Replacing what's lost in our children's diets......

By Stacey Gillespie

As a nation, an alarming number of children today are obese. These kids are consuming more than enough calories, and yet 17 percent of children and adolescents don’t receive the recommended intake of vitamins A and C. Other common deficiencies include vitamins D and E, B-complex vitamins, and several essential minerals for healthy growth and development, including calcium, magnesium, zinc and chromium. Our children are malnourished.

Kids & Nutrition

Proper nutrition during childhood and adolescence is crucial. Malnutrition is linked to a variety of conditions, including attention deficit disorder (ADD), poor immune function, mood imbalances, and fatigue. Obesity opens the door to a host of additional health issues, including childhood diabetes, diminished liver function and poor digestive health.

Children aged 5 to 13 should be consuming 3 to 5 cups of fruits and veggies every day, depending on age and activity level. A recent survey of fruit and vegetable consumption finds that the majority of American kids only consume half of the suggested number of servings per day—and half of what is consumed is from fruit juice. Add the fact that every day, one out of every three children and adolescents will eat fast food for a meal, and it’s no wonder that obesity and malnutrition are on the rise

Real Food

It’s apparent that children need to consume more fresh fruits and vegetables to receive the nourishment they need to build a strong foundation for health. It’s time to go back to basics and start a real food revolution. Let’s put back what’s been lost in our children’s diets, starting with whole foods. MegaFood recognizes the value of nourishing our children with whole foods, and Kids One Daily is the first and only 100 percent whole food multivitamin for children ages 5 and older. Each tablet provides 24 essential nutrients and immune-boosting antioxidants from fresh whole foods. This means that children are receiving more than just isolated vitamins and minerals—they’re also getting a multitude of phytonutrients to nourish the body as nature intended. Made without any sweeteners, preservatives, colors, flavors, or dyes, Kids One Daily is tested free of pesticides and herbicides and also the common allergens gluten, dairy and soy.

Kids One Daily helps to encourage healthy growth and development and overall wellness. It also promotes healthy habits for life by providing the nourishment our kids need most from the very basics of good health—fresh, whole foods.

One of the more common questions I get asked by our customers is why we have our whole food supplements in the form of tablets rather than as capsules or a liquid.

I always found the first question interesting since we would never ask at the grocery store if we could get broccoli or carrots delivered in a capsule.  Encapsulation is a particular process which puts a much greater barrier between the consumer and the contents of the capsule than the thin coating which is used for our tablets.  In fact the vegetable cellulose which is used to coat MegaFood supplements is only a ¼ of the thickness of a capsule.  This means that the body will break down and penetrate to the contents of the tablet much faster than it would a capsule.

MegaFood owns and uses custom low-heat tablet making machines which give us the ability to gently compact the whole food and botanical ingredients together, without damaging the foods in any way.  This process yields a concentrated dose of nutrients. Because of the compaction, each tablet delivers a higher concentration of whole food than would actually fit into a capsule – this means that the customer can take a smaller number of tablets while receiving more concentrated nutritional benefits.  Since many of you do not enjoy swallowing too many tablets or capsules this is a big plus.

When I get asked about liquid vitamins I notice that there is usually a general underlying assumption that liquid gets into the system more rapidly than solids and is therefore preferable in some way.  A couple of things spring to mind when I hear this; the first being the idea that if something is being absorbed quickly then it must be better for you.  Consider this, if you drink liquid rat poison it will get into your system pretty quickly – and it won’t do you much good!  I’m not suggesting that liquid vitamins are like rat poison, just pointing to the error of reasoning.  The second thought that immediately pops up is the idea that if liquid food was preferable to solid food then trees would probably produce soup and vegetable juice would spring like fountains from the earth.  But if we look at food as it presents itself in nature it most often takes the form of a solid.

The body is programmed to digest and assimilate nutrients from solid food using metabolic processes and pathways that have evolved over millions of generations.  The beauty of the whole food supplement in tablet form is that it most closely resembles that which nature delivers to us.  This allows the digestive system to do what it does best – catalyze the break down of the foods using its natural digestive enzymes, so that it can assimilate all of the beneficial nutrients and micro nutrients that the food has to offer.