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Let’s make more and let’s make it bigger. That’s the American way. Bigger cars. Bigger houses. Bigger burgers. You name it. And we even do it with our fruits and vegetables. Farmers are constantly on the lookout for ways to yield more crops and bigger produce, but experts say our fruits’ and vegetables’ abilities to uptake nutrients may not have kept up with the growth of these items.
Translation: the apple you bite into today may not be as nutritious as one your great-great grandparent enjoyed. That’s an issue we face with seemingly pure and whole foods like onions and grapes. Imagine how bad the nutrient profiles become when you’re talking about processed foods? By the time foods are processed, they’ve gone through so much that research says the nutrients simply can’t remain intact.
We eat food to have calories that turn into fuel, sure, but food can and should do a lot more for our bodies, too. It is literally nature’s medicine. The vitamins and minerals we should get from our food each play specific roles, like improving heart health, boosting vision, bettering circulation, and so much more. So what happens when every morsel of food you put in your mouth contains only a fraction of the nutrients you think it does? You may start to suffer the consequences through declining health. In today’s society, unless you live on a compound where all you consume is the organic food you grow yourself, you simply need to take vitamins. Here are some you should start taking today if you haven’t already.
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Coenzyme Q10
Here’s one you don’t hear much about but is picking up steam in the supplement industry. Coenzyme Q10 is very similar to vitamin K. It’s a strong antioxidant, and it helps in the healthy formation of Adenosine triphosphate, which nearly every cell in our body needs. It can also improve blood oxygenation and can be found in foods such as liver, spinach, shellfish, and beans. Some of those foods are popular – some aren’t, or are just too pricey to add to your regular grocery list, so you can see how it’s hard to get enough of this vitamin from food. Healthy adults can take 90–200 mg of this per day.
