As athletes, we are often questioned on our lifestyles: what we eat, how much time we spend training, the amount of money we put into what we love. One inquiry each of us has probably heard at some point is, "Do you really NEED all those supplements?"
In short, the answer is simple. Almost all of the nutrients we consume in pill, powder, and capsule form are found naturally in the nutrient-rich foods we're all supposed to consume. The problem is, in order to get the recommended daily intake of many of these we'd have to eat A LOT of food, probably more than recommended, even with our grueling workouts. To put this into perspective, check out the following infographic showing the equivalents of your maximum recommended dosages of the most common supplements in food form. Although this chart represents the MAX daily recommendations (most of us consume far less!) it's interesting to see how much food we would really need to eat. Nobody wants or needs to eat 12 oranges and drink 2.2 pints of milk every day!