Supplements?

Last night I was speaking with a group of amazing mom's and they asked me to do a blog on the supplement piece of my talk from last night so I am going to do so. I do believe that we do need supplements due to the modern day farming practices and our environment which makes it nearly impossible to get all the nutrients we need out of food exclusively! I do believe that you can OVER due supplements as well. As always you just want to keep balanced!

A few things that I look at when picking out supplements is that they are from quality sources and that they are whole foods. Our family has a daily regiment of supplements that we take. Everyone takes EFA (essential fatty acids)- fish oils, a multivitamin, vitamin d3, and calcium. I have found that fish oils, multis, and it d3 have been pretty easy to find, but I have struggled finding a good quality calcium supplement that is kid friendly and free from artificial sweeteners. I will share with you what we do as a family and then you can consult with a natural practitioner as to what would be the best fit for the nutritional needs for your family. (For contact information for some awesome, qualified, and amazing practitioners go to www.kingdomkidsnutrition under the resources tabs for docs in MN we have worked with).

My favorite multi vitamin that my kids take is the Innate Children's Multi Vitamin, they are whole foods, very tiny, easy to swallow, and they only need to take 1 a day.

As for fish oil I am very particular, quality is everything!  My favorite chewable it Nordic Naturals- DHA for Kids or also called DHA Jr.. They are very small and taste like strawberry. All my kids have loved them! I also use a specialized fish oil for some of my kids that struggle with attention issues, that one is by Natures Way and is called EFA Blend- Eye Brain Formula. *NOTE with fish oils make sure to pay a little bit more for quality as bad fish oil is very toxic and will do more harm than good. Invest in quality like Nordic Natural (one of the best rated)- Natures Way is good, as is Metagenics, it is well worth it. I am sure there are more good ones out there, these are just the ones I have experience with. Make sure to do your research on this one and don't buy a cheap over the counter variety.

Calcium as I said has been a bugger, for chewable. I currently did find the Parade calcium that is sweetened with xylitol vs. artificial sweeteners. However, it does have traces of milk in it and the traces turned out to be a bit too much for us to handle. For the short time we took it, my kids loved the taste! Now we just use a powder, more of a crystal type calcium that I just put in smoothies now by Nutritional Dynamics.

The vitamin d3 we take is in dropper form. Each one of my kids takes a different amount based on their individual needs (established by our practitioner). I just put the drop or drops into a small amount of water, organic apple juice, or smoothie and down the hatch it goes.

So, each day this is what I do to ensure that my kids get their nutrition needs met as well as keep their immune systems strong and healthy. I also tend to make a smoothies most mornings for them, in which I put in a scoop of vitamin c (buffered form from Thorne Labs) powder,  just for good measure!

Tomorrow I will be blogging on MY MEDICINE CABINET!  I will discuss natural things I use to keep our immune systems strong as well as treat many of those icky symptoms if they try to invade!