Top 3 Supplements Everyone Should Take!

Everyday essentials: phone, keys, caffeinated drink, keys, sunglasses and VITAMINS! 

Disclaimer: I understand the arguments against supplements and I am not saying you can't be healthy without them. If you feel strongly against supplements I get it :) -I feel they have their place and can be very beneficial to our overall health. ESPECIALLY, when battling any ailment or symptom. I've seen it work. As with anything the quality of the supplements, how you take them and how often all factor in and are very important. Also supplements do not replace healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle :). You don't even have to take them daily many people take them every other day or don't take them on weekends--especially people who still want to take them, but feel they might be overworking their liver.  The brands of vitamins I recommend are vitamins that I like the quality, I have used myself, have been recommended by holistic practitioners, or I have received good feedback from clients. There are many good products in addition to these, just make sure to look at the label! 

Also before starting any supplements please check with your Doctor or nutrition professional/RD
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Many people don’t believe in taking vitamins and supplements, but I believe that there comes a time when supplements are important. Because of our lifestyles & diets—supplements can help to maintain vibrant optimal help. Prevention is key; it is better to prevent any issue that can arrive from not having sufficient minerals/vitamins, than having to use mega doses to fix issues later. Today I discuss three supplements that I feel everybody should consider taking. There are three more vitamins in addition to these I suggest, but that will be a blog post for another day :)

Multivitamins
Like I’ve said before I believe multivitamins are a great place to start, your entire body can benefit from the addition of a daily multivitamin. A multivitamin will have multiple nutrients that can help fill in gaps in your diet. That being said just as important as taking a multivitamin I feel the type of multivitamin is very important. In my opinion one can benefit more from a whole food- food based vitamin versus a synthetic.

Below I have a popular synthetic women's multivitamin (centrum) vs woman's one daily by MegaFood. 

Centrum Women's One Daily 

-VERSUS-

Megafood Women's One Daily

If you look at the two nutrition facts labels the difference is clear. Centrum generally has large doses of synthetic vitamins (some believe, because they are synthetic less is absorbed so that is why large doses are used). The ingredients highlighted in orange show this--in the centrum multivitamin the Vitamin C comes from Ascorbic Acid. In the Megafood vitamin the vitamin c comes from oranges. The Megafood vitamins are a mix of whole food based and cultured/fermented food based nutrients, with cultured items the ingredients are grown/fermented on a culture so they more so act like whole foods--it makes the nutrient more synergistic. Also another big difference between the Megafood and Centrum is all the extra artificial ingredients. The Centrum has some big offenders at first glance even if it is 'only' less than 2% of the product. One of the first things that caught my eyes in the centrum was:
Hydrogenated Palm Oil- Hydrogenated ANYTHING is not good for you, hydrogenated fats are TRANS fats. Trans fats are the one fat that I can say are unhealthy, these don't need to be consumed in moderation... they don't need to be consumed at all. 
Blue 2 Lake, Red 40 Lake- These are artificial colors, why are these needed? ..Beats me!
BHT- is basically a carcinogen and is banned (like many other things the USA allows in its food supply) throughout Europe, and even in Canada to name a few countries. 

I saw all of these at first glance, without really taking a closer look--this is why I really advocate getting your supplements from a natural food store with high product standards. Many people find that the whole food vitamins are a lot gentler on their stomach, it is taught that whole food vitamins absorb better—also whole food vitamins can be taken any time of day versus synthetic vitamins which should always be taken with a meal unless stated otherwise. For multi-vitamins I suggest getting one that applies to you—so a woman should take women’s multi, a man a man’s multivitamin and so on. There will be different herbs and different amounts of nutrients in a man and woman’s multivitamin; for instance, a woman’s multi will have iron because the idea is most women will be menstruating while a women over 55 or a men’s multivitamin will not have iron.

These are a few multivitamins brands I like and are easily found at a natural food store:

MegaFood Multivitamins
Garden of Life Vitamin Code Multivitamins and MyKind Organics Multivitamins
New Chapter Multivitamins

They range from one dailys, to multiple per day, to even gummy vitamins. These brands are more expensive than your regular multivitamin, but well worth it. They can be found on good ol Amazon, and your local natural food store.

