Vitamins/ Supplements - Wheaton,IL

K.,
You have a lot of great questions. Good for you for wanting to supply your body with good, quality supplements. You want to be able find a vitamin company that has science and research behind them. Its sometimes hard to do and most people don't know where to look.

Contact the companies that you are looking at and ask them about how many scientists they have on staff, how many peer review journals they have been written in, where do your raw materials come from?

I can assist you with finding a good quality company if you are interested and I can show you how to tell what's good and what other questions to ask, if you are interested.

You are right, though, what is on the label isn't always what is in the body and a lot of times, it goes through your system without even dissolving!

Send me a message and I can send you some information, if you are interested!
B.

ConsumerLab.com is a third party tester of all the vitamins on the market, however, you have to pay an annual fee to be a member and have access to their files. But you are right, all vitamins are not created equal. I am a member and will tell you New Chapter Prenatal is an excellent. Nordic Naturals Ultimat Omega w/ Vitamin D is a godo brand for you to take as well. Fish oils is important for brain growth and development, espcially during the first two years of life. As for Vitamin D, I give my 16m old Nordic Naturals Children's DHA, which has Vitamin D in it. Cod Liver Oil will work well too. Just mix it in with their milk. ChildLife Liquid Multi is a great multi vitamin for kids too. No fillers, etc. You can find it on www.vitacost.com as well as your prenatals.

A great way to test your vitamins is to put it in 8oz of distilled vinegar for 30-min, if it completely dissolves, then it is being absorpbed in your body, if it does not dissolve...then basically it is no good.

Happy Holidays,
J. W. MPH
Wellness Educator/Lifestyle and Wellness Consultant

Hi K.-first of all all of these posts are absolutely right. We have to change our mind set to a whole food supplement. Not a vitamin--they do not work and most are bound with tar. Their is no regulation to putting chemicals and cutting agents into supplements.

Any type of supplement should have 3rd party testing and endorsements, hands down. the USDA organic stamp is not enough either. Their standards are to low.

I use an Australian brand-it is a bit pricey but they are the best internationally. It is a whole food supplement (which means it comes from fruits and veggies). I do not sell it but endorse it. I found a very knowledgeable online store owner in the area. The product is Miessence (they make a product with the pure cacao for us chocolate lovers!!)

here is her website

karenmacnab.mionegroup.com

If you go to vitacost.com and look at their website-these brands are absolutely great!!

NSI
Nordic Naturals
New Chapter
Quantum

Further I have a blog with all sorts of extra info--you will also want to look into eating more raw live food--that will also help very much (make sure it is organic as much as possible!!)

www.originalgranolagirl.blogspot.com

Our supplements need to come from what the earth gives us!!

Second the Vitamin D--you need Vitamin d3 not d2. NSI makes a really good one that I use--for children 2000-3000 (there are liquid forms) iu's a day and adults 5000-6000 iu's a day for maintenance.

Let me know if you have more questions!!

T.
Detox Coach

Wow, great topic K.! You are absolutely right about all vitamins are not alike - even in health food stores. Whole food nutrition is absolutely necessary. Eating raw foods is best but we all can't do that with our daily, hectic schedules. Another thing you should look for is the ORAC value. Oxygen radical absorption capacity as wellness people know it, is a standardized measurement of the total antioxidant power of a substance. Antioxidant power is the ability to neutralize oxygen free radicals. The more free radicals a substance can absorb, the higher it's ORAC score. Nutritionists recommend that we consume around 5000 ORAC units per day. Free radicals can be produced within the body or introduced from outside ie. tobacco smoke, toxins, pollutants and poor eating habits. Free radicals are believed to accelerate the progression of cancer, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue, and age-related diseases. Antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables help to neutralize free radicals in our bodies. One serving (half a cup) of fruits or vegetables provides approximately 500 ORAC units. If you're not eating at least 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, you're not getting the recommended amount of ORAC units to mop-up the damage caused by free radicals in your body every day. I use a great certified organic product that contains over 7000 ORAC units!! I'm never sick!! To get the equivalent amount of ORAC units from other foods, you'd have to buy 9 pints of blueberries, 41 bottles of Noni juice, 17 pints of raspberries, 17 bottles of Goji juice, 14 pints of strawberries, 12 bottles of Mangosteen juice. WOW, that's a lot!

So, to answer your question, you must get yourself educated. I'd be happy to supply you with information on this and other products that you can get online that come straight to your door. Great for the winter weather! Give me your email address and I'll be happy to provide you with more!

Here's to your health,

K.
Wellness Consultant

Hi K.,
I used Now foods prenatal vitamins. I ordered them on www.nowfoods.com They also have vitamin D. 100% Natural and safe-A.

You're absolutely right about some supplements having lead in them. Even the brand my chiropractor recommends has some amounts of lead in it. There is a government website that lists the brands that have been found to have lead.
I trust Shaklee for all of my vitamins because they have the strictest testing that I have ever seen. They produce their supplements in a pharmaceutical grade facility, even though it is not required. They actually discovered that a third party processing center was allowing lead into products. They tested their raw materials before and after they went to this processing plant and they were pure going in, and lead contaminated when they came out. The bearings being used to crush the product were made of lead. Shaklee actually went in and helped them find and fix the problem. But many other companies had used that facility before and then put those lead contaminated products on the market.
I would check out the Shaklee supplements.
www.shaklee.net/rkklemm
they also have great supplements for children in both chewable, liquid, and powder that can be mixed with food.