5 Common Health Supplement Additives We Don't Use and Why

While food manufacturers everywhere have scrambled in recent years to keep up with a growing demand for clean food products, it would appear that the health supplement industry is a little late to get the memo. Many leading supplement companies, making products intended to improve their customer's health, are actually loaded with toxic ingredients that can actually be doing the exact opposite.

What it really comes down to is consumer education. The next time you purchase a supplement, be sure to flip over the bottle and pay close attention to the list of "other ingredients". This is where you'll find a slew of potentially toxic ingredients such as:

*fillers
*bulking agents
*binders
*anti-caking agents
*coatings
*carriers
*emulsifiers
*artificial sweeteners or refined sugars
*artificial flavors
*chemical preservatives

You wouldn't eat any of this stuff in your food - it's time to hold our supplements to the same standards; affter-all, we eat them both. 

Here are a few common additives to look out for:

Magnesium stearate and stearic acid

Perhaps the most common of ALL supplement additives, magnesium stearate can be both vegan and animal derived. This chalky-textured lubricant has been shown to supress the immune system and even create something called a "biofilm" within our GI system which can inhibit nutrient absorption.

Gelatin

The most common material used for encapsulation, gelatin is a byproduct of meat production, and aside from being non-vegan, is most often sourced from factory farmed animals. While gelatin may be used because it's easy to swallow, animal cruelty is not. 

Hydrogenated Oils

Hydrogenated oils are made in a lab, not in nature, and can wreak havoc on our health. They have been proven to increase the likelihood of heart disease, block the body's ability to absorb critical essential fatty acids, cause a hardening of our cell membranes which decreases detoxification and inhibits nutrient absorption, and can even upset blood sugar regulation. They are also most often derived from cottonseed and soy, two heavily GMO contaminated crops. Stay away, stay far far away. 

Lactose

Lactose is a sugar sourced from dairy. Not only is it a common allergen for many people with milk sensitivities, it is also most likely going to be sourced from conventional dairy products extracted from factory farmed cows, who may or may not be fed GMO corn, soy, and wheat, growth hormones, and antibiotics.

Titanium dioxide

The ingredient responsible for making pills that perfectly white color, this metal is not something we would be ingesting naturally in our food supply, and like magnesium stearate, has been shown to inhibit our immune system, likely because it is toxic if ingested on a regular basis.

Thankfully there is a solution to all of this toxicity. Our Veggimins and Sunbiotics supplements are always purely formulated and free of additives. We use actual foods as the "carriers"; for instance you'll see organic Jerusalem artichoke in many of our formulas to create body and act as a nutrient-rich delivery medium for the "active" ingredients. Our Sunbiotics chewable probiotic tablets are formed using pressure, never binders or glues. Our supplements taste not only palatable, but GOOD, because they're made from actual foods - no chemical flavorants or artificial sweeteners required.