“Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.” – Thomas H. Huxley

These are over-the-counter (OTC) substances you can take to “supplement” your diet. This doesn’t mean you take a handful of vitamins and live on Hostess Cupcakes and Devil Dogs. If you’re eating habits are deficient in one vitamin or another, this is a way to ensure that you are getting enough into your system. It is an insurance policy in case you aren’t as well rounded an eater as you ought to be.

Taken incorrectly, or in dangerously high doses, vitamins can be detrimental to your health. Linus Pauling took mega doses of Vitamin C and lived to be 93. His opponents to this theory of the importance and benefits of high dosages of Vitamin C often lived to 60. However, there is no need to go to extremes. Use common sense.

I prefer to take a vitamin that has lots of good herbal ingredients, vitamins and minerals, no binders and fillers. I take one in the morning and one later. This way my body can dispose of the rest I don’t need, and pick up another dose 12 hours later when my levels may have changed. I’m not taking two or three at once, dumping excessively high doses into my body. Instead I’m trying to maintain my levels of vitamins within my body.

If you have difficulty swallowing pills you have a few options. Look for small pills and not the horse-sized ones. Try taking the pills with a swig of a thick liquid like a shake or yogurt. Some stores have vitamins in a liquid format so you can add them to cereal, coffee or soup.

Some vitamins have minerals that help in their absorption and make them more effective. Vitamin E and Selenium or Calcium and Magnesium are examples of this union. Let’s look at some vitamins and see why they are good for us and where to get them naturally from foods.

Kids also can benefit from taking vitamins and minerals unless your kids munch on raw broccoli and walnuts. Choose wisely because companies sneak lots of sugar and fillers in there and kids don’t need that either.

But first I want to briefly discuss another supplement that has been out there for years and has been helpful in treating arthritis. You may have heard of shark cartilage and that supposedly sharks don’t get cancer. So people thought it would be great to kill sharks for their cartilage. Plants don’t get cancer either.

Perhaps sharks don’t get cancer because they don’t consume steroid filled meats, soda, bioengineered sugars and preservatives. Maybe we should change our diet first instead of looking for a magic bullet.

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