Dosage

There was some healthy instructions given in a book that I did not read about the correct way to eat; it was simplicity itself: Eat food, mostly plants.  

It seems that every once in awhile, someone comes out and states that some food is better for people and that it holds the cure to whatever ails you.  Here is my advice: ignore them.  Eat everything in moderation, eat it as food and not as supplements.  Eat.  

People hear that one food is filled with antioxidants and they load up on it.  People hear that probiotics are good for you and they load up on it.  People hear that water is good for you and they drink liters of it everyday.  People hear that blueberries have micronutrients and they start eating blueberries by the pound.  People hear that bacon is bad for you and they pause and continue to eat bacon—which is the correct thing to do.

Anything that you eat should only be consumed in natural ways and in moderation, because everything is toxic if too little or too much is consumed and the best way to stop consuming too much is to eat it in food and to eat only when your body tells you to.  Drink water when you are thirsty.

Why?  Because dose matters.  Antioxidants are good for you, but too much will hamper your immune system, because your immune system runs using oxidants.  Water is important to allow chemical relations to occur in your body, but too much water will kill you, because the chemical reactions will stop.  Micronutrients are called micronutrients because you don't need much of them to survive and if you take too much of them you will die.  They are poisonous in too high a dose, but they are also necessary for you to live too.  

Fluoride for example, just a little bit delivered in your water will keep your teeth strong and healthy but too much will weaken your bones.  People say that you don't need Fluoride in your diet and that it is a toxin, but if what people don't know, because it does not happen anymore (because of fluoride in our diet) that people used to die from complications due to tooth decay, not to mention not having teeth.  There is iodine added to salt in many countries.  This iodine is an important health measure to prevent health problems like developmental problems and thyroid issues, but too much will cause other issues.

People use supplements to give themselves micronutrients and macronutrients, but this can sometimes result in an overdose of these nutrients—the devil is in the dose.  Additional problems with the supplement industry is that it is mostly unregulated and the companies will add other drugs together to create a pill.  Some of these drugs are added to give the impression that there is something working in the pill.  It might be as benign as a huge dose of caffeine, but it could be something else that makes your heart beat faster.  The added drug is not on the packaging, because the industry is unregulated.  It might contain only natural ingredients, but don't let that fool you because copper is completely natural, but too much will kill you and many drugs have natural sources and because they are not listed as ingredients, they may interfere with other drugs that you are taking.

You don't need much to keep yourself healthy, so just eat it in your food.  If you eat a variety of foods you will be getting all the nutrients that you need to live well without overdosing on others.