Q- How do you know if vitamins are food-based or 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, most cause more harm than good in the long run. Many Alzheimer's patients' brains that are being examined are found to have 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.
    For 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 increase the vitamin’s potency and stability. 
  • Look for nitrate, acetate, sodium ascorbate, sodium benzoate, chloride, hydrochloride, silicon dioxide, and titanium dioxide.
• Vitamin is 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 the recommended daily vitamin C intake is unusually high. This is ten times the amount you need daily, an amount 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 ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is NOT vitamin C. It is the outer ring that serves as a protective shell for the entire vitamin C complex, much like the orange peel protects an orange. Real vitamin C is 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 cancer. 

Herbs are whole foods. Not pharma, not drugs, not isolated chemicals- they come with all of their necessary components. The majority of vitamins sold in pharmacies, grocery stores, and vitamin shops are synthetic, isolated portions of vitamins that occur naturally in food and drain the body, causing side effects as the ingredients try 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 and cause what we call side effects.

Plants absorb vitamins and minerals and provide balanced nutrition.

It is not just vitamins and minerals that make a formula work; it is the hot/cold aspects and the on/off switch of some herbs in the formula that activate and give direction to specific organs. This is without side effects because it is NOT synthetic; it really is food that your body already knows what to do with. That's why we have over 25 years of success with these same formulas. It's not a "new breakthrough" 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!