You don't need a PhD or an obsession with a healthy lifestyle to recognize that nutrition plays an important role in our well being. You truly are what you eat. Beyond well being, nutrition can play a role in actually enhancing certain physical traits. More to the point, nutritional science can be applied to actually enhance your hunting ability.

We know that the key word in the "Health Food Industry" is "Industry". Yet, there are kernels of objective truth out there that really make a difference. The trick is to separate the snake oil from the science and we've done that for you in this article. We've spent literally hundreds of hours reading published medical journals to pan for factual information. We totally disregarded testimonial and advertisement that characterizes so much of this "industry". We are equally certain about this nutritional information as we are about any of the medicines we prescribe.

Treating yourself with specific nutrients to enhance function makes sense doesn't it? Look at our game and animal hunting companions. The make up of food plots and mineral supplements provided to whitetail deer are increasingly utilized in a seasonal manner to enhance specific traits. Premium dog food has less to do with taste than with the impact on the dog's eyes, coat, stamina and other desired characteristics. Just as we can list what we want to improve in our game herds and dogs, we can list traits we want to improve in ourselves. This is especially true if you have crested 20 and the inevitable slide downhill has begun.

We hunters are gadget freaks. We buy clothing, optics, hearing devices and all sorts of stuff to enhance specific traits. Being in the real world environment we want better vision and hearing, more cold and heat tolerance, resistance to altitude sickness, more stamina, strength and energy, increased cognitive concentration, odor control, and enhanced immune function to name a few likely targets. What we have found is that you can absolutely enhance all of these traits through the application of nutritional science.

Nutritional science is not a major topic in medical training. In fact, it was only a few years ago that the American Medical Association actually recommended that all adults take a nutritional supplement on a daily basis. This was a seismic shift and is the result of science overtaking marketing in the arena of nutrition. To be fair, the AMA recommends a minimal intake for the prevention of disease and not the enhancement of function. They have published information on toxicity and the maximum safe intake of certain substances. The prevention of degeneration or the restoration/enhancement of function is still not a common approach in medical practice when it comes to supplement use.

Getting back to that "Industry" comment we made earlier, there is a whole lot of fakery and pseudoscience involved in nutritional approaches to health. We are advised by counsel not to be specific here, but an hour of cable TV generally results in at least one completely fake product being marketed. "Health Food" stores have shelves of supplements that actually have no purpose in the human body, yet are purchased by the uninformed public. What follows below is a listing of desired traits and the supplements needed to restore or enhance function. Let's start with vision.