If anything was established by the escalating story started in February when the New York attorney general's office cited four major retailers for selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements, it is that a big question mark is now attached to the quality control standards applied to all the estimated 85,000 dietary supplement products available in this country. This is a good thing and way overdue. It reminds us all of the need for making informed choices in supplementing our diet.
But there is an even more important turn this story needs to take to be fully told. At some point, we must dig deeper and look at the way we view vitamins in general and why we rely so heavily on vitamin supplements, the sale of which accounted for an estimated $11.4 billion of business in 2014, according to Advertising Age magazine.
When we think of vitamins, we generally recognize them for what they essentially are – a collection of organic substances found in natural foodstuffs needed for normal metabolism. When we don't get enough of them in our diet, we become susceptible to deficiency diseases and other health hazards. Discovered a mere century ago, vitamins were a breakthrough in nutritional science. They soon became a therapy for the cure and treatment of diseases.
As pointed out by Catherine Price, science writer and author of "Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection," it wasn't long before they spread from the labs to the offices of food marketers, where they took on a life of their own – not as vitamins found in the food we eat but as synthetic additives to processed food.
Most of the vitamins in American diets are acquired in this way – as synthetic additions "fortifying" everything from breakfast cereal to canned products to the milk we drink. It is why most Americans never experience or see the consequences of serious vitamin deficiency. It is also why a growing chorus of experts is saying we should stop wasting money on vitamin and mineral supplements. Unbeknownst to us, the American diet has become dependent on these synthetic additives, most manufactured in China, to keep us safe from the dangers of vitamin deficiencies. Without these additives, much of the food consumed today would be devoid of nutritional value.
For this benefit, we are paying a great cost. The eating habits that fortified, highly-processed foods encourage are having disastrous consequences on our nation's health. More and more, the infusion of these synthetic vitamins is seen as nothing more than a siren song to sell us unhealthful products.
"To be successful in today's market, food manufacturers must create products that can be easily transported over long distances and stored for extended periods," Price notes in a recent opinion piece for The New York Times. "They also need to be sure that their products offer some nutritional value so that customers don't have to go elsewhere to meet their vitamin needs. But the very processing that's necessary to create long shelf lives destroys vitamins, among other important nutrients. It's nearly impossible to create foods that can sit for months in a supermarket that are also naturally vitamin-rich."
Even after more than a century of research, exactly how vitamins work in our bodies is not fully understood. What is known is that natural foods contain additional, potentially protective substances that are lost in processing and not generally replaced. It's easy to view adding back synthetic versions of lost vitamins and discarding the rest as a gesture driven more by marketing than by providing maximized benefits to customers.
Meanwhile, evidence of enhanced benefits of products in their natural form continues to grow. A 2011 study on broccoli found that providing subjects with fresh broccoli florets led them to absorb and metabolize seven times more of the anti-cancer compounds present in both broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables than they did when taking the compounds in capsule form. The researchers hypothesized that this was because whole broccoli contains other compounds that help people's bodies put the anti-cancer chemicals to use, Price notes in her book.
It's always better to eat products as they are found in nature rather than in capsule form. Until we can create enough of a cultural shift to make healthful food readily available and affordable to all, lots of us will be forced to continue to supplement with the best natural products we can find to ensure we are getting all that we need to protect our health. In this pursuit, it's recommended that people focus on specific deficiencies and needs identified by a doctor or specialist rather than on a pill designed to meet multiple needs.
It is estimated that farmers, who once received nearly 50 cents of every food dollar, now get about 17 cents. The rest is taken up by processors, packagers and marketers of over-processed food, which is often labeled as "enriched," "fortified" or "low-fat," a term now synonymous with "lots more sugar." For years, the food industry has conditioned us to believe labeling trumpeting such claims and put us into a mental state of accepting a wide array of proclaimed health benefits as we talk ourselves into eating food that is bad for us. And this is the bigger crime. It's not just a case of some herbal supplement manufacturers and their bogus products.
It is also true that as this new version of the "truth in advertising" struggle moves forward, we shouldn't rely on corporate benevolence or the government in setting things straight or providing the protection we deserve.
When it comes to eating habits and what we choose to put in our bodies, the power to change it for the better, as always, resides with you and me.
Write to Chuck Norris with your questions about health and fitness. Follow Chuck Norris through his official social media sites, on Twitter @chucknorris and Facebook's "Official Chuck Norris Page." He blogs at ChuckNorrisNews.blogspot.com.