Supplements: A 'Short Term Solution'

Interviewer: Can you talk about supplementation at all? Is that something that you subscribe to and something you believe in?

Paul Nison: I think if we can't, or if we're not able to boost, everything is possible. But if we're not able to get some nutrients, taking whole foods in a supplement form to get them would be perfectly okay and very wise to do. I look at supplements as a short term solution to a long term problem. We need to find out why we're not getting the nutrients. Is our body just not assimilating them? Are they not in the food we're eating? Are we not picking good enough variety of food? We need to do something about that. But in that process while we're waiting, taking supplements can help keep us from a deficiency or something like that. Synthetic supplements, I'm not a big fan of. But even in that case if somebody has an extreme deficiency and they're not able to find out why they're not getting these things, even that can help somebody. But I think overall, whole foods in supplement form would be ideal. I'm also a fan of probiotic supplements. I think people's intestinal flora are just not in a good balance today. For many people, digestive enzymes would help as well. So I think food needs to be the main place where we're getting our nutrients from, but supplements definitely have a good role to play if you use them the right way.

Interviewer: Something interesting I think you said earlier, that dehydrated food, you stopped doing that? Is that right?

Paul Nison: I do it much more limited now than I ever did. I used to do it a lot more. Two of the major things about the cooked food is number one, you're losing the enzymes. And the other thing is you're dehydrating your food. When you eat dehydrated food it's like swallowing a dry sponge. It's going to come our way. Well where is that water coming from? From your body. Well, you want to make sure you're eating foods that are hydrated very well. So that's why juicing your fruits and vegetables are going to do much better on your body than dried fruits and vegetables. So I definitely want to be careful with the amount of liquid that's not in the food. And also you want to drink liquid, not with your meal, but between your meals to stay hydrated.

Interviewer: What about fermented foods? What are the benefits in those and what do you think?

Paul Nison: Well there are different types of fermented foods. And in traditional fermented foods, they have a good amount of probiotics and are very healthy. Kim chi and sauerkraut and things like this I would recommend. If you're making them yourself or getting them from a place you know who made them. But if you're getting them from the local supermarket they're probably not good. Then there are other fermented foods. Alcohol is fermented. Fruit that's over ripe is fermented and turns to alcohol. Those fermented foods I don't advocate. There are some fermented drinks on the market right now I'm not going to advocate. But I definitely would advocate kim chi and sauerkraut, wonderful and fermented vegetables and so on.

Interviewer: Paul, if someone wants more information about, you know, a raw food diet or other similar things where can they go?

Paul Nison: My main website is www.healthwatchman.com, and on healthwatchman.com you can go to either my raw food nutrition site or you can go to my bible site, which teaches about health in the scriptures. You can get all of that from healthwatchman.com.