FAQ- Food-Based vs Synthetic Vitamins

Q- How do you know if the vitamins are from food or if they are synthetic?

If you choose to use nutritional supplements, it is in your best interest to use only those products that list actual foods as their ingredients rather than synthetic and isolated vitamins. While some synthetic and isolated vitamins have been shown to provide minimal health benefits, on the whole, most of them cause more harm than good in the long run. Many Alzheimer's patients brains that are being examined are find overdoses of certain individual mineral deposits. Food doesn't overdose.

Some clues allow us to "see" what is really there in a bottle such as:

• The RDA. 
• If the potency is higher than anything you would find in nature (example 1000% Daily Recommended Allowance of Vitamin C per serving), the product contains synthetically produced ingredients, no matter what the producer of that product might claim.
• Ingredients that begin with “dl.” 
  • When a word contains “dl” in the prefix, it is an indication that the vitamin is synthetic.
    Example, “dl-alpha tocopherol acetate” and “dl-alpha tocopherol” are synthetic forms of vitamin E.
• Words that end with “ate” or “ide” in the list of ingredients. 
  • Usually it indicates the manufacturer used synthetic materials to increasing the vitamin’s potency and stability. 
  • Look for- nitrate, acetate, sodium ascorbate, sodium benzoate, chloride, hydrochloride, silicon dioxide and titanium dioxide.
• Vitamin listed as the vitamin itself. Example- “vitamin D”
  • Look for “citrus” instead of “vitamin C” or “parsley” instead of “vitamin K.” One is the plant, the other an isolate of the plant.

Be aware that only 10 percent of the product must come from natural food sources in order for a company to claim “natural” on the product’s label in the USA.

Normally, if the vitamin supplement has a high or otherwise unnatural potency, the product is synthetic. For example, a product that provides 1,000 percent of vitamin C is unusually high. This is ten times the amount you need daily, and an amount that even a healthy diet — consisting of natural, whole-food sources — cannot provide. The majority of them contain only ascorbic acid or a compound called ascorbate, which is a less acidic form of acorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is NOT vitamin C. It represents the outer ring that serves as a protective shell for the entire vitamin C complex, much like an orange peel that serves as a protective shell for an orange. Real vitamin C found in whole foods like fruits and vegetables. Not everything is eliminated by the urine and even then you are overworking your organs which could lead to inflammation, the leading cause of cancers. 

Herbs are whole foods. Not pharma, not drugs, not isolated chemicals- they come with all of their necessary components. The majority of vitamins that are sold in pharmacies, grocery stores, and vitamin shops are synthetic vitamins, which are only isolated portions of the vitamins that occur naturally in food and drain the body in order, cause side effects trying to get the ingredients to work.

Many synthetic vitamins and pharmaceuticals deplete your body of other nutrients and tax your kidneys before being excreted through your urine or worse yet stay in the body for long periods of time and cause what we call side effects.

Plants absorb vitamins and minerals and provide a balanced nutrition.

It is not just vitamin and minerals that make a formula work, it is the hot/cold aspects, the on/off switch of some herbs in the formula to activate and give direction to specific organs. This is without side effects because it is NOT synthetic, it really is food that your body knows what to do with it already. That's why we have over 25 years of success with these same formulas. It's not a "new break-thru" in science that spends more time listing the side effects than the benefits.

Check out our vitamin and mineral formulas for yourself and let us know how they work for you!