Many people ask, “what vitamins should I take?”  This is a common question with a simple answer, but the answer depends on what you want to take them for. If you wanted strong bones, the answer would be very different than if you wanted big muscles. That’s what this site is all about. Choose a goal/problem and see what the best vitamins to take are for that purpose.  The difference here is that you will be taught why to take certain supplements as well.  Sure you want to know what will help you, but when you know how and why a product works, you can make a better, more informed decision about if its right for you.  So here you will not only learn what vitamins are the best to take for you, but also why.

For you non-chemists out there, vitamins are nothing more than little chemicals that help get the chemistry in our bodies done.  For example, we have to have vitamin C to help make proteins in our bodies.  It is essential for the chemical process to make protein in much the same way as a flame is essential to burning a piece of paper.  No vitamin C, no protein, and pretty soon teeth and hair start falling out.

Minerals are much the same, they are just what are classified in chemistry as “metals.”  These guys basically do the same thing as vitamins; they make life happen.  For instance, iron is essential to the formation of blood.  Each hemoglobin molecule has one iron atom in it, which must be present or oxygen won’t “stick” to it.  If oxygen won’t stick to your blood, you’re not going to last long!

For years now, the crackpots of the medical field and nutrition academia have claimed that all the vitamins and minerals you need are found in the food you eat.  That’s a great theory, but is impractical and based on a flawed thinking.  What they should say is that all the vitamins and minerals you need should be in the food you eat…but they’re not.  Overuse of farmland, pesticides, genetic modification, pasteurization, irradiation, and convenience all play a role in making the food we eat very different from the food our ancestors ate; there are fewer vitamins and minerals.  That’s just a fact.  In addition, most of us just don’t eat enough of the right foods at the right times to get all the nutrition we need throughout the day.

Don’t buy into their overdosing garbage either.  I have heard many a nutritionist, doctor, nurse, whoever, try to say that taking a multivitamin is fine, but you have to worry about taking too much.  That’s another theory that does have merit, but practically speaking, you’d have to take painfully huge doses of most vitamins or minerals to actually turn your health the other way.  Some vitamins are water soluble so you can’t actually take too much, but even those that are not can often be taken in pretty large doses without detrimental effects.  For example, vitamin D has recently shown to reduce the risk of certain types of cancer, so the “experts” are recommending taking 1000-2000IU per day, far more than they used to think was safe.  It turns out that you have to take about 20,000IU for an extended period of time to show signs of toxicity.

Now combine that with the fact that the amounts of vitamins and minerals that are considered best for optimal performance keep going up.  There is also evidence that many vitamins and minerals are especially beneficial in relatively large doses (like vitamins C and D).  So even if you grow your own food, and even meat, chances are that your aren’t getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs to function at its best.

Now realize that I didn’t say well or even excellent; I said “best.”  If you never take a vitamin pill in your life, you may still be a very healthy person, but you may not be as healthy as you could be.  Being healthy is not the same as being optimally healthy.  Of course your vitamin and mineral intake is only one aspect of your health, but without it you can exercise like a maniac, live a low stress life, and eat a well balanced diet and still not be as healthy as you could be.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to risk it.