Supplements and diets and vitamins. Which natural supplements are the best options? There are so many choices out there, so where does one begin to even look for answers? When choosing high-quality supplements, there are key characteristics to consider: manufacturing practices, care of product from start to finish, environmental awareness.
I recently returned from the Standard Process Farm in Palmyra, WI, and it was an incredible experience. Standard Process (SP) is a company that provides dietary supplements that are whole-food based and organic. We carry SP products in our Corrective Chiropractic office, so I traveled north to check out the farm and manufacturing building. Everything about the facility was impressive (cleanliness, benefits for employees and their families, sheer size of the land, and the genuine kindness of those on site), but what amazed me the most was the congruency between what the company preaches (whole-food and organic) and what it preaches; from the soil to the final product, each creation is handled with delicate and intentional care.
Now, a majority of our daily nutrients should come from a diverse, colorful, and living diet, and supplements are intended to sprinkle on those nutrients a person might be missing. That being said, choosing whole-food supplements is imperative because the body recognizes exactly what is in them: whole foods. The challenge with synthetic vitamins is that they are not surrounded by the other components of the vitamin, so the body leaches those parts from wherever else they are stored in the body.
Dr. Mercola, health care professional and best-selling author, uses the following illustration in his article “Real or Synthetic: The Truth Behind Whole Food Supplements” (2005) to explain the importance of whole-food based products:
“An automobile is a wonderfully designed complex machine that needs all of its parts to be present and in place to function properly. Wheels are certainly an important part of the whole, but you could never isolate them from the rest of the car, call them a car or expect them to function like a car. They need the engine, body and everything else.”
The human body is a complex machine that has an innate intelligence to know exactly what to do to survive, and by golly it does whatever it can to keep everything aligned internally, regardless of how we treat it. Because the part of our bodies -organs, cells, DNA- are all living and active, we need to feed them with foods that were also living and active. Dead (processed) foods just simply do not provide necessary nutrients. Therefore, when you are looking for your next round of supplements to ensure a healthy body, make sure to seek out whole-food based, organic products from a manufacturer that takes precious care of each stage in the process from the farming to the manufacturing to the final production. Your living body will appreciate the nutrients and thrive!
To read Dr. Mercola’s article in its entirety, click here
Your Turn
Which natural supplements have you used? Leave comments below!
