Creative Commons License photo credit: ilovebutter

by Vic Shayne

People take a lot of supplements — mostly vitamins, but a lot of herbs, minerals and protein shakes as well. The biggest misconception is that these products are good for you and all-natural merely because they are not drugs. You’d be surprised to learn what’s lurking inside the supplements you take.

What’s the purpose of supplements, anyway?

People have an idea that they need more nutrients to be healthier, ward off disease and heal what’s ailing them. They’re on the right track. But if you’re lacking some basic information, it’s easy to miss the boat completely and actually be putting all kinds of harmful ingredients in your body. The word “harmful” covers a lot of ground, as some ingredients are life-threatening while others are only modestly problematic.

The reason to take supplements is to bolster your diet and bring into your body the nutrients you need for cellular health and function. Because today’s modern diet is full of cooked foods, processed foods and junk foods, taking supplements can be a good idea. But you have to take the right supplements.

The best supplements are whole foods without isolates

The supplements you take should be made of foods. We already have too many chemicals in our lives, so to put more chemicals into your body defies common sense.

Whole food supplements, like those made by NutriPlex Formulas, are simply real whole foods without any parts of foods or artificial ingredients. Vitamins are isolated chemicals, so they are not really foods at all; they do not contain any “helper nutrients” that you would find in real food.

Some whole food supplements are very misleading

Not all whole food supplements are good for you, which is why we suggest NutriPlex Formulas’ products.

Some whole food supplements are misleading; while they contain real whole foods, they are mixed in with chemical isolates like vitamins, minerals and individual amino acids. The problem is that a food is either whole or it’s not.

How to spot non-food ingredients in your supplements

If your supplement label contains a list of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and other chemicals, then beware. Foods have names like alfalfa, broccoli, carrots, beets and mushrooms. Vitamins that are not contained within the original food “complex” may be either natural or synthetic, but even the word “natural” isn’t accurate. If a vitamin is no longer in a food, how can it be natural?

Here are some supplement non-food ingredients to avoid: vitamin A palmitate, niacinamide, vitamin C ascorbic acid, stearates, stearic acid, disodium phosphate, and mixed tocopherols.

Think of it this way. When you walk into your health food store and wander over to the organic produce, you wouldn’t ask the clerk how much vitamin C is in the peppers or how much sulfur is in the bok choy. This is because we know the whole food is what’s important, not just the vitamin count.

In a whole food you will find vitamins, minerals, amino acids, carotenoids, flavonoids, chlorophyll, enzymes and more. If you are not taking a whole food supplement, these ingredients are missing.

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