I’ve always thought multi-vitamins were a little bit useless unless you were sick. I thought that if I was eating enough fresh organic food then my body was getting all of the nutrients that it needed and I didn’t need to take a tablet to supplement it. I always thought that taking too many vitamins and minerals that your body doesn’t need had an adverse reaction in your body. Even when I had no idea what that adverse reaction was.
Well, it turns out I was wrong.
I watched this amazing documentary last night called Food Matters. It featured some of the top medical professionals and nutritionists in North America, Europe and Australia. These teachers taught me a lot of good stuff about food and nutrition. Including how good it is to take a daily multi-vitamin.
Where do we get our vitamins and minerals from?
Whenever I think of vitamins and minerals I always think of this TV commercial we have in Australia. It’s for the brand of breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain. Everybody knows that Nutri-Grain is packed full of sugar and is not good for you at all. But the commercial promotes the cereal as a ‘power’ food because it contains added nutrients. But can a food this sweet and this processed really be good for you?
Our body requires a certain amount of nutrients to function well (how it’s supposed to). The only place we can get these nutrients from is from the food we eat, and the only place the food we eat can get these nutrients from is the soil the food is grown in. So if the soil that your food is grown in is lacking in vital nutrients, then your body is just not getting what it needs.
It gets worse. If you shop at a grocery store, and buy non-organic food. Then chances are your food is already up to a week old (nutrients in food decrease with the age of the food), and chances are the soil the food is grown in is of poor quality, and chances are the food has been sprayed with chemicals and pesticides.
So really, you’re eating something that is old, lacking in nutrients and covered in toxins.
I don’t think I need to go into great detail about why eating this kind of food is not that great for our body or our skin because it’s obvious. If we’re not providing our body with what it needs to function properly, then of course we’re going to get sick, and it’ll very likely show on our skin with excessive oiliness or dryness, uneven skin tone, clogged pores and possibly acne.
So what do we do about it? Eat organic food if you can afford it for starters. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of money at the moment, I’m a traveller living on ‘the edge’. But whenever I can I will buy organic food. I’ve put good organic food as the highest priority in my life. I’d rather do something less fun tomorrow if it means I can eat good, healthy food every day.
And find a good multi-vitamin and take it. I’m in downtown Toronto today. I’m going to find myself a decent looking health store and I’m going to buy the best multi-vitamin in store. I’m going to support my body as much as I can by giving it what it needs.
The more I learn about health, the skin and acne, the more I realize how holistic it all is. It doesn’t work to just treat one symptom, like clogged pores or pimples. You must work on making your body healthier and stronger as a whole. The only way to achieve healthy, clear skin long term is to lead as healthy a lifestyle as you can. Eat well, take supplements, exercise and relax.
Fran
As I packed my suitcase to leave for Canada a couple of months ago, I was devastated when my yoga mat didn’t fit into my suitcase. Well, actually it probably would have fit, but I was already way overweight with the luggage allowance so unfortunately my yoga mat had to stay at home.
So a yoga mat should be easy peasy to buy right? Well you’d think so. But of course I started thinking about the environment, and uncessesary waste, and how buying another yoga mat is just contributing to land fill. So then I found these 
