Vitamania

"The startling story of America's devotion to vitamins-and how it keeps us from good health. Health-conscious Americans seek out vitamins any way they can, whether in a morning glass of orange juice, a piece of vitamin-enriched bread, or a daily multivitamin. We believe that vitamins are always beneficial and that the more we can get, the better-and yet despite this familiarity, few of us could explain what vitamins actually are. Instead, we outsource our questions to experts and interpret "vitamin" as shorthand for "health." What we don't realize-and what Vitamania reveals-is that the experts themselves are surprisingly short on answers. Yes, we need vitamins; without them, we would die. Yet despite a century of scientific research (the word "vitamin" was coined only in 1912), there is little consensus around even the simplest of questions, whether it's exactly how much we each require or what these thirteen dietary chemicals actually do. The one thing that experts do agree upon is that the best way to get our nutrients is in the foods that naturally contain them, which have countless chemicals beyond vitamins that may be beneficial. But thanks to our love of processed foods (whos