Can You Get All Your Nutrients From Food? 9 Reasons You NEED Supplements

Can you get all your nutrients from food? For most people in 2026, the honest answer is no. Between depleted soil, compromised gut health, chemical-laden produce, and chronic stress burning through your reserves, the nutrition gap keeps widening. Even with a “perfect” diet.

“Supplements just create expensive pee.”

“You should get all your nutrients from whole foods.”

“Our ancestors didn’t take supplements and they were quite healthy.”

I hear well-intentioned comments like these every day. They spread because they sound nice. Not too long ago, it was true. Supplements were optional.

Times have changed. Here’s what they’re missing…

Unless you grow all your own food, live off-grid, and use biodynamic farming practices while neurotically avoiding the 10,000+ new untested man-made chemicals, you need to take supplements

Frankly, you won’t be fully healthy and performing at your peak without them. Spend thousands on fancy lab testing to quantify your various biomarkers and you’ll come to this same conclusion.

It all boils down to this:

• Food contains LESS nutrition these days
• Modern living makes you require MORE nutrients

It’s sad, I know.

In this post, I’m going to break down a few of the many reasons that you (and every human) should take supplements.

Depleted Soil Means Produce Has Up to 38% Fewer Nutrients

Researcher Dr. James DiNicolantonio famously discovered that 1 in 3 Americans have 10+ mineral deficiencies.

This is largely because of modern farming incentives that reward crop appearance and yield above all.

Farmers use tilling, heavy chemical spraying, and other means to maximize yields in the short term.

After many seasons, this decimates the soil. Where does the nutrient content of produce come from? Almost entirely from the soil.

Back in 2004, researchers found major and consistent declines of key nutrients, according to a 2004 study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition:

• ~6% decrease in protein
• 16% decrease in calcium
• 9% decrease in phosphorus
• 15% decrease in iron
• 38% decrease in riboflavin
• 15% decrease in vitamin C

There’s also less magnesium, according to a 2021 review in Nutrients.

A Kushi Institute researcher examined produce between 1975 to 1997 and found average nutrient level reductions of 12 fresh vegetables, according to Scientific American:

• 27% less calcium
• 37% less iron
• 21% less vitamin A
• 30% less vitamin C

Another study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980 examined 20 vegetables and found:

• 19% less calcium
• 22% less iron
• 14% less potassium

This paper shows perhaps the most alarming decline in nutrient density, according to The Organic Center’s report on nutrient decline.

Plus, we’ve selected sweeter and sweeter produce while avoiding the more nutrient-dense traditional options our ancestors relied on. Check out this eye-opening 2024 study in Foods for more insights.

Decades later, as soil biodiversity and fertility continue declining, things have only worsened.

Gut Dysfunction Prevents You From Absorbing What’s Left

The food itself has less nutrients because of modern farming practices. Another big part of the ubiquitous deficiency is your inability to actually use the nutrients you consume.

Some of the many underlying factors impairing utilization of nutrients include:

• Digestive issues
• Lacking cofactors
• Concentrated anti-nutrients
• Food processing technologies

Impaired gastric acid secretion alone reduces absorption of iron, vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin C by disrupting pH-dependent uptake in the gut, according to a 2021 review in Nutrients.

Some degree of leaky gut (intestinal permeability) further reduces what you get.

Inadequate cofactors like minerals and enzymes further reduce nutrient usage from the foods we consume.

There are many ways to optimize your gut health, but you need to recognize that these underlying factors exist first.

Modern farming practices have resulted in higher levels of “anti-nutrients” like oxalates, phytic acid, trypsin-inhibitors, lectins, goitrogens, and many others.

While the alternative health crowd overemphasizes their dangers, they do bind to nutrients and render them unusable in the body.

Then there’s the way we actually harvest and process foods. Grains, for example, are now steel milled instead of stone milled. This concentrates gluten protein and worsens biological compatibility.

