CONCLUSION

The regular and adequate drinking of pure water is not only an ex­tremely important factor in maintaining good health, it is also one of the easiest factors to incorporate into your lifestyle. Many toxins are difficult and expensive to avoid. Don't pass up the opportunity to eliminate one significant source of toxicity that can be completely and easily avoided without major sacrifice. Drink lots of pure water, and you not only avoid a major source of potential toxicity, you pro­mote good health and the elimination of other toxins.

 

124 Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health

When you add to this initial depletion the depletions that occur in modern food processing, the nutritional value of many of our food staples plummets even further. Canning, freezing, and other methods of storage take a substantial toll on nutrient content. More­over, nutrients are sometimes removed deliberately. Most grains have had the nutrients stripped out to make refined flours into com­mercially acceptable breads and cereals. The nutrients are then later sold separately as foods such as wheat germ or utilized as supple­ments in themselves. When a label says that a food is "enriched," BEWARE. This enrichment is analogous to getting robbed of $100 and being given back $10 by a sympathetic robber. When you re­ceive the $10, you have not been "enriched"; you have only been a bit less massively depleted. Also, as we shall see, the chemical forms of the nutrients that are put back into these depleted foods are often not even beneficial; in fact, they can actually be toxic.

The unfortunate bottom line is that in today's world it is almost impossible to have a diet that will meet all of your nutritional needs. However, recognizing this issue overcomes only the first hurdle in reaching optimal nutrition. Supplements are literally assaulting us daily with ever-rosier promises of how you can get everything that you need. How can you tell which claims are true and what supple­ments are really best? This chapter will be directed at helping you make this evaluation intelligently, and, hopefully, it will further assist you in your quest for the best of health through optimal nutrition.