What Whole Food Really Means

We’ve all heard about the benefits of adding more ‘whole foods’ to our diet, but what exactly does this term mean and why is it so important to our health and wellness? The simple answer is we will achieve greater health by reducing the amount of processed foods we consume. Instead, increase the many foods that were produced just as nature produced them: without stabilizers, preservatives, ripeners, colour enhancers, fats, or unnecessary sugar.

When you’ve spent a lifetime reading labels as closely as I have, you learn that processed foods contain a mind-numbing list of chemicals far removed from anything the human body was designed to digest. It is apparent that whole foods give us the maximum amount of easily-digested nutrients, usually in combinations that aid digestion and absorption of these nutrients. That’s why Nova Scotia Organics makes only organic whole food vitamins and supplements.

Processed foods are often missing many of their original ingredients. Refined carbohydrates such as white rice and white flour are missing both the fibre and many of the nutrients found in the original bran and germ. Crystallized sugars, syrups, and sweet concentrates are missing water and most are missing any nutrients. Even foods that can be considered healthy, such as tofu or fruit and vegetable juices, are missing the original fibre from their original whole food source.

It takes work and planning to eat a perfectly nutritious diet. Modern-day lifestyles don’t always allow you to eat only whole foods with the nutrients needed for optimal health. Many of us struggle to keep our calorie intake in check, and still have a pleasing and nutritious diet. Our solution is carefully selected whole food, organic vitamins and supplements to close the nutrition gap.

Some vitamin and supplement manufacturers have transformed the original botanicals into something called phyto-pharmaceuticals by selecting and then isolating specific active ingredients. These are known in the trade as constituents. They omit the naturally-occurring constituents of the original ingredient. This results in a concentrated, artificially-manipulated extract that bears little resemblance to the original plant material from which it was sourced.

At Nova Scotia Organics we use a production approach called the Whole Herb Method that uses the raw plant exactly as found in nature.. In contrast to many unregulated techniques that isolate a single biochemical constituent, we use the entire herb plant, allowing it to work synergistically to create the positive health effect nature intended.

Just about all of our organic whole food supplements are simply whole herbs and plants dried using a gentle freeze drying process which preserves almost all of the nutritious properties of the original plant. Some formulations also add organic minerals where called for.