How do you choose a vitamin and mineral supplement?
For too many it is matter of head into the chemist or search online, find the one that gives you the most tablets for the least amount of money. GREAT, tick!
Well, as much as the financial outlay is a big consideration it can be the worse approach. Whether you spend $20, twice or three times as much, you need to make an informed decision.
So how? What is an informed decision when you are talking supplements?
The first consideration should be one that looks at the quality of the manufacturer. What are their values as a business, their standards as a business, what do they stand for? This is important. How do they source their products prior to manufacturing and are they using sustainable sources? GMO? Pesticides? Binders? If these words mean anything to you, then you are after quality products with a from a manufacturer with a conscience.
Next you want to do some research on what is the IDEAL dose in order to obtain the intended therapeutic benefit, otherwise what’s the point? Take fish oil as an example, the benefits are best when the dose is 1000mg, so if your tablets contain 250mg, taking one won’t get you far. In fact it would be a waste of your money, cheap or not you might as well flush your money down the toilet. You don’t want to be downing ¼ of the contents of the bottle just to hit required doses.
Now you know to check the dosage, check the ingredients. What’s necessary and what have they added to fill out the ingredients list? Sometimes this is necessary as certain vitamins have better efficacy or bioavailability when paired with something else, such as turmeric and black pepper. So if there are extra ingredients on the panel, then know their purpose before being impressed by their inclusion.
These considerations should form a great deal of your purchasing decision. We know they impacted greatly on what company we chose to stock our shelves with at PPT. The Thorne products we keep are of superior quality and they stand behind it, as do we. Have a look at this great flowchart that explains their production process with all the measures and checks they have in place to ensure quality is maintained.
Don’t cheat yourself out of a good quality product for the sake of a few dollars. If you have any questions, make sure you ask them and be comfortable with your purchase decision.
For more information on Thorne, their product development process or any other information on their supplements, head to link below.
https://www.thorne.com/quality