Supplements are Better than Real Food

Keep in mind that even the vendors of the supplements made from real food have their interest in making money.

Promoting usually very expensive supplements containing just a very little amount of vitamins when compared to “synthetic” vitamins is in their financial interest.

There is a lot of producers of supplements on the market today so creating “just another” B-complex may not bring you so many customers as bringing something else what nobody ever heard of. Some “revolutionary” B-complex which has vitamins extracted from this or that source.

Another funny thing is that people are willing to take toxic prescription or over-the-counter drugs for years but at the same time they are afraid of magnesium stearate, folic acid or vitamin C as ascorbic acid powder.

How much further can this marketing and brainwashing go?

Real food vs. supplement

A lot of people say that food is better. Generally I agree but we have that choice when going down the aisle in a grocery store. We can buy the real food there or buy a junk food.

Making a dilemma where vitamins extracted from real food stand against the chemically synthesized vitamins is not relevant in my opinion.

You should understand that vitamin supplement made of real food is made of the same food you can buy in the grocery store. There is nothing else in those supplements.

If you buy B-complex made from real food then you actually get a highly processed food and concentrated in a capsule or tablet. So you are buying much more processed product than you would if you bought raw fruit or vegetable and eat it.

In real food vitamin supplements you actually buying highly processed food to the point where they put a few tens or hundreds of milligrams of food extracts into one supplement capsule and claim that this amount is effective and contains enough vitamins for 180lbs (80 kg) human being.

This was actually still OK if they would state the exact amount of vitamins coming from plant sources.

Some companies do it but the other do not state exactly where those vitamins come from.

I mean they put on the label that there are vitamins coming from fruit and vegetable but not exactly what amount of those vitamins comes from plants and how much from yeast extract or if the rest of the vitamins is synthetically produced. This is particularly important information for natural B-vitamin supplements because brewer’s yeast is an easy way how to get cheap source of natural B-vitamins which can be sold to customers for much more.

Do those natural vitamins work?

No doubt they work, why they would not?

If the supplement contains the high enough amount of vitamins then they work. I am not against the naturally sourced vitamin supplements but I know that even synthetically produced vitamins work.

So everyone who spreads the message of ineffectiveness of synthetic vitamins is doing a very bad service to all those people who can not afford spend a lot of money on the most expensive supplements.

Apple fiber is a man-made supplement not a real food

For example you can buy an apple fiber which is made of apples. I doubt that there is any producer of apple fiber who would just extract the fiber from apple pulps and throw away the whole fine apple.

It is the reverse order; first apple juice is extracted and you can buy it as apple juice in a grocery store. Then the producer of apple juice sells or even gives for free that apple pomace (what left of the juiced apples). The producer of apple fiber will process the apple pomace and sell it to you as the apple fiber.

But which way is better for you? Eating raw apples or taking apple fiber powder?

Well, if you want to use apple fiber as prebiotic without the need of eating a lot of apples then processed apple fiber is way better and more convenient. You avoid a lot of sugar which is present in the apples and it is much easier to mix the apple fiber in yogurt rather than chewing a pound or two of apples 3 times a day.

So what is better?

A real food – fresh apples; or processed supplement (mechanically and chemically with enzymes) – the apple fiber?[2]

For me it is the apple fiber.

And if you take into account the process called waxing during which the wax is applied to apples before going to stores in order to preserve their weight and improve the look then the “unnatural” processed apple fiber you can buy in a box actually wins the battle.

That does not mean you should avoid fresh apples but it is not convenient to force yourself to eat apples two or three times daily just because it is real food and you want to get the fiber into your body.

Real food is enough in ideal world only

Real food is the best way in an ideal world but unfortunately we do not live in the ideal world.

Diet is not enough or it is not he fastest way how to get better today.

A lot of vitamins contained in food are not meant by evolution to be the major source for humans.[1]

Intestinal bacteria should do that job and produce enough of B-vitamins for us; but problems like SIBO, bad digestion, antibiotics, junk food, drinking chlorinated and fluorinated tap water significantly and negatively affect this process!

So my opinion is that supplements are far better when there is some chronic health problem we want to address and supplements may help us to find and possibly eliminate the culprit much faster. If you have psoriasis then you probably know already that diet alone is usually not enough to improve your skin.

The ultimate goal is to bring the body back to its natural balance but why not with help of man-made bioidentical molecules – vitamins?

Molecule is just a molecule so it does not matter what is the source. Whether it comes from a plant, bacteria, yeast or if it is a bioidentical molecule synthesized in the laboratory.

Which brand of supplements is the best?

I do not promote or bash any brand of supplements; most of them have some good products and worse products at least according the data they put on the labels.

Even the price is nowhere near the best factor for you how to decide which product is better.

I have listed the products I think are good for the price for Amazon customers and for the customers outside the USA the best choice is iHerb with very low shipping rates. So just check which products I recommend on Amazon and search for them on iHerb.com.

The manufacturers often change the ingredients in their supplements so keep that in mind. Some products become better after changing the formula and some worse.

Conclusion

Supplements are meant to supplement the diet with some vitamins or other nutrients we may lack in our diet or have the higher demand for due to whatever reason.

If you have a lot of money and can afford spend hundreds or thousands on the best natural products out there then it is your choice. However, there is a lot of people asking on the internet what to do if they need good, safe and effective B-complex or vitamin C supplement but they can not afford spend 70 dollars per month on just one supplement.

They should know that even B-complex which will cost them 5 dollars per month is effective and still much better scenario than suffering due to some deficiency.

For example if folic acid synthesized in a laboratory is proved to work for anemia and is metabolized by the body to its active form then how could anybody say that it is better to be deficient rather than take this cheap supplement?

You can not believe anybody on the internet because you never know if the people recommending you some product are not financially interested in selling that product or promoting that particular brand.

Leave your opinion on naturally sourced vitamin supplements vs. synthetic supplements in the comments.

References:

1) Hill MJ. Intestinal flora and endogenous vitamin synthesis. Eur J Cancer Prev. 1997 Mar;6 Suppl 1:S43-5.
2) Martha Dolores Bibbins-Martíneza, Blanca Enciso-Chávez, Soley Berenice Nava Galiciaa, Dalia Castillo Hernández. Soluble Dietary Fiber generation from Apple Pomace. Int Congr Eng Food (ICEF). Poster Presentation Athens Greece 2011