Fish Oil/Krill Oil/Omega 3s
I am sure by now we have all heard how important omegas 3s are for us. Studies say omega-3s support brain health; help to lower our LDL cholesterol, support health cardiovascular ­­health etc. In addition to those benefits of omega 3s getting sufficient omega 3s in our diet help our bodies to combat inflammation. In our modern diets we have an imbalance of omega 6s to omega 3s in our diet, ideally it should be a 1:1 to omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, but today for many people it is closer to 25:1 (for some people it’s less for many people it is a lot more). This unbalanced ratio has been found to be pro inflammatory in our bodies. We get omega 6 from different vegetables oils, nuts, and animal products—so as you can see it is definitely a lot easier to get extra omega 6s in our diets. By taking omega 3 fatty acids (eating fatty fish, taking fish/krill oil, eating leafy greens, and consuming different seeds) we help to bring our omega 3 to omega 6 ratio back into balance.  

There are three different types of omega 3s there is EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and ALA ( α-linolenic acid). In a nutshell EPA and DHA generally come from fish and are more closely linked to the different cardiovascular, developmental and neurological benefits of omega 3. Most plant sources of omega 3s only contain ALA; with ALA your body is supposed to convert it into EPA and DHA, the only problem with this is that there is a very low conversion of ALA into EPA and DHA in our body. It would take large amounts of ALA and enough enzymes in our body for this conversion to occur. The only ‘vegan’ source of EPA/DHA I know of algae even then it won’t have as much as a fish oil.

In addition to eating fish, I really like Nordic Naturals their Ultimate Omega specifically but the entire brand is great they also have an Algae Omega for people who vegetarian/vegan. A plus with this fish oil is no fishy burp! They as well can be found on amazon (linked in the paragraph), at your natural foods store, I have even seen nordic naturals at Publix. Nordic naturals also has great gummy omega 3s.

Probiotics
The word probiotic is very telling of how beneficial probiotics are to us

Latin preposition  pro = for
Greek word biotic = bios which means life

So the word probiotic means ‘For Life’ and probiotics are necessary for life indeed. By definition probiotic is a microorganism, or yeast that is beneficial for the body.  The father of modern medicine Hippocrates said “All disease begins in the gut” and this is very much true. Generally speaking when your gut is happy your entire body is happy. It is even said we have two brains in our bodies the brain in our head and our gut. This is because the gut is responsible for so much, it keeps unwanted things out of our blood stream, probiotics that live in the gut help to create b vitamins, it digests our food, there are links between gut and mood, links between our gut and our mind. The microbes that lives in our gut (and all over our body really) help our gut (and body) to thrive and remain in homeostasis. I can’t remember who said it, but someone said something like ones longevity can be linked to the amount of probiotics they take in—or the healthiest cultures, people who live the longest have a high probiotic diet.

Traditionally cultures have eaten probiotic rich foods for ages-anything that is fermented has probiotics. So yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut (any fermented vegetable), sourdough bread (one of the healthiest breads in my opinion), kimchi, miso, tempeh, natto  (the best soy in my opinion is FERMENTED SOY, the fermentation gets rid of a lot of the issues that comes with soy—miso, tempeh, & natto are all types of fermented soy) these are fermented and probiotic rich. For us Nigerians things like ogi (pap,akamu ..aka sour struggle, lol I am not a fan) even ‘ijebu gari—are fermented and therefore have probiotics. There also other benefits of fermentation such as deactivating different anti nutrients found in foods, detoxifying toxins, and helping food last longer (a discussion for another day .. :) ) Probiotics are very necessary in our overused antibiotic world—not only are they beneficial within our gut; they work all over the body in our mouths for healthy teeth and gums, our skin, and for our ladies parts :). In fact in the past, when I saw a client with any kind of digestive issue I would also recommend a probiotic first before any other supplement and 7 times out of 10 the probiotic would help greatly or eliminate the issue completely! I believe it’s best to initially get probiotics from food and then you can add a probiotic—a lot of the foods we get probiotics from also act as prebiotics which basically feed the probiotics. This makes sure the probiotics establish themselves and thrive in our gut.

Brands I like are Renew Life, Garden of Life, Nature's Way. Also lots of people like Align and culturelle which can be find in almost any pharmacy while the first ones you will have the best luck at a natural food store

Though, to be honest with probiotics I believe any can be beneficial I remember when I had to take some antibiotics for something (I very rarely take antibiotics, in fact that was the first time I had taken them since probably being a child and I was 23) anyways those probiotics messed with my stomach and bowels –I remember rummaging through my parents medical cabinet and I took whatever probiotic they had on hand, trust me it wasn’t a ‘fancy’ natural food store one –but it certainly did the trick!

I hope you enjoyed my top 3 supplements for everybody!