The Whole Food Blog

Finding health food at fitness clubs is almost as impossible as finding health food at sporting events.  Notice all the protein bars and muscle building drinks being sold at health clubs that are made with chemicals, not foods as their primary ingredients.

The human body is not designed to digest isolated chemicals, but rather whole foods that contain proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and fiber.  It’s not easy to find health food products made with whole food ingredients that are processed carefully enough to maintain their natural structure.  Once the nutrients are separated from the whole foods and then cooked at high temperatures, then the natural structure is gone. This means that prepackaged health foods must be processed very carefully at low temperatures before being shipped to health food stores and fitness clubs.

It is easy to understand why nutritional supplements are so popular.  Consumers now realize that much of today’s food supply is grown on depleted soil, processed with chemicals and shipped under industrial storage conditions. Unfortunately, that’s why too many health food consumers have turned to protein health drinks and synthetic supplements. The problem is that an excess of any one substance in a supplement, including vitamins, minerals, or protein, can be potentially as harmful as its deficiency. Many of those power bars at the gym or health food store have way too much protein for most people, and it is isolated protein, which is even harder on the body.

When vitamin dosages are high in a particular supplement, usually they are synthetic. Chemical sources for synthetic vitamin supplements include petrochemicals, coal, tar, sugar, and inorganic materials. Synthetic vitamins, even if they were purchased at a health food store or health club, are received by the body as drugs, and like all drugs, they can potentially disrupt normal metabolic functions, often with devastating side effects.

Eating the chemical isolates that are in all those protein bars, drinks, and vitamin pills at gyms and health food stores can create problems. Too much protein may cause irreversible kidney damage. B Vitamins in excess can cause depletion of other B vitamins, as well as toxic side effects. Too much Vitamin C increases the aging process. Recent studies indicate that ascorbic acid, the most common chemical Vitamin C at the health food store, actually impairs muscle function*.

For more information, see these resources:

*The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
(Vol 87, No 1, Jan 2008)

Are We Destroying Our Health with High Potency Vitamins
By Ori Hofmekler
(Warrior Diet, Posted July 21, 2009)