I ask people all the time, would you eat a synthetic apple? Not one person has answered yes. So why would anyone consume unnatural, laboratory created, synthetic vitamins?

Most vitamin supplements are synthetic, created in a laboratory. Yet the longest-lived people and cultures in the world do not consume vitamin and mineral supplements, and animals in the wild live their natural lifespan and do not take vitamin supplements.

There are many categories of elements in a whole food that are not found in vitamin supplements and that cannot and will never be copied by man.

Scientists have found approximately 100,000 enzymes, 16 vitamins, more than 80 minerals, three essential fatty acids, 20 amino acids (including 10 essential), and an estimated 100,000 phyto-nutrients in the world's whole foods. And of the 100,000 elements in phyto-nutrients, there are components such as color pigments, aromas, and essential healing sugars.

Every nutrient in a whole food works in synergy to process the nutrition in your body right where it's needed. A sub category of proteins called protein chaperones are like a mailman, helping to deliver the nutrients right where they are needed—to each cell. I can go on and on with all these elements in whole foods.

It is not possible to isolate a few non-food, laboratory-made vitamins in a pill, such as ascorbic acid, and assume it will be the same as vitamin C naturally occurring in food. Whole foods will absorb and be utilized three to 123 times better than unnatural synthetic supplements. Your body's daily requirement does not need the harmful chemicals found in many supplements.

Synthetic Vitamins are Packed with Chemical Fillers

There are hundreds of unnatural chemical fillers used in vitamin and mineral supplements, and not one is a necessary food or on any government Recommended Daily Allowance list. Why? Because they are not food. Common chemical additives found in supplements include:

• gelatin—from the boiled bones, skins and tendons of animals
• stearic acid—from boiled cow fat
• carnauba wax—car polish
• sodium alginate—chemically processed algae used in the paint & printing industry
• tar
• preservatives
• excipients
• petroleum
• talc powder
• plastics
• formaldehyde
• polysorbate
• propyl alcohols
• binders
• fillers
• soy—usually genetically modified

There are always side effects—especially long term—from the unnecessary toxic filler ingredients in any processed food or supplement. The side effects of taking isolated vitamins can be the same as the symptoms they are supposed to be correcting.

The side affects from the chemical fillers put in vitamins are fatigue, memory loss, depression, anxiety, dermatitis, hives, allergic reactions, even hallucinations and insomnia. Indigestion is also a common symptom as the chemical binders and fillers are very acidic and very harsh on the stomach and entire digestive system. Constipation and heartburn are common side affects from binders such as tar.

Unfortunately labels do not fully list ingredients in understandable terminology. Ascorbic acid, for example, is not vitamin C—it is made in a lab from alcohol, fermented sugar and acetone (nail polish remover), and this combination of chemicals mimics vitamin C.

To make matters worse, fractioned, isolated synthetic vitamins are in much higher doses than most people should consume, creating an imbalance. This is not how food occurs in nature. The imbalanced mega-doses put a strain on organs, glands and the digestive system. No wonder many people taking mega doses of vitamins have many negative side effects and end up with nutritional deficiencies.

Whole Food is Living Energy

Man cannot copy nature's naturally perfect foods. A whole raw food is living energy, while a laboratory, man-made synthetic copy is an unnatural, harmful stimulant.

Organically grown natural foods and whole herbs are man's ideal natural superfoods. A tomato is packed with more than 5,000 nutrients. The cost to duplicate a tomato would be make it vastly more expensive than growing the tomato.

Whole foods are superfoods, but when they lose nutritional value. If a vitamin or food has been isolated or altered, it becomes very acidic and dead energy, which makes it an artificial stimulant.

White flour is a whole grain that has been separated; the germ, bran or embryo has been removed, and it is no longer a whole food, as it lacks fiber, vitamins and minerals, and proteins. White sugar is worse: With the molasses removed, white sugar is virtually void of nutritional value and it is very acidic, leaching minerals from your body.

Naturally occurring vitamins can do things that synthetics can't. Only 6 mg of vitamin C from a whole food such as a lemon, lime, orange, or grapefruit can cure scurvy, a condition caused by vitamin C deficiency. But no amount of synthetic vitamin C will cure scurvy, and if humans consume more than 1 gram of synthetic vitamin C, it will damage RNA and DNA, the building blocks of cells.

Fresh live whole fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds are the best choices for balanced nutrition, but in the winter, fresh fruits aren't always readily available, and if they are, they cost a pretty penny.

Consuming dehydrated, concentrated whole foods, such as camu camu or amla berry for vitamin C, is a better, natural alternative because it is real food. Other superfoods such as bee pollen, maca, chlorella, or goji berries are superior alternatives to vitamin supplements. If you're looking for a replacement for a multivitamin, whole 'Green' powders such as spirulina are a powerful alternative.

So if you want to feel better, have more energy, get more nutrition into your body and improve your health, superfoods could be your answer. And remember: Avoid synthetics; eat a real apple!

Wayne Gendel