Vitamins and Minerals from Fruit and Vegetables - Are you getting enough?

Are You Getting Enough Vitamins And Minerals From Your Fruit And Vegetables?
by: Christopher Wen

Walking into any of your neighborhood supermarket, you will see rows and rows of fresh, nice and colorful vegetables and fruits for sale. They all look fresh and in healthy bright colors, no holes in vegetables, and you might be saying ''wow look how fresh these vegetables are!'' Happily you bought some of them home, thinking how healthy you can be eating all these vegetables. But do you know these vegetables might not contain as much vitamins and minerals as you thought? In fact, you might still suffer from malnutrition even though you got vegetables and fruits in your diet.

Indeed, current vegetables and fruits you buy may not be as nutritious as it used to be many years back. For economic reasons, farmers have to harvest their crops many times a year on their farm without giving the land resting periods. Over a certain time, the exhausted land lost the minerals required for the growth of the vegetables. Due to over-cultivation on the same piece of land, farmers have no choice but to put barely enough minerals back into the land using lots of chemical fertilizers.

These fertilizers may be able to produce beautiful crops using fertilizers. On the outside your vegetables may look good, but in actual fact it lacks a lot of natural nutrition from the infertile soil. Now we would need to eat eight oranges to get enough Vitamin C for our daily needs. No wonder lots of people have to take vitamin pills to replenish their body with enough nutrition!

So what can we do about it? Perhaps taking vitamin pills is a good and fast way to acquire enough vitamins for our body. But before going on a shopping spree for pills, you need to take note what kind of ingredients are in the pills.

There are hundreds of different kinds of nutrition supplement products out in the market. Most of them contain artificially produced chemicals, which may not be desired by your body. It is shown that synthetic chemicals can have long term health effects on our body. You have been consuming chemical fertilizers from your vegetables, so you definitely not want to take in more chemicals into your body.

Hence, when you go for your bottle of vitamin C, remember to choose those that are made from natural ingredients, free from artificial preservatives and additives.

A better option is to go for organic fruits and vegetables. Organic farmers care for the environment without relying on chemical fertilizers, artificial pesticides, herbicides, or growth hormones. Rather than using pesticides, farmers prevent pests by planting a diverse range of crops together to ward off pests. Farmers also use a rotation system on the land in order to give the land sufficient rest to replenish the nutrients in the soil.

This results in crops that are high in vitamins, minerals and antioxide. By eating chemical-free food, we stop adding more toxins to our body and this will maximize body immune. In the long run, our body becomes healthier by eating organic vegetables, enabling us to reduce the chances of getting illness such as cancer and heart diseases.

Organic vegetables not only make us healthier, it is also great for our taste buds. Organic vegetables are tastier and sweeter. Your dishes taste great even without adding a lot of flavorings in your cooking. Organic vegetables are also crunchier, and they remain their freshness longer than non-organic vegetables. You can even keep your organic carrots for 3 weeks, instead of 3 days for your usual carrots.

Be it taking vitamin pills or eating organic food, we should be aware of what we eat and how we can get the maximum benefits out of what we eat. Choose wisely, eat wisely, and you are on your way to a healthier you.

About The Author

Christopher Wen is the webmaster for greenHealth information site where he provides articles, news, and remedies to current health issues we faced in our everyday life. Check out his blog at http://greenhealthinformation.com.