Is It Time to Rethink How You Get Your Vitamins?

Food is medicine.

Okay - food is not all medicine, please keep your inhaler and epipen, but it’s true that our bodies require certain foods to function. Take the famed vitamin C - one legitimately life-sustaining chemical we get from our food. Go without it long enough and you’ll develop fatigue, muscle weakness, bulging eyes, bleeding gums...the works. Otherwise known as the old-timey (but still highly dangerous) affliction of Scurvy. Go long enough without it, and you could actually die. Uplifting, right?

For us non-pirate types with regular access to orange juice, there’s also Beriberi - a thiamine deficiency that causes swollen limbs, shortness of breath, and other alarming symptoms. The point is, there are certain compounds - around 13 key vitamins and 15 minerals - that our bodies don’t make, but do require to survive and thrive. We’re a fairly robust species, but we really don’t have a chance at functioning optimally without whole, balanced foods. 

But - and this crucial - food isn’t all the medicine you need. So again, don’t go dumping your anxiety meds in favor of sprouted barley. (We’re not doctors, just advocates of healthy and tasty food. So in case this is necessary to say: what your doctor says, goes.) Think of hacking your food as a way to get up to a healthy baseline: one in which you just about meet your daily recommended intake for vitamins and minerals. 

Much like sleep, while a deficiency of certain vitamins can technically kill you in the long run, achieving regular, recommended levels actually puts you at an advantage. When your body has the basic tools it needs, everything else runs a little more smoothly. Improved energy, better mental acuity, healthy skin and hair, you get the idea.

But what if you already take vitamins? Isn’t that doing twice as much good? With so many supplements and fortified products touting 200% of your daily recommended vitamin B12 and 300% of your daily vitamin C, it can really seem like it. If you don’t have a significant existing deficiency, though, research on multivitamin supplements tends to be pretty inconclusive about benefits. In a study by Johns Hopkins, multivitamin supplements actually didn’t prove to reduce long-term risk of heart disease, cancer, or cognitive decline for the average, healthy person. 

Catherine Price, award-winning journalist and author of “Vitamania,” also makes a compelling point in a podcast interview from January about nutritional research from the US military. Military research is, with good reason, typically our gold-standard for guidelines on achieving optimal physical performance. It’s literally their top priority (shoutout to our neighbors in Natick who do the bulk of this research). Why, then, do the meticulously developed Meals-Ready-to-Eat served to warfighters only contain the basic recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals? 

We might speculate that, if the military knows what they’re doing, the “daily recommended intake” guidelines are accurate, and taking 3000% of your recommended vitamin C doesn’t show any additional benefits. In the case of vitamin E, for example, going overboard with supplements can actually be toxic. (Though it is important to note that in multivitamin form, the doses are safe.)  So, if getting the right amounts of vitamins is vital, and multivitamins may not show much benefit unless you’re pregnant, have a highly restricted diet, or live in a region with little sunlight, that leaves us with the tried-and-true, doctor-recommended way to fortify your body: eat balanced meals. 

Sexy miracle cure? No. Far more exciting and appealing than it sounds? Maybe. “Balanced meals” don’t have to be all food pyramids and steamed broccoli. A vitamin-and-mineral-dense meal can, and often does, look like this:

The good news is that the tried-and-true way to get your body functioning the way it’s intended  is also one full of possibility. Curries, soups, flatbreads, pastas, salads, burgers, fruit bars, muffins, and so on. It’s a big, bright world out there, and typically the more colorful and whole-food-rich the plate, the more body-optimizing nutrients. So get creative, or talk to your chef about incorporating specific nutrients into your weekly meals.

As big advocates for food as preventive medicine, Tiny Spoon has your back (and is often recommended by local dieticians if we can brag for a second). In the meantime, here’s an excellent resource to help you balance your plate and arm your body with the tools it needs to perform its best:

The best foods for vitamins and minerals - Harvard Health