So what is a healthy diet?  Science shows that it's a varied diet of relatively unrefined foods, with many fruits, veggies, brown rice and whole grains --precisely the foods that are getting scarce in many Western diets.

    When processing whole foods, like when making regular noodles or flour, we often lose over 75% of the minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and fiber ... while omega-3 oil (part of what used to be called vitamin F) is turned into a toxic trans fat by hydrogenation.  Those lost nutrients now turn up as the underlying causes of the common slow-building diseases (none of which you want).

    You feel fine and never needed a supplement so why add a multi-vitamin pill to your diet?  Valid question.  Well, there's no longer any doubt that today's foods low in those "minor" nutrients first cause and then promote initially hidden illness, like heart disease and cancer and Alzheimer's and arthritis.  This explains why these are the slow-building diseases drugs have not been able to effectively prevent.

While research is ongoing and not every nutrient is good for everyone, this site is one evaluation of the evidence to date -- with a nutritional bias but without vested or financial interest.

We have known for decades that almost no one has optimum levels of many key nutrients, and a multivitamin + mineral supplement fills this need.  In addition, a well chosen multi will lower the blood-toxin homocysteine (linked to all 4 diseases in the paragraph above) in everyone.  Multis are extremely safe with 180 high-dose no iron capsules not even needing a child-proof cap.  On the other hand the evidence for their benefits is massive and this for say 9 to 17¢ US per day.

    Even in health, there's excellent science for taking such multi, plus foods and supplements so that your total daily intake reaches about 1 gram of vitamin C, 1.5 g calcium, 3/4 g magnesium, 200-400 IU vitamin E and 200 mcg selenium.

Eating less solid (saturated) fat and cholesterol while increasing (liquid) polyunsaturates has no proven effect on illness and death*.  This is the conclusion of a recent analysis of 27 studies (on high-risk people) in the British Medical Journal*.  The only sure benefits of fat changes are with omega-3 oils.  The other oils, the polyunsaturates without omega-3, can in fact be harmful (corn, sunflower, safflower and cottonseed) while any oil when partially hydrogenated (hardened) is plainly dangerous: shortening, crackers, donuts, "vegetable" deep-fry oil and 9 out of 10 margarines.  Consider some vital-for-the-heart omega-3, that is about 1 teaspoon flax/lin or fish oil (40 Calories) or 2 tablespoons canola (250 Cal.).  Lesser sources are unhydrogenated soy, wheatgerm, flaxseed, walnut, green leaf veggies and of course fatty fish --and not much else.

   Take care of these simple basics and according to some calculations, you'll prevent or postpone nearly 80% of heart and other serious diseases!  And for example, what could be easier than an oil change to canola, flax (or soy), away from corn or sunflower, and swallowing a few supplements during the end of your largest meal.

Apart from nutrient losses, very finely ground flour and cereals or over-cooked noodles and potatoes (low-fiber / rapidly absorbed carbs) stress the body's insulin system.  This long-term attack causes insulin resistance, over-weight and adult diabetes.  Resulting high insulin with high blood sugar is a parallel path for choking blood circulation and promoting (heart) disease.

There are nutritional links to almost all diseases.  This site explores some of these links, mainly in heart disease.  For example, few scientists doubt that omega-3 oils, nature's anti inflammatory (aspirin / Celebrex), more than double your chances of surviving a heart attack.  Such anti inflammation effects may also help arthritis, asthma and bowel diseases.  If you have such condition, consider if it could be linked to avoiding fatty fish or other omega-3 oils.  This site will help you think along those lines...