In an ideal world, we would get all the vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants we need from a healthy diet of whole foods alone; unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way. It's easy to feel overwhelmed with the food-prep process, making sure you get every vitamin and the right amount of every vitamin in every meal. Fortunately, that's what vitamins and supplements are for!
Vitamins and supplements can help fill the gaps in your otherwise healthy diet to make sure you're getting all the nutrients you need to live the long, full, happy life that God intended. But it's important to use vitamins and supplements in the most beneficial ways possible, which means knowing which vitamins to take with certain foods as well as which foods to avoid mixing certain vitamins with.
In general, taking vitamins with food helps your body better absorb the vitamins' nutrients. It also helps prevent nausea and upset stomach, since people with sensitive stomachs can experience bloating and diarrhea when they take specific vitamins on an empty stomach. Additionally, taking vitamins with food can increase the amount of stomach acid present for digestion, and these acids help break down the vitamins so that they're easier for your body to use.
Here are some specific guidelines as you navigate the dos and don'ts of vitamin and food combinations.
Some of the most popular vitamins that people buy supplements for are vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin A regulates the growth and division of your cells and helps your body produce white blood cells when you need to fight sickness or infection. Getting your daily dose of vitamin A can protect your eyes from night blindness and age-related decline. Vitamin D, nicknamed the "sunshine" vitamin, is necessary for strengthening your bones. In fact, its main job is to promote calcium absorption, making it necessary for bone growth and bone remodeling. Vitamin E is a nutrient important for sight and reproduction, but it also maintains the health of your blood, brain, and skin. Vitamin K is most commonly used to treat blood clotting problems or to reverse blood-thinning effects from different medications. However, Vitamin K2 is used along with Vitamin D3 to insure calcium is absorbed by the bone and kept out of the blood stream and soft tissues. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are all fat-soluble, which means the body absorbs these vitamins better when they're taken with healthy fats like avocado or nuts. Vitamin D and foods rich in calcium work together to make each other more effective, so this is a good vitamin to pair with good calcium sources like leafy greens and nuts and seeds, especially sesame seeds.
Another popular supplement is the zinc supplement. Your body uses zinc to heal wounds, support the function of your immune system, develop your reproductive system, develop your sense of taste and smell, produce and store insulin, help your thyroid and metabolism work properly, and make proteins and DNA. Additionally, zinc has been used to treat the common cold, diarrhea, and age-related macular degeneration. Zinc should be taken with food but should not be taken with dairy products because dairy can actually limit zinc's absorption into your body.
Vitamin B helps prevent infections and helps support or promote cell health, the growth of red blood cells, energy levels, good eyesight, healthy brain function, good digestion, healthy appetite, proper nerve function, hormones and cholesterol production, cardiovascular health, and muscle tone. If you take vitamin B complex with food, make sure you take it with either breakfast or lunch since taking Vitamin B later in the day or at night can interfere with your sleeping habits.
Calcium supplements are rarely needed but for those with a specific need, it may help protect your bones from osteoporosis and your joints from arthritis. Additionally, they can eliminate pain due to bone spurs and relieve your muscle pain that's caused by fibromyalgia. We have found that EZorb Calcium is one of the most water-soluble, absorbable forms of calcium available, for those that need a boost. Take your calcium supplements with food, but make sure to avoid taking them with caffeinated coffee, soda, and foods that are high in salt. These foods can interfere with your body's ability to absorb calcium's nutrients.
Magnesium, the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body, balances the actions of calcium. Calcium helps contract muscles while magnesium helps relax them. Calcium assists in nerve firing while magnesium helps end the nerve signal. Calcium encourages blood clot formation while magnesium prevents platelet aggregation. Magnesium is the anti-stress, relaxation mineral. It is good for body systems that are too tight, cramp easily, and need to relax. Magnesium supplements are infamous for causing diarrhea when taken on an empty stomach, so please remember to take your magnesium with food. Amino acid or organic acid chelates of magnesium are much better absorbed than magnesium oxide. Magnesium glycinate, magnesium malate, magnesium citrate, magnesium succinate, magnesium threonate, magnesium taurinate are examples of these forms. Magnesium chloride, as a major part of Hallelujah Diet Trace Mineral Drops, is also very well absorbed and seems to help the immune system overcome infections.
Probiotic dietary supplements can improve your digestion as well as your immune system, helping you feel as good as possible each and every day. An estimated 80% of our immune system resides in our gut, and our probiotic population, or lack of it, plays a major role in how well it functions. To make sure you're getting the most help from your probiotic supplement, be sure to take it with food. When your stomach is empty, its pH balance is low, making it acidic and too harsh for bacterial survival. Eating when you take your probiotics helps the bacteria survive so that they can do their job.
Iodine plays a key role in thyroid health. As a treatment, iodine helps with goiters--enlargements of the thyroid gland--and high thyroid levels as in thyroid storm. Additionally, iodine can provide some protection against thyroid damage caused by radiation exposure. Nascent iodine is the better absorbed from of iodine and is best taken on an empty stomach in a little distilled or RO water.
Fish oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which provide many health benefits such as protection from a variety of diseases. Fish oil also has strong anti-inflammatory effects and can help reduce symptoms of inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Some people have a hard time tolerating fish oil supplements at first, but the side effects can be prevented by taking fish oil on a full stomach and choosing a fish oil that is well processed and does not have an aftertaste. You should also take these supplements with food because the fat from your meal will stimulate the pancreatic lipase enzymes, which help break down the omega-3 fatty acids so that they can be absorbed more effectively.
No matter which vitamins or supplements you need, the Hallelujah Diet can provide them for you. Let us help you "get back to the Garden" and be the healthiest version of you that you can be!
