“Fitness - If it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body.”

 - Cher

Choosing a healthy vitamin supplement can be almost as tricky as choosing a healthy food. I personally have little respect for the typical vitamins sold in the grocery store. I used them without ever noticing any difference in the way I felt. I have also tested certain brands of herbal supplements against others and found a big difference in the quality. Apparently, my unscientific findings are pretty typical. Consumer Laboratories, a non-profit organization, did random testing on bottled herbs in 1999.  At that time, 75% percent of the herbs met product quality standards. However, in 2003, when they repeated the test, only 22% of the products tested met standards. In fact, most contained only one-fifth of the active ingredient that they were supposed to contain.

Finding a pharmaceutical grade brand of supplements is key. It is really the only way for the consumer to know for sure that the label matches the product inside.  Another choice is to use “whole food” supplements as opposed to isolated vitamins. A whole-food supplement is one made of foods that have been concentrated into supplemental form. This provides you with vitamins the way that they exist in nature - with their co-factors intact.  Whole-food nutrients also have a lower risk of toxicity.

Previous in series Next in series