What would you say if i said you could be spending all this money on multivitamins and all its doing is giving your pee a nice shade of orange or green. This may well be the case with some of these cheap supermarket multivitamins you see around the place.

The problem with multivitamins is that there not real food (yes good deduction my dear watson) and this means its like playing lucky bingo when it comes to your body absorbing the vitamins or not, and then there’s also the problem of vitamins and minerals that conflict with each other.

For example taking calcium and zinc at the same time will leave you plenty of calcium and a toilet bowl full of zinc:P. High zinc levels lead to low copper levels and all that stuff but that’s a post for another day.

Multivitamins are so inferior to real food as they are just plain old manufactured minerals and they come with no digestive enzymes found in your foods, or the necessary combination of other nutrients to ensure you absorb the minerals you need. This is where it gets tricky and you start to research every vitamin, what your lacking and you start to go bonkers.

If you are going to take multivitamins its wise to stick to the higher quality ones, and the best way to tell the good from the bad is to actual physically look at the table of contents and see what sort of vitamins and minerals you are getting and most importantly in what forms. There is a big difference in the chance of absorption between a zinc oxide and a zinc amino acid chelate. I am no pharmacist wizz kid but it was around 20-30% for oxide and 60-65% for the chelate. Even they aren’t fantastic odds and you wonder why you bother taking them. But its a gamble pretty much and hopefully when your body needs it , it can tap into the available vitamins and minerals.

Another good way to get your vitamins is to try a natural superfood something like spirulina which contains a great vitamin and mineral analysis , also high in protein and many great plant enzymes all that photosynthesis gives you. Some companies are starting to make multivitamins derived from real sources so its a good idea to look out for them.

I hope your not too confused , whenever I talk about this topic I end up a little confused too ,but in the end its probably best to take some kind of multivitamin, our poor mother earth’s soil isn’t as rich as it once was.

Nut Variety

Not only are nuts a great quick snack but contains loads of vitamins and minerals which can be great if your not getting all your required vitamins through your regular diet.

First of all my favourite nut the walnut contains the highest level of omega 3 of all nuts, which is great news for people who have a fishless diet or cant stand the fishy reflux of fish oil capsules (there are also odourless).

Omega 3 is beneficial for healthy skin, hair, joint mobility and many other benefits. Walnuts also contain Vitamin E which are also great for skin, and general health.

Naturopath

I was talking to my local naturopath recently and I jotted down some important notes for those of us eating plenty of nuts who may start to worry about eating too much.

It is healthy to eat 100 – 250 grams of nuts a day ( preferably a variety of nuts) , you can also adjust this figure depending on whether you are a vegetarian or a very active person.

But remember even if your eating healthy food, it stops becoming healthy when you eat a too much of it, it just means excess calories, so remember not to overdo it.

Selenium

Selenium is an important antioxidant and we recommend 2 Brazil nuts a day to get 100% of your RDI (recommended daily intake) particularly as soils in parts of Australia and NZ are depleted in selenium.

Nuts & Vitamin/Mineral Intake

If your one of those people who worry about overdosing on vitamins, remember its almost impossible to overdose on vitamins from natural food sources but quite easy with a multivitamin. So when in doubt halve your multivitamin or just increase your natural food intake.

Nut Myth – Dandruff

Another huge miss conception I want to bust is the myth that people who suffer form dandruff should avoid eating nuts. For some reason people believe nuts are a big no no for dandruff sufferers but this is what my naturopath had to say.

I have checked the medical literature and have not been able to find any research connecting nuts and dandruff so I think you are safe to continue eating nuts. From my understanding dandruff is caused by a yeast on the scalp so what that has to do with nuts is strange to say the least. If anything nuts should help dandruff sufferers due to the high omega 3 and vitamin E levels very commonly used to treat mild dandruff.

if you eat a well balanced diet and get all the number of serves of all the food groups recommended for your age then you will get all the nutrients you need provided you also eat a variety of different foods each day. The Japanese recommend 30 different foods each day so foods that use a lot of ingredients eg muesli, multigrain breads and cereals, dishes with loads of different herbs, spices and vegetables all help to achieve this.

With so many different kinds of nuts, you’ll never get bored. Enjoy