“When it comes to buying dietary supplements, you essentially have two choices: buy according to price, or buy according to quality. If you buy the cheapest supplement, you’ll end up with an inferior product that may not improve your health. Therefore buying the cheapest is a waste of your money. In fact, the lowest-price products may contain impurities or additives that could actually make you worse.”  Connecticut Center for Health

What things that you routinely use do you purchase according to price?  What things according to quality?

Those who cheat with dishonest weights and measures are detestable to the LORD your God.  (Deut. 25:16; NLT)

Yesterday, we left off by saying that there was one more major aspect of vitamins and minerals that contributes greatly to the rampant confusion and continued stream of mis-information, i.e., quality.  The following discussion of this major issue leans heavily on the article written by my friend Richard Goutal.

You may have selected the right kind of vitamin and mineral product only to end up with something quite unexpected.  Unfortunately, just choosing from the shelf can be like spinning the wheel of fortune.

Over the last 20 years, thousands of supplements have become available in stores and on the Internet.  And the quality has not been consistent nor reliable.  In 2004, for example, Consumer Lab analyzed 11 echinacea products — echinacea is an herbal supplement many believe helps to reduce colds.  Of the 11 samples, five failed.  They either had unacceptable levels of lead in the supplement, or they had lower amounts of the echinacea ingredient than was claimed on the label.  Incidentally, one of the failed products was marketed by a well-known and respected, healthy foods grocery store.

The Consumer Lab results are not especially surprising when you know that the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center had examined 59 echinacea products that they purchased locally just two years previously.  They found that NOT ONE sample matched the promise on the label.  Six had no evidence of echinacea in the product at all!

In 2004, Consumer Lab looked at 1000 supplements of different kinds.  25% simply did not contain what the label claimed!  In addition, many had heavy metals or pesticide residue — hardly what one expects in a health supplement.

And, very relevant to the headlines in the last few years, is the surprising and often deliberate, addition of hidden ingredients, especially in diet products or products designed for athletes.

More specific to the topic of our series, in 2007 Consumer Lab looked at 39 vitamin and mineral products.  Once again a substantial number of products were not reliable.

Today’s link give some guidelines that consumers should follow as they decide where and what supplement products to purchase.  There are a few companies out there that stress quality procedures that meet or exceed the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).  With a little effort, you can learn who they are.  You just need to learn to ask questions and expect reasonable answers.

But you must also be willing to pay more for those supplements than you would at the local discount store.  In fact, it is rare that you will find the kind of quality you want in any retail store.  In many of the cheaper brands, the major cost component of the product is the packaging.  And it is not stretching the truth too much to suggest that the packaging would be more nutritious than is the contents.

Well, that about wraps it up for our look at vitamins and minerals.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about anything we’ve written here.

Prayer Power
Father, none of us like to get “taken” when we make a purchase.  We ask that You pour out Your gift of discernment into each and every one of us so that we can not be duped into exchanging our hard-earned finances for valueless junk.

Link of the Day
What You Need to Know When Buying Nutritional Supplements

Blessings on you as you begin the research necessary to be a wise steward.

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