Today more than ever, you’ll only absorb and assimilate a tiny fraction of the nutrients you consume.

Eating Out of Season Reduces Nutrient Utilization

24/7, you can now click a button and receive high-calorie food at your doorstep in no time.

Meal delivery services have solved the issue of hunger. But grocery stores too.

Seasonal foods are fresher and more nutrient-dense. Out of season foods are more processed and preserved which can displace essential nutrients. Vitamin C content of retail produce can vary up to 7-fold across seasons, according to a 2018 study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

They’ve been stored for long periods or transported long distances, resulting in greater nutrient loss.

Seasonal eating forces variety, which encourages nutrient balance.

Of course, this includes proper hydration and getting enough electrolytes and other essential minerals as well.

All of our ancestors knew that eating out of rhythm causes circadian stress and has consequences. Your body cannot digest or use foods as efficiently.

Which means blood sugar spikes higher and insulin doesn’t work as well. Metabolic dysfunction becomes more likely.

Eating out of season foods, shipped from abroad, and at the wrong time taxes the body and results in lower nutrient utilization.

Hydroponic Produce Lacks the Nutrient Diversity of Soil-Grown

Unlike traditional soil farming, hydroponics grow plants in a special water solution with several added nutrients.

Farmers prefer it for faster growth rates, higher yields, and efficient water usage.

The downside? Quality.

Soil naturally contains a diverse array of nutrients, organic matter, and microorganisms. This results in healthy plants that absorb a wider range of micronutrients.

This leads to plants devoid of many of the nutrients common in soil cultivation. A 2025 controlled trial in Plants confirmed that soil-grown herbs had considerably higher total phenolics, flavonoids, beta-carotene, and antioxidant capacity compared to hydroponic systems.

Hydroponically grown plants generally don’t get the same biological stress either, so they’re lower in non-essential bioactive substances too.

Unstressed Plants Produce Fewer Protective Compounds

While often considered a human issue, all life naturally experiences stress.

Over time, our biological systems have developed protective mechanisms to combat stress.

In modernity, however, that process no longer occurs. To maximize crop yield, farmers shield crops from the natural elements and predators.

Without that stress, biology has no incentive to spend energy developing biochemical protection and deterrence. So it doesn’t.

These seemingly dangerous plant alkaloids, polyphenols, and other defense substances actually provide humans with a lot of the benefits of consuming produce. This phenomenon is called xenohormesis. A 2010 review in Cell Metabolism showed that plant stress compounds like resveratrol and quercetin activate sirtuin enzymes and cellular stress-response pathways in humans, conferring longevity and anti-inflammatory benefits.

Consuming plants that haven’t experienced stress provides far less benefit.

Acid Rain Strips Essential Minerals From Soil

You’ve surely heard about acid rain. You can easily observe the effects on rusting and the corrosion of metal and building materials.

Acid rain accelerates the aging of anything it contacts. Including, human health.

Burning coal creates air pollution which interacts with water droplets to form substances like sulfur dioxide and nitric oxide.

When this rains down onto the land, it changes the pH, the total nitrogen levels, and the microbial composition of the soil, according to a 2020 study on acid rain’s effects on soil microbial diversity.

Acid rain also changes the composition of metals in the soil, which displaces essential nutrients in plants and eventually in the human body.

It even reduces levels of crucial plant super nutrients like fulvic acid, according to a study published in Talanta.

Acid rain changes the soil composition and strips it of essential nutrients so that produce contains less.

NPK Fertilizers Grow Bigger Plants With Fewer Micronutrients

Every farmer adds nutrients into their growing medium. Plants need them to thrive.

The nutrient density of produce depends directly on the soil’s content of both macro- and micronutrients.

Modern farming relies heavily on salt-based NPK fertilizers. Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium are the three nutrients critical for plant growth. But they lack the other micro-nutrients, according to a 2021 review in Nutrients.

