How to Choose a Daily Supplement for Kids and Adults

Key Principles for Optimal Health for Kids (and Adults)

1. Give a body what it recognizes. Organic food is just food. The body understands that and it responds beautifully to it. The bonus here is that it means that any food—in its high-quality, organic form—can be part of a nutrition plan for optimal health. Want something red? Nature gives us apples, beets, cherry tomatoes, red meat—there are lots of options, so you can choose. Want something smooth? Nature offers avocado, creamy cheeses, natto, and beans we can puree into a small dip. The body recognizes, anticipates and desires different textures, colors and tastes. And nature delivers.
2. Avoid anything the body won’t completely recognize. Somehow ingredient panels became marketing space, and crafty names guided us into thinking what we were eating was just food or, in some instances, even better than just food (e.g., vitamin water). The truth is that nature doesn’t need a marketing campaign or creative names for its pieces and parts. Nature provides foods of varying sweetness, so why do we need artificial sweeteners or chemical hybrids? Nature provides some fats that are hard at room temperature and some that are liquid, so why do we need to eat chemically made ones that are liquid outside of the body but act as a solid inside? And why add vitamins to water when water is meant to hydrate us? Optimal hydration has more to do with minerals (electrolytes) than vitamins anyway.
3. Be a qualitarian. A growing body is like the frame of a house: when we build, we want to use the highest-quality ingredients for the strongest foundation possible. This way, as the elements challenge the foundation over the years, it doesn’t mean nothing will break—accidents and natural disasters do occur (broken bones, disease, and so on)—but with a strong foundation the house (or body) is better able to overcome them. Teach your kids, and yourself, to make the highest-quality choices. “Always eat your veggies” may require modification to “Eat your organic veggies most of the time—avoid the GMO legumes (including soy); and eat these foods in their whole-food form versus isolating the protein from the highly desirable fiber, omega fatty acids, and carbohydrates.”
4. Define “supplementation”; don’t be defined by it. By definition, a supplement is supplemental to (a healthy) diet.