Too Much of a Good Thing

Lots of foods today are fortified.  I can remember when Wonder Bread was sold because it built strong bodies eight ways.

Look at the labels when you purchase your groceries.  Cereals are fortified almost without a second thought.  Vitamin mixtures duplicate the same ingredients.

A couple of weeks ago, a warning came out that we have to be more careful with vitamin supplements.  There is a good chance if you eat a fortified breakfast cereal and also take other vitamins/minerals, you might be getting too much.  Same for your children.

It's definitely a case of too much of a good thing.

What you can do is quickly make a list of the additives in cereal, and then leave room to add additional amounts as you look at the different vitamins/minerals that you take.  Even if prescribed by a doctor, it is a good idea to do an inventory and then go over it with your doctor.

Most of the vitamin bottles tell what percent of each particular ingredient is being provided on a daily basis.  So if it is already more than 100%, you might want to think about adding more. 

My grandson takes gummy multivitamins and then sometimes he also drinks Ensure in the morning, which is another wallop of additives.  Even if he eats honey nut cheerios, he's still getting a lot of vitamins and minerals.  He doesn't eat very well, one of those kids who has an aversion to a lot of foods, and so it seems logical that he would need some help.

For those of you with children, don't hesitate to go over the nutritional needs of your children with the pediatrician and you could also consult with a nutritionist.  There are potential problems with getting too much of a good thing!!  If you go to the web, the story about the warning dealing with too much of a good thing should still be out there.  It will likely go into more detail than the short snippet of a segment I saw on one of the morning shows.

So let's see -- what else?  If you take calcium, you need Vitamin C to properly absorb the calcium.  That same thing might also be true for various prescription drugs.  Read over the materials that come from the doctor detailing the usage and details regarding these medications.

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Today is 9/11.  The beams from the tower fountains were shining over New York last night.  Sometimes I just shudder to think about how awful this day was 13 years ago.  And sometimes I think that it could have been so much worse.  The day before the attack, there were 50,000 people in the towers.  We were watching a special called 9/10 two days ago and it was very moving.  People were just going through the usual motions of their lives and there was no special thought given to Tuesday, September 11th.

One man who would normally have been at work in the towers took off the morning to see his son off to kindergarten.  And there were many stories like that.  There was a beautiful space on one of the floors of the towers devoted to artists.  The ones who were not in their studios that morning remember what it was like to work in the space.  They loved it!!  Some of them used the space to celebrate the views from the towers.  And one of them brought a mattress up to their floor and laid it on a table.  He decided to sleep there that night.  He didn't make it out.

The restaurants at the top of the towers were really something.  The special showed what the elevator lobby area looked like.  The carpet had been specially created to reflect the theme, "Windows on the World," in the North Tower.  The 160 square yards of carpet had been handmade in France to depict the Manhattan skyline at night.  The company chose to make a replica of that carpet a couple of years ago as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the towers.  A brother and sister took their mother to Windows on the World for her birthday the night before 9/11.  The sister worked in the towers.  They found her purse with the bill still inside.

So today we remember what happened, where we were when it happened, and the people with whom we shared that awful morning.  I think I'm going to email them today and just take a moment to remember how all of us happened to be at The University of Akron that day.

Take care, everyone.

Karen