at it.
(There are so many people everywhere coughing and sneezing - it seems like a cold/flu epidemic already.)

Hoe do you manage to get your family to eat the right way - with all the necessary vitamins etc? (If possible without resorting to supplements. Personally we have started with a Vit. C. supplement temporarily since we are all snifling and sneezing.)

In our house I try to make as many veggies as I can and encourage them to drink (fresh) juice at least a couple of times a day but it does put a lot of pressure on my food budget that's why I try to use the veggies of the season and if possible local produce (more quickly on the shelves).
How do you do it?

[savvy_sniper]

We eat a pretty balanced diet but we also take a multi-vitamin daily. There is always OJ in the fridge. So we can get additional vitamin C if we feel a cold coming on.

[2ndGenGranola]

I don't believe we can get all our vitamins from all the gmo, modified foods grown in depleted soil. We take quality, individual supplements. I don't touch multivitamins because most of them do not digest and pass right out in the stool.

[Grainlady]

Eat a wide variety of whole foods to assist in consuming the largest variety of nutrients.

If you take supplements, try to find those that are FOOD-FORM, not chemicals and inorganic minerals which your body has a problem assimilating. The first place I read about food-form supplements was the book, "Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine" - by Ronald F. Schmid, N.D. (chapter 21).

There are micronutrients in oranges, for instance, that science hasn't completely identified and don't know exactly how they work in the body, but they DO know that the nutrients in that orange work together. You won't find this same synergy in Tang - even if it went to the moon - because it has the chemical version of vitamin C, ascorbic acid, as one of the ingredients.

So when you choose a supplement, such as ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C), instead of an orange, you are getting only a fraction of the vitamin C Complex. Ascorbic acid is just a fraction of the functional architecture which also includes bioflavanoid complexes, Tyrosinase, P factors, K factors, J factors. Ascorbic acid is the isolated fraction - almost always chemically manufactured. I wonder what you are missing if you only take ascorbic acid? The RDA for vitamin C is only 60 mg, which is VERY easy to get from FOOD.

Have you ever noticed in books such as:

"SuperFoods" - by Steven Pratt, M.D., and Kathy Matthews
"New Good Foods" Essential Ingredients for Cooking and Eating Well - by Margaret M. Wittenberg
"101 Foods That Could Save Your Life" - by David Grotto, RD, LDN
"The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia" - by Rebecca Wood

...they never give a lot of space to highly-processed foods? I've yet to see them describe Pop Tarts as a wholesome food to include in your diet. They promote WHOLE FOODS, like beans, blueberries, broccoli, nuts, oats, oranges, pumpkin, wild salmon, spinach, tea, tomatoes, turkey, whole grains, yogurt....

So-called "fresh" vegetables found in the stores, especially in the winter, have little nutrition in them because they are trucked in from who-knows-where? We certainly don't find watermelon growing in Kansas in the middle of December.....but there it is in the grocery store! In the winter we use frozen vegetables (mostly from our own organic garden) and incorporate our little "garden in a jar" for making fresh sprouts. Bean and seed sprouts are one truly FRESH vegetable that is high in nutrients you can grow at home. Seeds for sprouting are included in the "Seven Survival Foods". People can survive on wheat alone IF they sprout a portion of it.

So why would I choose to mill my own flour or consume whole grains??? For the superior nutrition you can't otherwise get from commercial flour or products containing commercial flour.

"The wheat kernel perfectly stores the nutrients within itself. Once broken open, as in milling, the nutrients immediately begin to oxidize. Within about 72 hours, 90% of over 30 nutrients are virtually gone due to oxidation. The germ oil (mostly vitamin E) causes the flour to turn rancid very quickly, so prior to the twentieth century only enough grain was ground fresh each day to meet the needs of the community."

[MTS04]

Good question Dutchie.
I try to eat whole foods and take my Freddy Flintsone vitamin every day. Oh, I forgot to add, I also sprinkle some nutritional yeast on my veggies or rice too.

(Yes Freddy flintstone, I have trouble swallowing pills)

[jeniffer]

One of the main benefits from acquiring sufficient amounts of vitamins for the body is disease prevention. Multiple diseases can be attributed to the lack of a certain type of vitamin.

[vickilynn]

Drink an air borne, max multi vitamin for my age, calcium, and on dr advice potassium and folic acid. Must be working haven't had a cold in over 4 years!