Or just drink an extra glass of orange juice in the morning.

If all this home brew stuff was 10 times, 100 times or even 2 times better then why wouldn't it show up in endurance athletes who are ALL, with no exceptions, walking a knife edge between mineral depletion, extreme levels of exercise, sleep and nutrition?  The very nature of Olympic competitive sports is to walk this knife edge.  If you don't then you don't stand any chance of winning.

Mo Farah, for example, eats lean grilled chicken (non-organic), store bought vegetables (also non-organic) and restricts his diet massively but the supplements he takes are store bought.  Olympic synchonised swimmers, never eat chocolate or drink alcohol and the supplements they take are store bought.  I know this because I know Farah's Coach and I am related to an Olympic synchronised swimmer who competed at two Olympics and two Commonwealth games.

The margin between success and failure in these endurance sports is so slim that athletes will live in hypobaric chambers, drink beetroot juice and do all manner of things to themselves to get the slimmest advantage over their competitors.

Why is Alberto Salazar not brewing up his own vitamin C, D, E, B12 and other minerals and adding it to Mo Farah's and Galen Rupp's diet?  If they make any difference at all, he would be, given that Nike spent $1million dollars developing a customised pair of running shoes for Farah and $50,000 on an underwater treadmill.

The first athlete to start eating organic and taking his own home made vitamins would soon beat Rupp and Farah and take the double gold at the next world Championships.  The only reason not to do this is that the home brew vitamins and organic foods don't make a blind bit of difference.

Compared to the time you spend making it, I doubt it.

Provided you are a normal person, all you need it a balanced healthy diet with home-cooked meals, and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, meat, fish pulses and eggs  Drink plenty of water, get some exercise and a regular exposure to Sunlight.

I have a couple of junior athletes in my house and only things I give them are one Brazil nut per day and a Marmite sandwich twice a week.  I wouldn't dream of giving them vitamins or supplements, what would be the point unless they were lacking them?

The day your kids can beat mine over 5km I'll listen.  Until that day this is just quackery.

Did a search on non-GMO vitamin C and looks like it's out there after all now!

Sport or not, the competitors are extremely fit and have incredible VO2 max numbers.

They'd kick your ass at just about any endurance sport like cycling, running or anything else you care to mention without even training specifically for that event.

You might not care for it, but it is an extremely athletic discipline.

Ah, remember those days?  Naively buying, chugging what we thought was delicious fresh natural orange juice.  I never had time to make my own, so I always bought "not from concentrate", and no additives.  But wait!  I found out just 6 months ago that's not quite true....  see below.

Thanks Director for this info.  I will employ it. This skeptic began taking large doses of vitamin C and my arthritis went away.  No kidding, no exaggeration.  

Quote

The Secret Ingredient In Your Orange Juice
Written by Kristen Michaelis | Affiliate Disclosure

Do you buy orange juice at the store? If you do, I’m sure you’re careful to buy the kind that’s 100% juice and not made from concentrate. After all, that’s the healthier kind, right? The more natural kind? The kind without any additives? The kind that’s sold in the refrigerator section so it must be almost as good as fresh-squeezed orange juice?

If I’m describing you, then you’re either going to hate me or love me by the time you’re done reading this post. The truth is, that orange juice you feel so good about buying is probably none of those things. You’ve been making assumptions based on logic. The food industry follows its own logic because of the economies of scale. What works for you in your kitchen when making a glass or two of juice simply won’t work when trying to process thousands upon thousands of gallons of the stuff.

Haven’t you ever wondered why every glass of Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice tastes the same, no matter where in the world you buy it or what time of year you’re drinking it in? Or maybe your brand of choice is Minute Maid or Simply Orange or Florida’s Natural. Either way, I can ask the same question. Why is the taste and flavor so consistent? Why is it that the Minute Maid never tastes like the Tropicana, but always tastes like its own unique beverage?

Generally speaking, beverages that taste consistently the same follow recipes. They’re things like Coca Cola or Pepsi or a Starbucks Frappuccino. When you make orange juice at home, each batch tastes a little different depending on the oranges you made it from. I hope you’re hearing warning bells in your head right about now.

The reason your store bought orange juice is so consistently flavorful has more to do with chemistry than nature.

    Making OJ should be pretty simple. Pick oranges. Squeeze them. Put the juice in a carton and voilà!

    But actually, there is an important stage in between that is an open secret in the OJ industry. After the oranges are squeezed, the juice is stored in giant holding tanks and, critically, the oxygen is removed from them. That essentially allows the liquid to keep (for up to a year) without spoiling– but that liquid that we think of as orange juice tastes nothing like the Tropicana OJ that comes out of the carton. (source)

In fact, it’s quite flavorless. So, the industry uses “flavor packs” to re-flavor the de-oxygenated orange juice:

    When the juice is stripped of oxygen it is also stripped of flavor providing chemicals. Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren’t listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor. Mexicans and Brazilians have a different palate. Flavor packs fabricated for juice geared to these markets therefore highlight different chemicals, the decanals say, or terpene compounds such as valencine.

    The formulas vary to give a brand’s trademark taste. If you’re discerning you may have noticed Minute Maid has a candy like orange flavor. That’s largely due to the flavor pack Coca-Cola has chosen for it. Some companies have even been known to request a flavor pack that mimics the taste of a popular competitor, creating a “hall of mirrors” of flavor packs. Despite the multiple interpretations of a freshly squeezed orange on the market, most flavor packs have a shared source of inspiration: a Florida Valencia orange in spring. (source)

Why aren’t these flavor packs listed as ingredients?

