Nutrition

Eat Well To Avoid Being Malnourished

What is malnutrition?

Malnutrition occurs when there is a failure to achieve nutrient requirements, impairing physical and/or mental health. It may result from consuming too little food or a shortage or imbalance of key nutrients.

If I maintain or gain weight can I be malnourished?

If one's diet consists mainly of foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients, one may be malnourished despite gaining weight or being overweight. Most food marketing promotes highly processed, nutrient-poor food. Nutrient-poor foods will give you calories with nothing to show for it. Many of these foods actually have to rob nutrients from your body that are in storage in order to even be digested. Refined sugar and white flour are two examples of nutrient-poor food.

What contributes to nutrient-poor food?

There are a number of causes. Processing, cooking and preserving food leads to nutrient depletion. The quality of the foods we buy is often poor, in part, due to being genetically bred to improve yields, to look appealing and to withstand a long period of time o reach the marketplace. Nutrient-depleted soil is also unable to provide fruits and vegetables with the high amounts of vitamins and minerals they may have at one time contained. Soil today is often terribly depleted in trace minerals and healthy microorganisms.Year after year, crops are produced but nutrients are not returned to the ground. In addition, herbicides and pesticides have killed off much of the micro organisms that are vital to a good soil ecosystem. Good soil organisms receive little recognition as being important to crop production and this has caused our food supply to be less nutrient rich.

What can I do to receive better nutrition?

Improve your eating habits. Erratic eating habits can contribute greatly to poor nutrition in today's hectic-pace lifestyle. Poor eating habits can cause poor digestion. Poor digestion inhibits the assimilation of nutrients. You can suffer from poor digestion with it going unnoticed for quite some time. Digestion and assimilation of proper nutrients also depends, to a great extent, on properly combining the foods we eat. Aging may also contribute to deficiency in many essential nutrients. Properly combining the right foods we eat at a meal; taking live-plant digestive enzymes before we eat cooked foods and a regular exercise program to support a healthy lymph system all contribute to getting the most from out food nutritionally.

How should I eat to get the most from my food?

Eat fruit by itself on an empty stomach. Let 20-30 minutes elapse after eating fruit before eating other foods. Let three hours elapse after eating cooked foods before eating fruit again. Eat more fresh, uncooked vegetables and salads. Do not combine proteins and starches at the same meal. You find very little really healthy food at restaurants. Processed foods should be kept at a minimum. Prepare meals at home when you can. Eat slowly and enjoy the experience with family and friends.

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Organic Foods and Supplements

Organic food puts emphasize on the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; genetic engineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled "organic," a Government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to you must be certified, too.

Is organic food better for you?

While organic foods may contain some additives and pollutants, studies have found organically produced foods to have health benefits, much research remains to be done in this area, and the USDA makes no claims that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food. However, organic food means eating food in a much purer form than conventional food and with less undesirable additives. It has been grown with less environmental pollutants.

Is organic Food more nutritious?

Right now, no one can say for sure whether organic food is any more nutritious than conventional food. A few studies have reported that organic produce has higher levels of vitamin C, certain minerals, and antioxidants. But the differences are so small that they probably have no impact on overall nutrition. Nutrients like vitamin C oxidize over time. So even though the nutrients might be higher in organic food to begin with, if it's sitting in your refrigerator, you could lose that benefit fairly quickly.

Supplements:

While nothing can replace a healthy, wholesome diet, food supplements offer the benefits of a concentrated source of nutrients that food alone cannot provide. Not even organic grown foods can fully supply the concentration of nutrition that a food supplement can.

Are supplements necessary if I eat healthy?

No longer are supplements simply compensation for an inadequate diet. Food supplements ensure an adequate supply of essential nutrients to maintain basic health. Supplements help protect against toxins and prevent cell damage. They are used to fight disease and combat early aging. When used in addition to a healthy diet and regular exercise, supplements can help you reach an optimal state of health. To afford ourselves the best opportunity to receive the nutrition our bodies require food supplements along with fresh food.

Do supplements just supply vitamins for nutrition?

In addition to food supplement's providing necessary nutrients, more is available. Supplements can provide minerals, amino acids (the building blocks or protein) and herbal blends from food and plants to target specific areas of the body or the organ and gland system. Ancient civilizations relied on herbs for medicinal value.

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Vegetable Capsules and Tablets

In the process of tableting (pill form) or encapsulating for gelatin capsules, many companies use toxic agents as a rule. Over time, when pills or gel caps are consumed the toxic agents create problems related to poor absorption or harmful levels of toxicity.

100% Vegetable capsules do not contain animal by-products, starch, wheat, dairy, sucrose, soy, artificial colors or flavors, or magnesium stearate from bovine sources. We use 100% Vegetable capsules so there is no toxic, gluten, stearate, or animal-source prion risks that accompany pills and gel caps.

Prion is an acronym for 'proteinaceous infectious particles' responsible for a host of deadly neurodegenative diseases called Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs). These include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or 'mad cow disease') in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in people.

Our 100% Vegetable capsules are made from plant and tree cellulose. This fibrous cellulose is an inert material and is allergen free. Capsules made from plant cellulose dissolve quickly for rapid absorption of all active ingredients. The exception to the quickly dissolving capsule are the enteric coated capsules. Enteric refers to the small intestine, therefore enteric coatings use a non-toxic coating to prevent release of medication before it reaches the small intestine.

Vcaps may become slightly hazy when exposed to changes in temperature or humidity. This is a natural occurrence and will not affect the capsules or their usage.

Tablets

The Whole Food and Food Compound Tablets VP Nutrition uses in our Whole Food products have been found to be safe and are efficient in absorption and utilization. No toxic binders are used. Only vegetable products are used in binding this tablet to preserve the bioactive nature of the product and to enhance the efficiency of delivery for optimal utilization by the body. These are not the same as the tablets common to junk supplements made synthetically, fractionated or isolated from refined materials and chemically altered.

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