Article #8: Factors That Lower Vitamin Needs By T. C. Fry

Healthy people require less of all nutrients because their bodies make more efficient use of them. Not only that, but healthy people eat wholesome foods that furnish more nutrients. Thus, their needs are lower and their supplies are simultaneously higher than that of unhealthy people.

Certain societies of the world, notably some West Indian and Carib tribes of the world, have been thriving on 15 to 20 grams of daily protein intake, far less than is considered necessary. These people live on foods such as cassava, manioc and other starchy roots that contain only .2 to .3 percent protein. Just as they thrive on an "abnormally" low protein intake, they also thrive on a vitamin intake that would quickly result in deficiencies in our stressful and self-poisoned people.

For the reasons that other societies can thrive on diets that would make ours deficient, there are those within our society who so live as to parallel the healthful groups in other lands. Thus, a raw food fruitarian within our society that has a highly efficient body requires but a fraction of the vitamins as his counterpart who eats meats; dairy and poultry products; cooked foods; condiments and seasonings; refined, processed and preserved foods, and who may have one or several drug habits such as tobacco, alcohol, coffee, medications, etc.

The seeming unfairness of this situation is that, though raw food fruitarians eat less than half as much as their perverted cousins, their intake of usable vitamins, minerals and other nutrients are usually much greater though their needs are much lower.

The healthier our lifestyles, the less vitamins we need in the face of greater supply, whereas the less wholesome our lifestyles, the greater our needs in the face of lowered supply and lowered ability to utilize.

Exercise and Vitamin Utilization

Vigorous exercise activity on a regular basis slightly increases our need for vitamins on the one hand but, on the other, so fine-tunes our system that they vastly increase their efficiency in uptake, assimilation and usage. With all other life factors properly observed, including a proper diet of mostly fruits with some vegetables, nuts and seeds, body toxicity is very low. All other needs are correspondingly lower due to the higher efficiency of the organism.

Emotional Poise Necessary to Optimum Vitamin Usage

Being emotionally balanced is normal. Abnormal emotional conditions vitiate and drain our resources and heighten our need for vitamins while at the same time impairing our ability to utilize them. Thus can be seen the enormous benefit of establishing self-mastery and a becalming philosophical outlook.

Raw Foods and Vitamin Usage

A proper diet of mostly ripe raw fruits and some raw vegetables with raw nuts and seeds not only furnishes us with problem-free eating, but it also heightens body efficiency, thus lowering need. On the other hand, the nutrient values obtained from this proper diet are greater by far than conventional diets, even in the face of intake amounting to less than half that of conventional feeders.

Correct Foods and Feeding Practices

Vitamin utilization is more efficient if intake is of those foods to which we are biologically adapted. Our digestive expenditures are lowered and body energy needs are likewise lowered. More nerve and chemical energy are available for the regular pursuits of life. Less sleep is required to restore ''our fund of nerve energy in view of decreased need and increased efficiency of generation when faculties are operating better.

Vitamin intake is greater on a proper diet, while vitamin need decreases on several accounts. The big bonus is increased body efficiency that makes better use of nutrients.