We must eat  the things our bodies need for healthy nutrition. Yet proper nutrition, not supplements, is the best way to stay healthy. Vitamin C in megadoses can be dangerous to many Americans. And no pill can ever come close to the balance of nutrients nature provides. Want vitamin C: have orange juice.

How about Vitamin C? In megadoses it guards against colds. We all know that.

We need those antioxidant supplements, don't we?

We also know that it is not dangerous.

We do? Where did you get your information?

Vitamin C, in the presence of iron is brutally pro-oxidant. Over 10 percent of white Americans and up to 30 percent of African-Americans have elevated body iron stores. These people can die from megadoses of vitamin C.

Herbert Victor M.D., J.D., in "Dangers of Iron and Vitamin C Supplements" in Journal of the American Dietic Association 93: 526-527, 1993 states that vitamin C can mobilize  such an enormous amount of iron from high body iron stores as to overwhelm the iron-binding capacity of iron-binding proteins, with the resultant free iron producing death within minutes to hours from iron-induced cardiac failure."

Food vs. Pills

Total Nutrition: The Only Guide You'll Ever Need from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine states, "Vitamins and other nutrients in food are balanced nutrition. In supplement pills they are unbalanced nutrition."

They used a six-ounce glass of orange juice as an example. This juice does contain 60 milligrams of vitamin C. However, it also contains over 100 other antioxidants, pro-oxidants, and non oxidant phytochemicals, with a variety of biochemical effects. Nature provided this balance to keep one ingredient such as vitamin C from doing more harm than good.

Another example of food in nature is the sweet potato. A four ounce baked sweet potato (don't confuse with the yam, a tuber of similar appearance) supplies 47% of the RDA for vitamin C. But while you are eating that lowly sweet potato, nature is supplying you with  249%  of your vitamin A for the day, plus respectable amounts of  B6, folate, and potassium. And, it is rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates, a combination that helps regulate blood sugar and satisfies hunger for weight watchers. All with only a trace of fat and  a whole lot of flavor.

Try getting that from a pill.

The book further states, "No pill, be it a single vitamin and/or mineral and/or omega3 (or other) fatty acid, or a multivitamin/mineral pill, ever comes close to the balance of ingredients (including various kinds of fiber), per unit volume, bulk, and weight, achieved by nature in food."

Sounds to me like this: If I need vitamin C,  and I do, of course, I had better get it from a balanced diet, not from a pill.

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