How to Easily Get 1000% More Vitamins In Your Diet… Without a Multivitamin
The Surprising (And Life Changing) Super Vitamin Hiding In Your Pantry
There is one food that is quite possibly the most sinful of sinful foods, except for sugar. It’s one of America and Europe’s favorite staple foods, one of the most popular additions to every meal, and often found in every single household, sometimes at every meal.
I also classify this food as the most deadly food that we consume on a daily basis.
Here’s what it is: Refined flours.
By refined flours, I mean white bread, white flour, white pasta, and even white rice.
“What? My morning white bread is bad for me?!”
“Bad” isn’t the proper word. Here’s the thing. When food is harvested, it’s processed to make it more edible by humans. White flour, white sugar and white rice have all been processed an extra step.
The reason why they are processed an extra step isn’t important, but here’s what it does: It strips the grains (or rice) of their bran and fiber – the two parts of the plant that have the most vitamins and nutrients.
Check it out:
The bran has most of the vitamins, most of the fiber, and most of the iron in the plant. And when the plant is processed (like it is in white bread and white rice), you lose that.
But there’s something else terrifying going on here.
Check out the nutrient comparison of refined flour vs white flour:
Fiber – 1/5th the amount in refined (white) flour.
Vitamin B2 – 1/6th the amount in refined (white) flour.
Vitamin E – 5%! That’s 1/25th the amount.
In fact, if we look at all of the critical nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are present in white flour after it has been refined, it’s sometimes 5% of what you’d get if you ate the “whole” component (e.g. whole wheat/brown rice).
Not only does refined flour have a fraction of the nutrients that normal flour has (look at the chart – often 5-30% of the nutrients and vitamins), it actually is higher in overall calories.
***
In one study, scientists wanted to compare health and weight changes in two groups of people already following a caloric restricted diet: those eating whole grains and those eating refined grains.
The subjects were monitored over 12 weeks as they ate a calorie restricted diet, and here were the results:
- The refined group had their bodyweight decrease by 1.3 pounds up to 10 pounds.
- The whole grains group had their bodyweight decrease by about 1 pound up to 15 pounds
- But the whole grains group lost an entire percentage of body fat extra
- Cholesterol levels also went up 5% in the refined grains group… but not in the whole grains group
So not only are refined grains lacking in many nutrients, there are “hidden horrors” behind consuming them.
Check out this other study comparing white and brown rice. One studied evaluated over 200,000 people to determine what relationship might exist between white rice / brown rice consumption on type 2 diabetes risk.
After the researchers had adjusted for many factors, they concluded that “white rice was associated with a higher risk of diabetes.”
In contrast, a high brown rice intake was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Furthermore, the researchers concluded, “We estimated that replacing 1/3 serving a day intake of white rice with the same amount of brown rice was associated with a 16% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas the same replacement with whole grains as a group was associated with a 36% lower diabetes risk.”
Moral of the story? Whole foods get the gold. Brown rice & whole wheat > white rice & refined white wheat.
The Surprising Differences
Check out the nutrition facts on brown rice:
And now check out white rice:
Notice anything funny?
The calorie are the same. The amount of carbs are the same.
But I’m seeing 30% and higher on average of nutrients and vitamins in the brown rice.
The white rice has “0%” for half of the nutrients, and then less than 5% for every single number.
The truth is that replacing anything “white” with something “brown” will 5x, 10x, or 100x the amount of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals you are getting in your diet.
Those are the facts !
Sayonara, Multi-Vitamins!
So incase you were still wondering… yes, you should take your white bread, and throw it into the ocean.
People often tell us to go buy a multivitamin, especially if we’re low on energy and feel like death first thing in the morning… but those people neglect to tell us something OBVIOUS: “real food” is incredibly high in vitamins and minerals. You need to focus on the origin of the problem, rather than the symptoms.
And when you eat frankenfood… or white rice and white bread… you’re potentially getting 1/10th or 1/30th of the vitamins and minerals you need to lose weight, have tons of energy, sleep great, and actually function in life.
Having said that, including a multivitamin is a smart idea for most of us that don’t eat perfect diets (or varied diets).
That’s all for now!
– Alex
Other images: freedigitalphotos.net
As usually, your article is well-written, informative, and has a nice amount of research to back it up. I’ve learnt more from your blog than in years of trying to read health magazines or watch health-related TV shows.
I’ve tried eating less white “stuff” and I’m now consuming mostly rye bread and I rarely have rice. I’m not a fan of pasta so that makes thing easier for me, I guess. Sugar on the other hand… Well, that’s a different story. Still working on this one.
Thanks Lina 🙂
Haha sugar is a tough one, for sure! And thank you for the kind words.
– Alex