Good vs Bad Supplements
Nutrition is essential to overall health! Feeding the body properly keeps our systems working well and working together. A deficiency within one system may cause an array of issues throughout the body.
What to Look For
1: In the Supplement Facts (top half of label), it will list the name of the vitamin, followed by parenthesis “(as….)” and lists the vitamine source. If classification for a chemical, an isolate or fractionated source. “From…” is the classification for foods. So if it says “as…” it means it is non-food. This should be a Food or Plant – something that sounds edible.
Bad
Vitamin A (as betacrotene or Vitamin A palmitate or acetate)
Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid, or as calcium ascorbate)
Vitamin E (as d-alpha-tocopherol, tocotrienols, or as mixed tocopherols)
Good
Vitamin A (from carrot powder, or from liver powder)
Vitamin C (from acerola cherries, or from rose hips or from green peppers)
Vitamin E (from wheat germ oil)
What to Look For
2: Percentage of Daily Value: To the right of label where it lists the DV’s for a product, if the DV percentages listed exceed the DV by 100’s or 1000’s of percentage of DV, the only way they can accomplish that is with a chemical. The DV should be low. In fact, with low DV’s you product will contain many other synergistic co-factors that acually make the product MORE bio-available.
Bad
Vitamin A ….25000 IU 500%
Vitamin C…..1,000mgs 1667%
Vitamin E……1000 IU 3333%
Good
Vitamin A …..4800 IU 100%
Vitamin C……60 mgs 100%
Vitamin E…….34 IU 100%
What to Look For
3: In the Ingredients or Other Ingredients section on the bottom of the label. If the top half does not say “(as….)” it will then list the source of the vitamins in the Ingredient Section. Since only food sources are to be listed here, if there is no food sources, the chemical name will be listed.
Bad
Calcium Carbonate, Dibasic Calcium phosphate, Magnesium Oxide, Potassium Chloride, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Starch, Ascorbic Acid, d-Alpha Tocopherol Acetate, BHT, Crospovidone, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Beta Carotene, Calcium Pantothenate, Calcium Stearate, Chromic Chloride, Citric Acid, Cupric Oxide, Cyanocobalamin, d-Alpha Tocopherol, Ergo-calciferol (Vit. D), FD&C Blue 2 Aluminum Lake, FD&C Red 40, FD&C Yellow 6, Folic Acid, Magnesium Borate, Magnesium Stearate, Sulfate, Polyethylene Glycol, Polyvinyl Alcohol…
Good
Barley Grass Juice Powder, Alfalfa powder, Wheat Grass Powder, Chlorella, Spirulina, Sproutded Malt Barley, Tomato Powder, Ginger, Garlic powder, Lemon, Asparagus, Broccoli Powder, Cauliflower Powder, Sinach Powder, Parsley Powder, Kale Juice, Beete Greenes, Brussel Sprouts, Carrot Powder, Blueberry, Orange, Cranberry, Raspberry, Grapefruit, Lime, Grapeseed Extract, Plum, Raspberry, Pine Bark Extract, Apple Fiber Pectin, Brown Rice Bran, Flaxseed powder, Psyllium Husk Seed Powder, Okra Powder
What to Look For
4. Trademarked. Be wary of anything that is trademarked. For most companies, this means it has nutrients removed from it, possibly something added, or extreme-heated, processed or re-fabricated to a heavy degree in order to trademark the product. Since you cannot trademark nature, a product has to be substantially changed from nature. There are some exceptions: Standard process trademarks their LOW HEAT< vacuum process for ProtomorphogenTM extracts (which retains nutrients), but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Bad
TrademarkTM or Registered Trademark. This could be the name of the trademarked ingredient, such as “Vitamin B as Active-XTM,” or “ester CR.”
Also it is important to know how they process the ingredient.
Good
Nature cannot be trademarked. In other words, you cannot trademark whole, unadultered alfalfa, kelp, broccoli, carrots, cranberries, liver, etc. Foods are foods.