ALL THOSE VITAMINS

 

 

It is often hard to make up our minds when trying to figure out what the best way to do something is. Look at the issue of health, for example. One thing many of us can do to stay at peak health is to take some kinds of vitamins or other supplements along with other proper foods. Sometimes we may need to take large amounts of a particular vitamin, (I’m using the term “vitamin” to mean the pill form) obviously with the proper research and information gathering done beforehand. And while one can find people who are generally opposed to taking vitamins to enhance and promote optimum health, one reason they sometimes give for their view is a common one in other areas as well, and is a valid consideration. (I’m really just using the issue of vitamins as an example). But it is often a “non-reason” in the end. This reason may be expressed here as “people have been healthy for thousands of years, and they didn’t take vitamins”, or “there’s enough nutrition in the food we eat”, or even “if God wanted us to take vitamin pills they would grow on trees”. And one more, “they’re not natural”. Without getting into whether or not people have been healthy for thousands of years, or if there’s enough nutrition in the food, or if God designed the pills, the idea that because people didn’t do something at one time, we shouldn’t do it now, is flawed. It’s not a reason in itself; it is simply one thing to consider. I mean, in one sense, everything we do now is new because we live in a new time. If you were using the above reasons for not doing something, it could just as easily be said that we shouldn’t use toothbrushes, soap, language, tools, etc. Past human behavior is one important consideration in determining what we should do now, but only one of many. So vitamins may be an important part of our new longevity and life quality, even if they weren’t important in the past centuries. (I find it hard to believe that nutrition in a wealthy nation back then could equal nutrition in a wealthy nation today, even with our endless pollutants). The question of what we did a hundred years ago is interesting but often a non-issue. Same for the last 100,000 years. Everything is different from the time you open your eyes in the morning (or whenever you do in this split shift world) to the time you close your eyes at night – the world and all the synergistic effects, physical and psychological. Effects so new and numerous that in identifying them we can’t keep up with them. The reasoning of “we didn’t do it then, why should we do it now” is often used when one thinks that it will serve their cause at the time, but the idea really applies to everything we do. I call this the “selective argument”. This selectivity of reason is common among people working on specific social issues, among parents, etc. to attempt to further their cause.  Again, it is useful to think about what we did in the past for many reasons, but may not be directly applicable to the present. While I’m on the subject of nutrition (I am?), there is another important reason for taking what many would consider “excessive” amounts of vitamins and other supplements to the food you eat.  This is what Gary Null appropriately calls the “laws of compensation”. Simply put, we’ve been taking so many toxins in our bodies for so long that eating “pretty good” and taking a multivitamin every day is not going to counteract a lifetime of polluting ourselves. As he says, “that process is so advanced and the damage so incipient that it will require enormous compensation.” This is what Dr. Joseph Weissman calls the X Factor. That is why it may be necessary for many of us to take what at first might seem to be excessive amounts of vitamins. Also, the beneficial effects of large doses of vitamin C, for example, may be evident regardless of the current state of ones body. One other point (I’ll be done soon) is that on an individual level, people have different amounts of things like energy. So if a low energy person could gain more energy by taking vitamins without harmful effects, go right ahead! Otherwise it’s similar to the absurd situation of two people with perfect eyesight telling a third with poor eyesight that she can’t wear glasses because they don’t. We don’t need vitamins, so you shouldn’t take them. The same laws of compensation apply to juicing vegetables. If you drink a glass of fresh juice extracted from pounds of carrots, cabbage, parsley, etc. you may hear the same criticism of “it’s not natural to take in that many nutrients at once”. That is like picking an arbitrary action at an arbitrary time and saying, “OK, we’ll stop developing and looking into new ideas because they are new ideas. It would mean to remain static instead of dynamic. (Again, it’s not natural to speak a language, wear glasses or to manufacture nerve gas either). Ask the critics this then; what is their “natural” world like? Was it natural to take in hundreds of man-made and other toxins in our lives so far? The question is not whether a thing is “natural” or not, or whether we did it a hundred years ago, but whether it is good for us now or not. Because of our increasing longevity, some feel that we must be doing everything right so why look for things we’re doing wrong, why worry about “extra” vitamins. But thankfully, that attitude is dying out as we become more health conscious. It is worth saying, however, that the good thing about a cautious approach is that it is cautious, something we regularly don’t show enough of in other matters. Well, I’m grateful for the vaccines, the hybrid vegetables, electricity, cordless phones, and who knows, maybe even the rows of vitamins in the supermarket. Compensate.

 

3/29/99