Reason Number One: Your body is not receiving and absorbing the essential micronutrients, (or vitamins and minerals) that it needs to run the thousands of essential metabolic functions it must perform daily to maintain basic health. This is due to a variety of farming and food processing factors that are literally stripping our modern food supply of most of its essential vitamins and minerals. For example, according to the USDA, an apple today contains 96% less iron, 48% less calcium, and 82% less magnesium that an apple 80 years ago, and the statistics are equally shocking for modern meats and vegetables.(1)
Reason Number Two: Your body is constantly being bombarded with more micronutrient depleting factors than it has ever had to deal with in human history. Did you know that stress alone depletes all of the following micronutrients: A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, choline, C, D, E, calcium, chromium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, potassium, selenium, zinc, omega-3, and carnitine? Then you have to take into account the over-consumption of micronutrient depletors such as sugar, alcohol, processed foods, wheat, soy and medications. Finally, exercise, pollution, and environmental toxins reduce your level of micronutrients leaving you in a state of serious micronutrient deficiency.
Unfortunately, in our modern world we can’t just eat a well-balanced diet and get all the nutrition we need. First, our modern foods are no longer supplying us with the amount of vitamins and minerals that they did for our ancient ancestors or even our grandparents. And second, our modern lifestyles are demanding more of these scarce, yet essential micronutrients than ever before.
Did you know that according to the USDA, more than 92% of Americans are deficient in the essential micronutrients needed to maintain basic health.(13) Shockingly, this affects nearly twice as many people as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes combined! This makes micronutrient deficiency the most widespread and dangerous health condition of the 21st century. The most widespread, because it effects nearly all of us, and the most dangerous, because modern medical science now knows that when you become deficient in your essential micronutrients you open the door to nearly all of the health conditions and lifestyle diseases currently affecting billions of people worldwide.