taking Vitamin C -- the large doses in the chewables people eat like candy -- will make you pee red white and blue.

I thought it was cheap american lager that made you do that?

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Humans did not evolve to take a pill just to supplement a normal diet.

Humans spent most of their evolution as hunter-gatherers, and eating the internal organs of animals. If your diet includes the occasional servings of sweetbread, liver and kidney, then you probably won't have much of a problem meeting your vitamin requirements. With a modern diet, YMMV.

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hypothetically, forgetting to add the salt have on a cake, like, say, a fruitcake?

Chemically, very little. I never salt my cakes. Tastewise, you may find the taste less sharp than it could be.

Teeth are the only part of the human digestive system that can break down cellulose, so chewing is pretty much the only way we can get nutrients out of raw fruits and vegetables

But the digestion isn't taking place there, just the prep work.

Humans did not evolve to take a pill just to supplement a normal diet.

Isn't the point that our diets are no longer normal? We didn't evolve to have our teeth last into our 70s either, and the whole teeth-brushing and dentist thing seems to be working a bit.

But our bodies are pretty good at making do.

My mother the nutritionist (she has a lot of hats) disagrees. It is far better, she insists, to get your vitamins and minerals from food, far better. But better to get them from pills than not get them at all.

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Humans did not evolve to take a pill just to supplement a normal diet. If you have a preexisting deficiency, like say from illness or dietary restrictions, obviously you might need to supplement. But our bodies are pretty good at making do. Just like how if you feel fine you're not chronically dehydrated like the "eight glasses of water" people want you to think. I've never heard, "I made no changes in my diet or behavior but I started taking vitamins and my health is totally different!"

bon bon, I love your rant as well. Vitamin supplements are just weird to me. I don't like the idea of throwing an assorted, concentrated mix of elements into the body on top of a regular diet. Because too much of a good thing is also harmful.

Okay, Tom Scola and ita have good points as well.

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You're not going to get much rise out of a fruit cake, anyhow (at least if this is from the recipe you linked a couple of days ago), so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Is salt involved in the rise of non-yeast leavened baking?

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I'm really disturbed by the pictures of completely bare kitchens on Normal Room. Where are the pot holders, dish towels, appliances, random fruit, tea pots, and other signs of life?

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My mother the nutritionist (she has a lot of hats) disagrees. It is far better, she insists, to get your vitamins and minerals from food, far better. But better to get them from pills than not get them at all.

But who's not getting them at all? How many of us are actually walking around anemic because we're not eating sweetbreads?

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Um. I started taking vitamins and other supplements without making any other changes and I felt a hell of a lot better. I can tell the difference when I stop. Doing so gave me the energy to start making other changes, like exercising, and taking fish oil and some other things helped get me off antidepressants. I'm a total believer.

Food only gives us all the nutrition we need if the food itself is as nutritous as it's supposed to be, and with modern intensive agricultural practices blah blah the food we grow is not as nutrient-filled as it used to be.

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If your diet includes the occasional servings of sweetbread, liver and kidney, then you probably won't have much of a problem meeting your vitamin requirements. With a modern diet, YMMV.

suddenly thankful for the fondness for chicken livers that has caused much "ew!"-ing from friends and bystanders.

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I'm not sure, ita. I think so -- if there's baking powder, but I could be wrong. Is salt involved with yeast rising? I thought it was sugar that did that? Now I don't know anything, but I still agree bon bon doesn't have to worry about her saltless fruitcake.

I've recently been nagged by my doctor to take calcium supplements, since skinny white women are prime candidates for osteoporosis.

I caught a minute of Dr. Andrew Weil on TV, last week. It might have been on Martha's show. I was channel hopping. He said something along the lines that recent studies have shown that women in the countries that have the highest osteoporosis rates take more calcium supplements (and/or higher doses -- I really only caught a minute) than women in countries with lower rates.

He recommended a smaller dose than those that have been touted (I think he said between 500 adn 700 mg/daily), and said nutritionists are trying to stress the importance of Vitamin D, -- because it helps your body put the calcium it does get to work.

What I decided from this minute of information is to continue getting my calcium from food.

Nutty, do you like broccoli? I'm pretty sure it's chock full of calcium goodness.

My mother the nutritionist (she has a lot of hats) disagrees. It is far better, she insists, to get your vitamins and minerals from food, far better. But better to get them from pills than not get them at all.

Yes. And from what I remember, when you get your nutrients from foods, you're generally getting them in conjunction with stuff that helps you make the most of them. I can't think of a specific example to save my life, but a lot of times, if food X has nutrient Y, it also has property Z, and what do you know! It turns out your body needs property Z to properly absorb nutrient Y.

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