Greetings! I’m here to give you real facts concerning MegaFood vitamins and supplements. But first, a little background on WHY whole-food supplements are so important.
Care about your body and what you put in it
Many of you do, and a lot more of you should. You do it with balanced eating habits and vitamin and/or mineral supplements to “fill in” where your diet may fall short. That’s good. But is it good enough?
Quantity vs Quality
In a perfect world, all our nutritional needs would be met by eating foodstuffs rich in nutrients and picked at their peak. But we also know that many of today’s farming practices, while yielding more food (quantity), are actually yielding foods with a lower and lower nutritional content (quality). (1)
A landmark study on the topic by Donald Davis and his team of researchers from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.
“Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly,” reported Davis, “but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth.” There have likely been declines in other nutrients, too, he said, such as magnesium, zinc and vitamins B-6 and E, but they were not studied in 1950 and more research is needed to find out how much less we are getting of these key vitamins and minerals.(1)
No Green Thumb? Time for Vitamins & Supplements
If you aren’t going to start up your own mini organic farm in your backyard to grow nutrient-rich foods, then it’s a good idea to look to supplements. But I’m not talking about bargain basement, cheapie vitamins or supplements made from ground-up rock or created with equally unappealing (to the human body) lab-generated chemical isolates that your body doesn’t necessarily recognize. I’m talking about vitamins and supplements that are in fact REAL FOOD.
Human Bodies are Designed to Eat….Food
Of course, you say. But think about the last time you stood in the vitamins aisle at Target or Duane-Read, and in reading a bottle’s fine print you noticed that most of those vitamins didn’t come from food sources. So then, how is your body supposed to make the most of those vitamins?
Bioavailability. It all boils down to that. If your body can’t utilize it, why bother taking it? Why bother buying it? If it means garbage in, you know what you’ll get: garbage out.
There are some fine companies offering vitamins and supplements made with quality, pronounceable ingredients that deliver easily assimilated nutrients your body can really use. New Hampshire-based MegaFood is one of them.
MegaFood: The Real Deal
MegaFood was started in 1973 by a group of regular people who wanted quality vitamins but couldn’t find any made from real food. Since they understood that getting nutrition and recommended nutrients from food made the most sense, that has been their mission and commitment from Day 1.
How MegaFood Does It
- Partners with a team of scientists from the U of New Hampshire to identify which fresh whole foods are the best to deliver vitamins and minerals
- Test Test Test: 100% of all ingredients are tested in an ISO 9001 Certified Lab to meet purity specifications…3 times!
- Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free and Soy-Free
- Pesticide & Herbicide-Free
- All products are Non-GMO certified. Think about this for a second: how or why would MegaFood get their products certified as Non-GMO if they weren’t made from real food?!
Want to feel confident about MegaFood products? Watch this great little video and see what real MegaFood employees, labs, manufacturing & packaging looks like. You only need 2 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4mjD9pjxt0
From the Horse’s Mouth: MegaFood FAQs (2)
A few common questions and real answers from MegaFood:
Q. Vitamins upset my stomach; will I have a problem digesting MegaFood’s vitamins and minerals?
MegaFood’s supplements are crafted with whole foods. MegaFood uses a range of colorful whole foods rich in natural enzymes including oranges, carrots, brown rice, nutritional yeast, broccoli, blueberries and cranberries. Not only are these foods gentle on the stomach, but the natural process of digestion liberates the whole food nutrients, which are in the ideal form to be efficiently utilized by the body.
Q. If someone has food sensitivities, can they consume your line of multivitamins?
Because our products contain whole food, there is a potential for those with food allergies to have sensitivities to our products. However, please note that the majority of our products are free from most common allergens: wheat, corn, gluten, dairy, and soy.
Q. Are all your products gluten, dairy and soy free?
All of our products are tested and verified to be free of gluten, in addition to dairy and soy.
Q. Are your products Kosher?
Many of our products are Kosher as denoted by the Circle K seal on their label.
Q. Why are you not Organic?
While we do use organic botanicals and seek organic and sustainable foods whenever possible, we have also made a commitment to supporting smaller and local farms. Even though our fruits and vegetables may come from farms that choose not to use pesticides and herbicides and may meet the requirements set out by the USDA for organic products, they may not have actually gone through the process of becoming certified organic. Because of this we have taken on the added step of having every product lot that we produce tested to be sure it is free of herbicides and pesticides. This allows us to stay true to our intention of supporting small and local farmers while still enabling us to guarantee a pure product.
So there you go. MegaFood really is the real deal. Even Dr. Andrew Weil trusts them!
Save $10 Special Offer: Spend $35+ on MegaFood and save $10! Simply add $35 or more of MegaFood brand products into your shopping cart, enter coupon code: MEGAFRESH at checkout. Expires February 13, 2015.
Sources: 1) Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? From Scientific American, posted 4/27/2011. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/. 2) MegaFood.com