Natural soil contains NPK, but also the required micronutrients. Salt-based artificial NPK causes plants to grow unnaturally.

They retain more water and get bloated. Which causes all kinds of imbalances and weakens their immune systems.

Overuse of salt-based NPK fertilizer weakens plants, which then requires the use of nutrient-inhibiting chemicals.

Environmental Chemicals Deplete Nutrients & Increase Your Needs

With weakened immune systems and insufficient production of plant defense compounds, farmers use chemical assistance to protect their plants.

All kinds of synthetic additives and toxic chemicals like herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, rodenticides, and pesticides are used just to maximize crop yield.

All of which impact human gut function, nutrient assimilation, and overall health. Chronic low-level exposure to heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and mercury impairs absorption and increases excretion of essential micronutrients, according to a 2019 review in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.

Heavy metals and pesticides deplete essential nutrients like calcium, magnesium, iodine, selenium, and other minerals.

These tax and impair biological systems like the liver, gallbladder, gut, and hormone balance. Further reducing what you can extract from your food.

At the same time, they increase oxidative stress in the body, which depletes antioxidant levels like vitamins C and E, glutathione, and melatonin.

Other chemicals, called endocrine disruptors, interfere with hormonal balance and nutrient metabolism.

Man-made chemicals impact the composition of your food, alter your ability to process it, and increase your nutrient needs.

Chronic Stress Burns Through Nutrients Faster Than Food Replaces Them

Nearly everyone today faces unprecedented chronic stress levels.

Stress itself is essential to life, in the right dose and frequency. However, today, that frequency has increased dramatically.

Stress doesn’t just impact your hormone levels, sleep, or mental clarity.

Physical, chemical, emotional, and any form of biological stress depletes the body of a host of key nutrients. Psychological stress, sleep deprivation, and intense physical exertion cause measurable depletion of magnesium, zinc, calcium, iron, and niacin through increased urinary excretion and elevated metabolic demand, according to a 2020 review in Advances in Nutrition.

This creates a vicious cycle where deficiency further amplifies the stress response. It’s part of the reason virtually every modern human has significant magnesium deficiencies (and why people notice big differences from supplementation).

Stress influences the absorption, metabolism, and utilization of a variety of other nutrients like:

• Vitamin C
• B Vitamins
• Calcium
• Zinc
• Iron
• Selenium

When You Might NOT Need Supplements

Mainstream medicine often says “just eat well and you’ll be fine.” There’s some truth to that, with caveats.

If you grow your own food using regenerative farming practices, eat nose-to-tail animal products from pastured sources, live in a low-pollution area, manage stress well, sleep 8+ hours, and get regular sunlight, your nutrient needs drop significantly.

Some people genuinely don’t need much supplementation. Particularly those in rural areas eating traditionally prepared, locally sourced whole foods.

Here’s the thing. That describes almost nobody in modern Western society. If you’re reading this on a screen, commuting to work, eating grocery store produce, and dealing with the stressors of modern life, the math doesn’t add up without supplementation.

The “food first” crowd isn’t wrong about the principle. They’re wrong about the context. The food supply has changed. Your stress load has changed. Your environment has changed. Supplementation bridges the gap between the nutrition your body needs and what today’s food can realistically deliver.

Questions & Answers

Why You Can’t Rely on Food Alone Anymore

Throughout most of history, humans got their nutrition mostly from food.

They did also supplement with roots, botanicals, spices, and teas. But these were supplemental, in the truest sense of the word.

For decades, nutrient levels within produce continue to decline as modern living further increases our needs.

You could eat 3-9X more food to get the same amount of nutrients that used to naturally exist within foods. But then there’s the issue of calories and the sheer quantity of food.

Thriving virtually requires it.

Want to dive deeper into supplementation? Here’s all the best Outliyr supplement resources.

If this helped you understand why supplementation matters, share it with a friend who’s still on the fence.