Good question! As with all industrial foods, it’s because of our convoluted labeling laws. You see, these “flavor packs are made from orange by-products — even though these ‘by-products’ are so chemically manipulated that they hardly qualify as ‘by-products’ any more.” (source) Since they’re made from by-products that originated in oranges, they can be added to the orange juice without being considered an “ingredient,” despite the fact that they are chemically altered.
So, what should you do about it?

First off, I must ask: Why are you drinking juice?? Juice removed from the fruit is just concentrated fructose without any of the naturally-occurring fiber, pectin, and other goodies that make eating a whole fruit good for you. Did you know, for example, that it takes 6-8 medium sized apples to make just 1 cup of apple juice? You probably wouldn’t be able to eat 6-8 medium apples in a single sitting. (I know I can barely eat one!) But you can casually throw back a cup of apple juice, and you would probably be willing to return for seconds. That’s why fruit juice is dangerous. It’s far too easy to consume far too much sugar.

So, my first piece of advice is to get out of the juice habit altogether. It’s expensive, and it’s not worth it.


My second piece of advice is to only drink juices that you make yourself, and preferably ones that you’ve turned into a healthy, probiotic beverage (like this naturally-fermented lemonade my own family enjoys). Sally Fallon Morrell’s Nourishing Traditions cookbook (pictured at right) has several lacto-fermented juice coolers that are pleasant, albeit expensive. (I especially like the Grape Cooler, Raspberry Drink, and Ginger Beer.) Want to make juicing easier? See here for where to buy juicers and Vitamix blenders.

And finally, opt out of the industrial food system as much as you can. If you learn anything at all from this post, it should be that you never know what’s in your food unless you grow it, harvest it, or make it yourself. Second best (and more practical for many, including myself) is to pay somebody I trust to do it — like the farmers at my Farmer’s Market, the cattle rancher I buy my annual grass-fed beef order from, or the chef at my local restaurant who’s willing to transparently answer questions about how he sources ingredients and what goes into the dish I’m ordering.
Edited On 7/29/2011 To Include:

I’ve gotten a number of comments and emails accusing me of being afraid of “science” or “chemicals.” To those readers, I suggest that you are missing my point entirely. As I wrote in a comment below, I think what bugs me the most about the flavor industry is that they manufacture flavor for otherwise flavorless or unpalatable foods. I think if a food needs to have synthetic flavors added to it for us to enjoy it, then we ought to question whether or not it’s actually good for us and worth eating. It’s not so much that I think the flavors are unnaturally engineered chemicals (although sometimes, as with MSG, there is cause for concern). In this post, I’m not questioning the health or merit of added chemicals (“natural” or “synthetic”); I’m questioning the health or merit of so-called foods that are so devoid of flavor or color that we have to add back in chemical flavorings and colors to make them palatable. Furthermore, I’m questioning the judgement of our regulatory bodies which allow misleading product labeling to continue.

http://www.foodrenegade.com/secret-ingredient-your-orange-juice/

Great OP, on OJ... Tks for all of us

Quote from: ggreg

Quote from: shin

When I have something to fight off, Vitamin C is definitely the thing to take in large doses.

High doses of vitamin C have been associated with multiple adverse effects. These include blood clotting, death (heart-related), kidney stones, pro-oxidant effects, problems with the digestive system, and red blood cell destruction. In cases of toxicity due to massive ingestions of vitamin C, forced fluids, and diuresis may be beneficial.

Use cautiously in chronic, large doses. Healthy adults who take chronic large doses of vitamin C may experience low blood levels of vitamin C when they stop taking the high doses and resume normal intake.

you don't know what you are talking about, there's cheap vitamins and there are quality vitamins, if you want to stay healthy, don't get cancer etc you take the good stuff..if you want to end up in a hospital in your old age then eat non organic food, unfiltered water cheap vitamins or no vitamins..there's no claim the person taking the good vitamins will run faster or synchronize better in the pool.....read up on Linus Pauling..if anyone is interested in getting the good stuff just pm me..I've been taking them for 4 years and never get sick

ggreg, I'm not sure where you got that info on vitamin C being toxic in large quantities, or what that measurement is (I do not exceed 10 grams, but up to 20 is perfectly tolerated once your body adjusts).  If it's possible, I was MORE of a skeptic than you, but read Dr. Paulling and then researched out the wazoo.  I began the protocol only because there IS no downside.  The worst that can happen is that you increase too fast and get <ahem> diarrhea.  Then you just back off a bit, then slowly increase again.  There is no toxicity at the levels I mentioned and it's an old wives tale that it hurts your kidneys, perhaps so if you already have kidney issues, but I don't think that's settled.  
Once I began taking large quantities, spread out across the day, arthritis pain went away, within a few weeks. Absolutely nothing else eradicated this.  I do not take drugs, and was managing this via nutrition and proper exercise.
My specialist, who told me in 2009 that I was awfully young to need both knees replaced within five years, now tells me to keep doing what I'm doing.  He did an xray on one area in July, due to an injury, and said the arthritis is gone and the joint looks quite healthy.
Perhaps this is just anecdotal, but it worked for me.  I had to eat crow with the person who recommended it.

Now, regarding sychronized swimming, I can attest that it takes incredible endurance, and VOX2 numbers would be at least as impressive as other sports, perhaps more. I don't think people understand the strength and stamina this requires.