Alice Li | Source | Founder/CEO at First Day

90% of us could use supplements.

It is definitely ideal to get all the nutrients you need from eating fresh, delicious foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Fresh foods have incredible power, and there is so much we don't understand about how phytonutrients interact with the human body.

But what we're dealing with every day isn't the ideal. It's the messy, inconvenient truth of what it means to take care of a family. Only 7% of children eat enough vegetables. You might say that adults are better -- it turns out they're basically the same. A measly 9% of adults eat enough veggies.

If you aren't eating perfectly -- and that's at least 90% of us -- then a supplement can help literally supplement your diet and make sure you're getting what you need to thrive. Severe vitamin deficiency is incredibly dangerous (leading to physical diseases such as xerophthalmia, rickets, and scurvy) and luckily nowadays rare. But we're behind the curve in understanding how nutrition impacts so much of our life, from our day to day experience, to long term health outcomes. That's because very few studies are actually funded long enough to measure nutritional effects, which can span decades, and the results aren't patentable by drug companies, so there is limited funding.

Every day we're learning more about the impact of nutrition and vitamins beyond the visible impact on our bodies. In terms of daily life, there is increasing research on how it is related to mood and cognitive function an even its links to crime, anger, and criminal activity. Taking folate for example is shown to reduce risk of strokes by 28% while 30% or more of cancers are linked to diet and are potentially preventable. It is just incredible how much of our health is within our control and how early the field of nutrition is.