Would Comparing Supplements to Fertilizers be a Fair Analogy?

What I mean is, when you add chemical fertilizer to the soil it's not the same as actually building those nutrients from a vibrant soil life.  Does anyone else think we're doing something when we are taking capsules and tablets of concentrated nutrients?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.  Perhaps there is someone out there who can help me articulate what I'm getting at.

Have a good night!

M

I think it's an interesting question.

In soil fertility, we find that part of what matters isn't just the presence of nutrients, but how bioavailable they are. I think with nutrients for people it's probably similar. By keeping the biology in our gut healthy we are able to better synthesize nutrients (from what I understand), so in that regard I suppose it's similar to building the life in soil by adding organic matter, etc.

Supplements go through fads even faster than Garden stuff does. Often some berry or leaf is found to be nutritious, so they will try to tell us that it's much more nutritious if we take a miniscule amount that's jammed into a capsule. I've been reading about moringa. There's lots of good things in it, but those things aren't so super concentrated that a little capsule is going to be a Magic Bullet. Better to grow a bunch and have a salad containing it every day.