Showing posts with label supplements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label supplements. Show all posts

Recommended Daily Supplements: Do You Take Them?

Readers, in Arthur De Vany's excellent book The New Evolution Diet (you can find my ragingly positive review here), there was an intriguing discussion on recommended daily supplements.

This is an area where I'm far from an expert, but I'm generally biased against taking supplements, for three reasons:

* Most if not all supplements are superfluous if you eat a widely varied diet.
* Supplements tend to be expensive.
* Supplements are second-order foods and are often exact opposite of natural.

The only supplement (if you could call it that) I ever take is a whey-based protein powder, during extended periods of heavy training--for example when I'm doing weight training or heavy distance running.

In fact, if you subscribe at all to the philosophy of paleo living, how can taking supplements make any sense at all? It’s hard to imagine a more incongruous sight than thinking of "Paleo Man" popping a multivitamin right before he picks up his atl-atl and joins the hunt.

That said, here at Casual Kitchen, I want readers (and myself) to keep an open mind. We want to stay open to new ideas--especially to ideas that differ from the ones we hold dear. Which is why I wanted to offer to readers the supplements that author Art De Vany himself recommends. Some of these are rather intriguing:

Vitamin D (1,000 IU daily)
Omega 3 fish oil capsules
Melatonin (periodically)
Branched-chain amino acids
Antioxidants (De Vany recommends Ultrathione Health Packs made by the Antioxidant Pharmaceuticals Corporation)
Sodium Bicarbonate (50-100mg daily)

Finally, in keeping with his philosophy of inserting randomness and variability into your life, De Vany counsels readers to take periodic breaks from these supplements.

Readers, what do you think? Do you take supplements? Which ones and why? What's your view on taking supplements in general?





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