Natural or Not?
What the label says and what it means are two different things. Natural isn’t the same as natural food for human consumption. Rocks are natural, but we do not intentionally eat them. Yet, unfortunately, many of us do unintentionally ingest ground-up rocks like calcium carbonate (commonly known as limestone or chalk). In fact, calcium citrate, calcium ascorbate, calcium gluconate, calcium lactate, and other forms of this mineral are calcium carbonate (limestone) processed with various acids or chemicals. These ground-up rocks and industrial chemicals are not absorbed like food by the human body. They do not contain protein chaperones, enzymes, peptides, or other real food factors needed for absorption by human cells.
Dr. Robert Thiel, PHD, Naturopath, and Researcher, explains, “There is a relatively easy way to tell if minerals are industrial chemicals. Whenever there are two words on a label describing a mineral, it is logical to conclude that the substance is an industrial mineral product and not 100% food. The exception is chromium GTF (the GTF stands for glucose tolerance factor) which is food if it is from nutritional yeast.”
Likewise with vitamins. Most natural vitamins are also called USP or pharmaceutical grade. They contain no food. Their sources are most often made of or processed with petroleum derivatives or hydrogenated sugars. They must be taken with the right food for maximum utilization. Even most food based supplements are USP vitamins and inorganic rock mineral salts mixed with some food. Read the label.
The most common non-food isolates to watch out for are:
- Ascorbic acid
- Calcium carbonate
- Calcium lactate*
- Chromium picolinate
- Cyanocobalamin
- Folic acid
- Magnesium oxide
- Niacin
- Pantothenic acid
- Thiamin HCL (or thiamin hydrochloride) Thiamin mononitrate
- Pyridoxine hydrochloride
- Vitamin A acetate
- Vitamin A palmitate*
- Vitamin E acetate
- Zinc oxide
*Note: while this can come from food, it is still an isolate. Mixing foods with these items, as some companies do, does not change their chemical properties.
At Food Research 100% natural food ingredients are used. Unlike most “natural” supplements, we do not use synthetic fillers, binders, or preservatives. Food Research superior food sources, innovative processing, and meticulous quality control separate us from the rest of the products on the market.
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