Forget Vitamins

 
In 2004 we came to understand nutrition through a set of unexpected circumstances. Many realize that they are not really operating at optimum health, but don't know what to do about it.  That is what has given so much business to the vitamin shoppes around town these days.  

In this country the thought is, if a little is good for you, a lot is better!  A friend of mine was presented with an article in one of the news magazines which stated on the cover, "Your vitamins may be making you toxic!!! "  I heard someone say to a coworker recently  that she could have whatever she wanted because after all, she did take so many vitamins!  Taking a multitude of vitamin pills seems to be the excuse for a bad diet.  We were, like everyone else, jumping on the supplement bandwagon, finally taking up to $200/month (or more)  worth of pills, potions, herbs and juices.  Who could find room for real food??? 

Even though our outward symptoms of exhaustion, lack of stamina, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, anxiety, insomnia, dry skin, and vascular issues (gasp!) all continued, we were undaunted in our regimen!  We were resigned to believe that we were just getting older (as that was what our doctor told us as he wrote more prescriptions).  With what we were taking and spending, we should have been the pictures of health!  I know there are others out there who are doing what we have done and feel what we felt, -- not one whit better!

Everyday, handfuls of tablets slid down our gullets, followed by the "juice-of-the-day" chaser.  We felt pretty self righteous, but no better.  It was a case of the king's new clothes. We would not admit, nor will others, that our routine was not improving our health.   And yet, there we were, urine glowing bright orange, feeling like crap, exhausted, depressed and we weren't obese or a little overweight!  I was not even 45 and getting up stairs hurt my knees and made me short of breath. Walking through an airport uninterrupted was not an option.  I had to stop every 50 yards to rest.  And forget about dragging a suitcase!

 In 2004, everything changed.  no, the vitamin pills did not finally kick in.  We have a grandson who was literally dying of an autoimmune disorder; his immune system was not working in fact, it was destroying him.  He was 11 and had blood work numbers that would scare a cirrhosis or AIDS patient; one of them upwards of 500,000 and normal was 100 or less.  All this meant that he was ripe to catch whatever whenever and usually did.  This meant hospitalization, months of IV medications, antibiotics, inhaler and whatever the drug du jour would be for that particular bug. 

During my workout in the summer of that year,  there was a woman at the gym who loudly touted the ingestion of 9-13 servings of fruits and veggies to build one's immune system.  My thought was, "Yeah, I can see it now!  Oh, Grandma, please give me some more broccoli!"   However, I was intrigued and desperate.

She posed this question:  "If your grandson will not eat fruits and veggies, why not try giving them to him in a capsule?"  It was only food, she said, and could not hurt him and he was already taking so many pills.  I was pretty skeptical and hated to give him one more capsule.  And yet, if it would help him, I would give it a try. We had nothing to lose.

Suffice it to say, we couldn't move fast enough enrolling this child in something that I hoped at the time, might just change his life; something so simple that actually might give him life.  That's what we did and that IS what happened.

It was at that time, that in our researching, we found that most illnesses, maladies, joint pain, stamina are all affected by what goes in your mouth and the quality of that food.  Imagine that!   In fact, we learned that 70% of all degenerative diseases, which is just about all of them minus those that are genetically caused, are related to poor nutrition and lifestyle!  Food became our medicine as a necessity for the entire family and we have not returned to that soda at every meal, sweets for breakfast, couch potato life again.  It took a little adjusting and insistence on our parts that certain foods were just poison to us. 

We learned that sugar suppresses the immune system for up to 6 hours. It basically puts your immune system to sleep and with your immune system sleeping, the infections invade.  We could not afford that.  In fact, there were many things that we had been ingesting that now did become poison to us.  Donuts, candy, soda was a huge no-no. Water, tea, veggies, fruits, wholesome bread with some fiber in it all became the new regimen.

Now,  I feel now better than I did 10 years ago!  As for my grandson, he is thriving, top of his class, normal, healthy, never sick.  This is true for the rest of my grandchildren and children as well.    Does that mean that we NEVER eat anything bad for us?   Absolutely not, but we know where to go to offset the damage we do everyday because we are human. We reach for the good things more often than the bad.

You might ask,  "Are you just telling me this to have me buy something?"   Yes, I am!  Buy more fruits and veggies and eat them like they are going out of style.  If you can't, won't or just don't like them, there is a solution and that's what this page is all about.  

-- Mary Camfield