Food or Supplements – The Great Debate

One debate that seems never to die is whether supplements are food or nutrition, and whether supplements are necessary at all.

Let’s just step away from the food element for a bit, and just look at supplements our bodies need. Take for instance the equally active debate on hormone supplements.

Whether or not to take hormone supplements is a very personal decision, and one that must be done in consultation with your doctor. However, much disinformation makes making such a decision more difficult.
Firstly, many of the medical issues that have arisen from taking hormones is because either they were taken incorrectly [for example taking oestrogen without progesterone], or taken by people who had other medical conditions that meant they shouldn’t have been taking the hormone replacement in the first place.
Second, there are a lot of so called ‘natural’ alternatives that are proposed as equivalent solutions, until you get into how many you have to take to equate to the synthetically derived versions.

When considering hormone replacement therapy for antiaging purposes, all you are doing is upping your levels to those one would naturally have at a younger age – what is so ‘unnatural’ about that!
Human Growth Hormones have certainly come under fire, and are banned in many countries –
Testosterone replacement therapy is often only considered as a natural bodybuilding supplement, yet men require hormone replacement as much as women do. Yet strangely for body builders to be taking testosterone replacement is considered cheating – go figure!

Thyroid hormones are taken by many people – it is considered fine in the medical circles to take thyroid hormone supplementation – by the very same doctors that frown on HGH, as though HGH is something so unnatural.

Yet there are many ‘natural’ elements on this Earth that are highly toxic to the human body.
Hormone replacement and the taking of natural supplements vs synthetic supplements is a highly charged debate that I doubt will ever be solved. These are questions we must all solve for ourselves in terms of our own philosophy.

My view is that you spend thousands of dollars a year maintaining your home to it original condition, the same with your car, and you certain replace worn out clothes [and even ones that are not] – so what is so wrong with replacing those elements in your body that are tiring, and failing to produce ideal levels. It’s no different than recharging a flat battery.

So back to the debate as to whether supplements are food or some form of artificial nutrition – most so called ‘health foods’ are no more than just healthy foods. Going back to my previous post on how regulators seem fine to allow toxic trans fats in our foods but then want to regulate what health supplements we take.
My advice is to stop thinking of food as your nutrition – and consider nutrition for your body as a class of its own. Your body needs nutrition just as it needs sleep, cleansing, exercise and sex. Work out what your body needs, then where you will get it from. If that’s from food – good luck. If its from a combination of foods and supplements – then go do it. Instead of just menu planning for you and your family – do nutrition plans – then just present the nutrition in the most interesting way possible. Like marketing – it’s all in the packaging.

Related posts:

1. The Great Vitamin-D Debate