Fruits alone are not enough?
Well, many a German would think so. The woman next door takes in food supplements in form of pills. Pills that contain pressed essence of fruit or vegetables. She would swear by those and thus she spends some 75 Euros (around Php 5000) a month for the additional supply of health.
And she is not the only one. The market is booming: Vitality, beauty, health. Those extra pills are so promising. One out of three Germans would readily do that.
It is not only vitamin C, but also magnesia, zinc and other vitamins or minerals, that are favoured. And the motivation is to have no cold, no fever, no problems.
No illness? No problems? Really? And all that by merely some pills taken from a package? Scientists are sceptical here. In an interview by T. Hübner Prof. Rolf Großklaus of the federal institute for risk-evaluation (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung) says: "Food supplements for Mr. Average are futile. I mean that for the one, who feeds well-balanced and varied, who eats a daily portion of fruit and vegetables, who is at normal weight, exercises, feels fit, for such a person those are completely senseless."
The entire variety of all those pills is safely dispensable for those who feed well-balanced. The German Society for Feeding (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung) advises five hands full of fruit and vegetables, like one banana, one apple, two carrots, two tomatoes, one pepper, two peaches (or one mango).
This might sound a lot, but in fact one hand full can already be one side order in lunch.
However there is no rule without exception:
At times it makes sense to reach out for those supplements. Prof. Großklaus says: "Normally it would be considered nonsense, but for young girls, who on some kind of eat-only-half-of-it-diet, for pregnant women and nursing mothers, who have a greater demand, for older people, who hardly ever go out, who might have problems with chewing, the intake of additional vitamins and minerals is sensible."
Paradoxically the ones who already are very health-conscious are at the same time most frequent purchasers of those supplement pills. The woman next door says: "Most important for me is to feel well. The to's and fro's of scientific research do not really matter to me. As long as it does me well, helps me, makes me feel good, it is the right thing for me and I will keep doing it."
T. Hübner lines out that 1.2 billion Euros a year - that is more than 80 billion PhP - is what the Germans spend on food supplements. Scientists say that money better be spent on daily apples and pears or translated into Filipino: on daily pineapples and mangoes.