All Natural Food Supplements

Health and All Natural Food Supplements

Food supplements include vitamins and minerals, but also include all the things we add to our diet to make us healthy.  Water can be a food supplement.  Probiotics, enzymes, fiber, micronutrients and herbs are food supplements.  We use food supplements to make up for nutritional deficiencies in the food we eat, or to make up for metabolic deficiencies in our bodies. You can buy synthetic or all natural food supplements.  Synthetic supplements are manufactured chemically and may not contain all the supplements you need. 

When you’re buying all natural food supplements, you do need to make sure that’s really what you’re getting.  When you check the label, it should list the plant ingredients.  You should not find chemicals, preservatives, or anything that says, “artificial.”

Make sure your “all natural” food supplements are certified organic, too.  Non-organic plants may have chemical residues that can be harmful.  There’s no point in going to the trouble of finding all natural food supplements, and then getting ones that contain pesticides.

That brings up a problem with all natural food supplements:  lack of regulation.  Regulation is a two-edged sword, because over-regulation can kill a natural industry.  On the other hand, there is no standard for “all natural” products.  They can be made out of nearly anything and still claim to be “all natural.”  If they’re certified organic all natural food supplements, at least you know they were grown without pesticides or other harmful gardening products.

In addition, there hasn’t been enough solid research on all natural food supplements to establish standardized doses or to ensure that they are effective.  Many physicians are doubtful about the benefits of all natural food supplements because they haven’t had the rigorous testing that is required for drugs and other health care products.  When research backs up the health claims of all natural food supplements, they will be more widely accepted, and physicians may even begin to prescribe them.