Supplments and Harmful Ingredients

If you’re taking a multi-vitamin, or looking into starting to supplement at all, you just want to assure you’re finding and taking a WHOLE FOOD multi-vitamin or supplement.. and you want to check your “Other ingredients” list more carefully, for supplements tend to be crammed with a variety of other binders, fillers and other bulk additives that are not good, and may even be causing more harm, to your body. Especially, if you’re taking them at least once – to sometimes THREE times a day in your daily multi-vitamin.

On another note, I do recommend taking a closer look at EVERY product you purchase “Ingredients” list because you are sure to be surprised the amount of extra nonsense they sneak into everything we bring in, on, and around our bodies in every aspect of our daily lives. If we care about our bodies and are choosing to be an educated consumer.. unfortunately it requires constant diligence to look past the fancy key terms on the front of the package and really see the product for what it is. Many of the products I consume daily you will notice it’s best to shy away from products when possible that contain ingredients and bulk additives such as: Artificial colors and flavors, “Natural Flavors” – which by the way, can include MSG and even the possibility of a kidney cell line from an aborted fetus from the 70s (HEK293, if you want to look more into it), hydrogenated oils, artificial preservatives, etc.. As it turns out, many of these same ingredients, and more, are sometimes used in the mass production of many Vitamins and Supplements on the market.

I mentioned above taking a WHOLE FOOD Vitamin or Supplement. It’s actually been proven that synthetic versions of fat soluble “Vitamins” like Vitamin A, D and E (study showing synthetic vitamin increased risk of lung cancer, stroke and death) are linked with actually causing detrimental effects on the body.

I discovered through pregnancy when in search of a safe Prenatal Vitamin – That it’s actually been found that in the example of Synthetic Vitamin A, administering this Vitamin to over 20,000 women was shown to increase their risk of birth defects by 400%! On a side note: An example to help in determining what supplement is right for you, if you find one with the labeled Vitamin “Folic Acid” this is the SYNTHETIC version of “Folate”. You would want to find one with “Folate.”

Typically, synthetic versions are isolated and not ingested in conjunction with the other compounds necessary as you would find existing in nature – which allows the Vitamin to be appropriately used in your body. Part of what makes a certain food, like a fruit or a vegetable so nutritious for us is the synergistic effect all the vitamins found in that one food work together. For a Synthetic Vitamin to be switched “on” and used in your body, there would have to be the perfect amount of many other Vitamins at the same time to make that magic happen. Synthetic Vitamins are really not recognized by our body readily on their own to even be used and absorbed in the proper way Vitamins found in nature would.

Over the course of my search I began to notice consistently the same ingredients popping up over and over in 99% of the products I picked up in the Health and Vitamin section of every store. A few more ingredients I actually found commonly in the majority of capsule supplements are Magnesium Stearate and Stearic Acid. These are used in the manufacturing process of supplements, to allow the ingredients to not clog up or stick to their machines. So, we are ingesting this additive daily in our multi-vitamin just so it allows their bulk processing to run a bit smoother.. all while these additives:

1. Directly affect the way our bodies are able to process the nutrients in which we are taking the supplement in the first place, rendering taking the supplement useless because our bodies cannot even readily absorb it.

And 2. Not only that but also, previous research also shows that these additives suppress our bodies immune systems natural “killer” T Cells that are in place to attack pathogens..Keep in mind these are products we are trying to add into our lives to BENEFIT our health, not hinder it..

I’ve personally already been on this EXHAUSTING search to find the cleanest, whole-food supplement without any other CRAP added to it.. and thus far, in my personal journey I’ve found the brand Garden of Life Raw Prenatal in my supplement journey during pregnancy and during breastfeeding, and I still currently take their Garden of Life Women’s Probiotic.  They have a variety of vitamins, multi-vitamins, protein powders, and other products varying for men (My ex used to take their Men’s Probiotic regularly as well) and women and your particular demographic, so you’ll have to do a bit of research on your own into that depending on your individual situation and what you are looking for out of a vitamin and supplement in your life.

Though, I’m always on a search for an even better quality supplement I would love to be able to add onto this page. So, if you’ve been on your journey and discovered anything of higher quality clean ingredients, I would love to hear about it and help spread the word!

Pure Encapsulations: Here is a link to their NAC I use in my home when respiratory viruses are floating around or in our household. Though all of the brand supplements contain very little other ingredients; and seemingly nothing harmful.

Nutribiotic: My fav Vitamin C Powder

Thorne Research Brand: Thanks to Becca for the shout out on these bad boys! I love that this company is very transparent in their product. They aren’t trying to sneak around with any sneaky stuff.

This blog post does contain affiliate linking to the products in which I wanted to share with you.