Janella Purcell is a four times best-selling author and has combined her vast knowledge of food and nutrition and how our emotional state and lifestyle can affect our wellbeing, to create a multi-disciplined approach to regain good health and wellbeing. Dedicated to a core philosophy of food as medicine, Janella treats ailments including poor digestion, weight issues, reproductive and auto-immune disorders, and cancer. We are so excited to have Janella back to The Raw Blend Family as our Guest Blogger this month to talk to us about Getting Real with Supplements.
Getting Real with Supplements
I know most of us, after looking at our yellow urine—post taking a Vitamin B supplement—wonder if we’re absorbing any of it at all.
It’s a valid question.
Most supplements available in Australia are made of synthetic ingredients artificially created in a laboratory. These use only the isolated vitamin, and often-in high doses. It looks good on the label but our bodies can’t use these high doses so will often excrete them.
Vitamins are highly complex structures, not just an isolated ingredient. Nature has perfectly put together a complex structure of macro and micro-nutrients, co-factors and enzymes, coenzymes, antioxidants, trace elements, activators and many other as yet unknown or undiscovered factors, all working together beautifully to enable this vitamin to do its job in your body.
Nature has been perfecting itself for millions of years so why start messing with it now? Especially to use synthetic ingredients we can’t use. They also damage the earth.
By isolating one part of a vitamin, then synthesizing it into a supplement, is not going to do as much good as topping up your nutritional needs with a wholefood supplements that our body recognizes and will use. Plus, you have the added bonus of adding it to our meals. See my simple and yummy recipes on ways to do this at home here.
When you take a wholefood supplement you’re taking concentrated wholefoods. That’s it! No artificial colours, flavours, buffers, coatings, lactose, gluten and other nasty things. These are wholefoods that have been dehydrated and put in a bottle (a BPA- free recyclable bottle that is).
A Checklist
Clients often tell me they are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice that’s presented on the health food store or pharmacy shelves. And I can see why. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to even tell which products are synthetic and which are not.
My checklist is always:
- Must be from a wholefood source with minimal processing involved;
- Must not include synthetic additives or fillers of any kind;
- The company behind the product must be ethical;
- Products must come from a company that takes sustainability seriously;
- Products must be premium, high quality.
When you start looking—and I mean really digging—you’ll soon see that there are very few companies that can claiming bragging rights to such a list.
So, what do I recommend to clients and use myself? Lifestream formulates vegan, wholefood supplements; a combination of ethical, sustainable and natural foods that work together as opposed to one synthetic element operating in isolation. I’ve personally used their products for 15 years.
The Natural Vitamin B Complex is literally organic quinoa sprouts and that’s it! Their Natural Vitamin C? Acerola berries, that’s it. Spirulina is only spirulina, and Ultimate Veggies is veggies and herbs! All very easy to absorb (bioavailable)–leaky gut or not.
Above all, I encourage everyone who is interested in their health to look beyond labels and the promises emblazoned on them. Dig a little deeper and know what it is you’re putting into your body. You’ll soon notice the difference!