Be sure to take your vitamins!....or is there another way?

This topic hits home for me and I am going to get personal here. There was a time where I was all about the supplements. 

I thought that in order for me to have good health I had to be taking supplements.

In fact at one point in time I was taking over 12 different supplements daily and thinking that I absolutely needed them in order to feel well.

My journey with supplements began when I was having some health problems and I went to a nutritionist to help manage and resolve those issues.

She of course recommended supplements.

At first it was just a few, but then as I came back and complained of more health issues (likely caused by supplements) she added more supplements to my daily routine. Simultaneously, she was also recommending that I remove many foods from my diet claiming that I have food intolerances.

You can see where this is going, at the advice of a health professional I eventually had removed so many foods from my diet that I hardly had any foods left to choose from, I felt like I was living on oatmeal and supplements.

All the while my health was not improving and neither was my quality of life.

Then one day I had a big wake up call.

I had started working for Beiler Family Farm and learning more about nutrient dense foods, and how food raised and grown the right way is full of essential bioavailable vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that our bodies need.

It suddenly became very clear to me, the thought planted in my head that we “need to take our vitamins” in order to be healthy was very wrong….and very dangerous.

Even though I was supplementing with tons of vitamins, my body was starving. All those supplements contain synthetic forms of vitamins that are not entirely bioavailable for our bodies to absorb, and the food I was eating was lacking nutrients due to conventional and modern farming practices.

You see, over the last 70 years our foods have seen a significant nutritional decline.

The carrot you eat today is not as healthy as the carrot eaten 50 years ago.

That’s because conventionally grown food is lacking in vitamins and minerals.

Why, you ask?

There are two main reasons:

1. Due to the spread of agricultural practices designed to improve traits such as size, growth rate, pest resistance, etc, anything other than nutrition.
2. And due to the soil being depleted of nutrients from modern intensive farming techniques like tilling and spraying.

It goes to say that I quickly ditched all the supplements, and chose to get my vitamins and minerals the old fashion way...THROUGH FOOD!

And boy has my body thanked me!

After just a short while of eating a diet filled with farm fresh foods, raw dairy, and grass-fed meats my health improved greatly. So great in fact that to this day I have zero health issues.

I am healthier now than I have been my whole life.

I feel strong and full of energy, and I am so thankful that I took my health into my own hands. I am also so thankful to Beiler Family Farm for working tirelessly to provide truly nutritious food for me, my family, and all their customers.

I believe in many ways we are our own best doctors. We know our bodies best, and if we listen we know what they really need. And I think what we need is nutrient dense food, grown with regenerative farming practices. 

Humans lived for thousands of years without “having to take your vitamins.” I am about following that traditional wisdom and steering clear of nutrient deprived foods grown in a way that is destroying the health of our planet and our bodies.

I got a kick out of farmer Jonas' description of a supplement, he describes it like this: “What is that vitamin made of? Is it a bunch of toxic, synthetic vitamins clumped together in a ball that you take and you think you're healthy?”

Yeah, I think he is right!

Look, I know that there are certainly some good supplements out there, and there is certainly a time and a place where supplements can help.

But, I feel that our food is meant to be our primary source of nourishment and nutrition. Unfortunately, we are living in a time where the majority of the food in our food system is nutrient deprived and we need to figure out where to get the nutrients we need somewhere other than the food we buy at the grocery store and restaurants.

For me I choose to spend my consumer dollars in buying my food from small, local, regenerative farms, instead of putting my money into the supplement industry.

I feel this is one small choice that I make in my life that has a big reach to support and positively affect my health, my families health, my friends health, the planet's health, animals health, farmer health, and more!

We all just have this one body and this one planet, let's treat them well and give them the nourishment they need.

Enjoy the food!