Supplements Aren’t What They Seem!

Written by Changing Habits

March 7, 2012

This month I was alerted via my facebook page CHANGING HABITS about a supplement company that had added hydrogenated vegetable oil, soy oil and vanillin to their pregnancy vitamin and mineral supplement.  Julie Yuen one of the followers on the page alerted me to it.  There was quite a conversation with 95 comments about the issue.  So I figured it was important that I share it with you all.

A well known healthy company adds the above three ingredients to their Pregnancy and Breast Feeding Gold. While I’ve always respected this well known healthy company, I was very upset to see this addition.  They did come back and let us know why they add them, but no matter what they are, these three ingredients are not conducive to health.  I thought you might like to read my opinion about supplements.

Juliet Yuen has done a marvelous job in calling this health company and getting the correct information.  I agree with Juliet, why put the hydrogenated oil and soya oil in, in the first place?  Why is there a need?  Yes they had told us it is needed for certain things so that the nutrients can be assimilated by the body but why take two steps forward with your health and one step back?  Why deconstruct a food and then try to put it back together again by synthetically making the vitamins and nutrients and then adding back poor quality food items so that we can absorb the nutrients.

Just to clarify hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.  The first creates a saturated fat the second creates a mix of trans fats and saturated fat.  The problem is the process, it is a process to give a liquid solidity at room temperature as well as give it an indefinite life.  Read my article on margarine to find out the history of this deplorable food process.  No matter how well it is sourced it is still a process that is not for health.

Vanillin is not vanilla it is the synthetic version of vanilla, so another disappointing additive.

Vitamins and minerals are required by the body, never in the history of evolution has there ever been a food that has one nutrient.  Foods are filled with many different vitamins and minerals which work to keep the plant healthy and us as well.

Be very careful with vitamins and mineral tablets, they are filled with fillers and vitamins and minerals made in a laboratory and often not from food.  As this company explained they are there for a purpose, but why break something down then put it together again when you can get the same with food.

If you want to have a healthy baby or a healthy body and get enough zinc, B6, folate, iron then treat your body to a diet of green leafy foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruits, eggs, quality dairy, wild meat (red and white) and wild fish, quality grains, fresh herbs, spices and all the foods that are in their whole state and not in a package.

My husband has been looking for a good food source of vitamin C.  Kakadu plum has the  highest amount of vitamin C for weight, next is camu camu and then rosehip.  We found some camu camu but the capsule (not tablet) has maltodextrin added to the camu camu – WHAT???  I couldn’t believe that they did that so I said forget it we are not doing that.  Not even the slightest additive in my way of thinking is OK.  If I’m to bring camu camu to the market or kakadu plum it will be the food dried and blended to make a powder nothing will be added.  I’d rather just have the food but that is ending up a very, very, very expensive exercise.  Dried kakadu plum is $500kg wholesale!

This facebook post has bought up so many questions, but to answer everyone succinctly, if you want a good fish oil, eat fish twice a week – all fish oil is highly processed.  If you want zinc, eat oysters, if you want B6 and B12 eat meat and whole grains and sprouts, if you want iron, get a mix of meat and green leafy vegetables, they work together to support the amount of iron to be absorbed into your body.  Nature has done a brilliant job!  If you want to enhance your nutrition buy supplements that are a concentrated food sources, such as green powders made with wheat grass juice etc, probiotics based on food not made in a petrie dish – you see the probiotics made on food enhances the nutrition of the food and the bugs are just the added bonus.

This is not hard this is something that we can all do.  I’m working hard to bring ethical foods to Changing Habits.  The only foods I bring are ones that I consume myself.  If I don’t eat them or take them regularly then I don’t have them as part of Changing Habits.

I’m working to learn more so that I can teach you and so we know exactly what is right for us and not be surprised when we find a company that is trusted and is perhaps not doing the right thing all the time.

As a young nutritionist I was in awe of many supplement companies, but as I learn more about food and the miracle of whole real food, the less I trust supplements made in a laboratory with additives.

Changing Habits has salt (lots of minerals), rapadura sugar, green powder a real food, colloidal minerals extracted from vegetation, probiotics made on food. My foundation book Changing Habits Changing Lives was based on a philosophy of going back to basics and vitalism and anything we do is based on that book.

I’m often asked when are you going to bring out a multi vitamin and mineral, my answer is always – NEVER!!!  Food is where we need to get our nutrients, the cleaner the food, the closer the food to your locality and the more real food we can eat the healthier we will be.

If you base your diet on junk food and eat vitamin and mineral supplements – then you’ve missed the point and in the end it is a waste of time and money!!!

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