Vitamins hide the low quality of our food

New York

THERE is much concern these days about what's in our dietary supplements. Are they actually filled with the ingredients that the labels promise?

Maybe, maybe not. Quality control issues in the estimated 85,000 dietary supplement products available in America should give every consumer pause. But even vitamins themselves - the 13 dietary chemicals necessary to prevent deficiency diseases such as scurvy and rickets - pose hidden hazards of their own. We believe so strongly that vitamins are always good for us, and that the more we get the better, that we fail to notice that food marketers use synthetic vitamins to sell unhealthful products. Not only have we become dependent on these synthetic vitamins to keep ourselves safe from deficiencies, but the eating habits they encourage are having disastrous consequences on our health.