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Comment by alisonkisk | Hacker News Reader

Why pour it in your diet when you can put it in a pill to eat directly along with 30 other vitamins?

Diet is quite more complicated that just taking a multivitamin, unfortunately. Some nutrients compete for absorption (Zn and Ca, for example) and shouldn’t be taken together. There’s also debate about the need for phytonutrients that also come along with plants. The data is mixed enough that the US Preventative Services Task Force isn’t yet willing to endorse supplements as a means of reducing cardiovascular or cancer risk.

My personal opinion is that the human body may be too complex to say we fully understand a seemingly straightforward solution like just taking a multivitamin. We evolved over an awfully long time before industrialized agriculture and supplements. I’m not trying to demonize them because they have solved the number 1 concern humans had for the last 10,000 years of not getting enough calories, but I think it’s wise to temper the hubris of thinking we understand the human body well enough to expect a simple fix from a pill.

For all of the things we know are present in food and necessary for nutrition, I suspect there are still a lot we don't know of.

Biodynamic farmed food seems like the best bet if you have access to it. At least you're avoiding the worst of the mega-farming shortcuts.

Vitamin absorption via pills doesn't seem to work very well.

This. It's actually very hard to get enough Mg from pills. Your body needs a lot.

Then the issue is to remember to take the pill. Much easier to forget than to forget to eat.

Also, can be hard to reach out to everyone and let them know that they need these pills. Many might not know what "magnesium" is?

It's simpler to add iodine to salt -- and maybe magnesium to the soil

Another issue is that the effect of a nutrient can sometimes differ based on what it is consumed alongside. Pills are not necessarily as effective as supplemented food.

Because anybody with sense prefers eating food to popping pills.

This is an instance of the orthogonality thesis, by the way. Your assertion is that "increased ability to think" should cause "increased desire to eat Traditional Food (tm)", which is no more true than the assertion "increased ability to think causes increased desire to consume Renaissance art". Desires are, by and large, orthogonal to the generalised ability to achieve desires (the ability which you label "sense"). Some desires are not orthogonal - the desire to survive and be healthy, for example, which is instrumental in achieving many other desires - but to argue your assertion on those grounds, you must prove that Traditional Food is sufficiently dramatically better for achieving some instrumental goal.

Come on, this is a bit too aggressive of a statement. On the other hand, there is some anecdotal evidence that nutrients in pills are not absorbed by our gut as well as more "naturally" delivered nutrients.

I wouldnt say anecdotal nutrient bioavailavilty is quite well-known and studied.

"Why do we need to drink water anyway? Why can't we all get our fluids from an IV?"

Why stop there? If you are getting fluids via IV, may as well add in nutrients.

I'm down. Add a glucostat for optimal blood sugar level too. Just get a waterproof Ergodox, wrap around 8k monitor, and a sensory dep tank (with optional high-tech minimal techno piped in).

I call it The Precog. It'll be a hit in SV.

This sounds grand, but I Googled, and couldn't find a provider/source, where do you buy?

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