Are you meeting your body's need for vitamins and minerals? Probably not.

Vitamins are organic micro-nutrients that act like spark plugs for the body, keeping it tuned up and functioning at high performance -- you can't live without them.

But vitamins are not substitutes for food, however even with their minute serving size and amounts in the body, vitamins are absolutely necessary for growth, vitality, resistance to disease and healthy aging.

It is impossible to sustain life without them. Even small deficiencies can endanger the whole body. Unfortunately it takes weeks or months for signs of most deficiency diseases to appear because the body only slowly uses it's supply.

The vitamin Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) were established by the National Academy in the 1950's as a guideline to prevent severe deficiency diseases.

Today poor dietary habits, over-processed foods and agri-business practices show health professionals that supplements are needed for adequate nutrition.

Even as basic as the RDA recommendations are, not one dietary survey has shown that we consume anywhere near the RDA amounts in our normal diets.

A recent survey conducted by the US Department of Agriculture studied the daily food intake of 21,500 people over a three-day period. The study showed that not a single person got 100 percent of their RDA nutrients. Only three percent ate the recommended number of servings from the four food groups.

The study concluded that trying to change long-held dietary habits and ignoring vitamin supplements as an option left much of the population at nutritional risk.

Furthermore, lifestyle factors such as smoking or drinking and the use of medications greatly increases your risk.

Most people are not only deficient in vitamins but even more so in minerals.

Minerals comprise only four percent of your body weight, but they are also key to major areas of your health.

Minerals keep your body's pH balance alkaline instead of acid. They are essential to bone formation and bone health. They regulate the osmosis of cellular fluids, nerve electrical activity and most metabolic functions. They transport oxygen, govern heart rhythm, help you sleep and keep you emotionally balanced.

Trace minerals are only .01 percent of your body weight but even deficiencies in these micro nutrients can cause severe depression, PMS and other menstrual disorders, hyperactivity in children, high blood pressure, premature aging and memory loss.

In societies where individuals live to their full potential of 120 to 140 years, one of the main features held in common is that these societies possess water supplies and soils that are rich in 70 or 80 minerals that are known to be absolutely necessary for health.

As far back as 1930, the US government was voicing concern that the soils used to grow fruits and vegetables were becoming seriously deficient in these essential minerals.

A 1992 Earth summit document shows over the last 100 years there has been an 85 percent decline in the soil mineral content of North America, 72 percent in Europe and 55 percent in Australia.

Given that most of us are not consuming the necessary amounts of vitamins and minerals through our diets, supplements are crucial however, it is important to select a good quality vitamin and mineral supplements.

Read the labels. Here are some simple guidelines to help evaluate a multi-vitamin.

Make sure the vitamin/mineral is free of artificial colourings, preservatives, and other unwanted additives. I checked the label of the Centrum multi-vitamin and found FD&C yellow 6, lactose, and starch.

Make sure the vitamins are natural. Natural vitamin E (d-alpha-tocopherol) is significantly superior to artificial vitamin E dl-alpha-tocopherol) which actually inhibits natural vitamin E in the body.

Look for the words citrate, picolinate, aspartate, glycinate, glutamate or amino acid chelate. These words refer to the way the vitamin or mineral is processed. They commonly follow the name of the nutrient (for example chromium picolinate or calcium glycinate) and are easier for the body to absorb.

Chelated minerals are known to have a higher absorption rate than other minerals, as much as 40 percent higher.

Make sure the vitamin contains more than 100 percent of the RDA of most nutrients in order to promote optimum health not just prevent deficiency diseases.