FYI on Supplements

We urge you to resist the temptation to be "penny wise and pound foolish" when it comes to purchasing herbs, nutritional supplements and natural remedies in general.  (The same of course applies to food.)

Based on over fifteen years of research together with invaluable personal experience, we believe that the vast majority of supplements in the marketplace today are a waste of money AND time for several reasons - the most important of which is inferior quality. We use our products personally because we have found them to be the highest quality and best values in the industry.

Fraud and a variety of deceptive practices are rife throughout the industry, and you cannot count on so-called protections, including "Certification Seals", "Seal of approvals" and other "guarantees" - which are awarded for a fee through trade groups such as the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) and the National Nutritional Foods Association (NNFA) - to protect you.

Further, when you follow the money, you find that all the natural foods/supplement trade associations worldwide are controlled from the top down by pharmaceutical interests whose main focus is on drug profits - and most certainly not on the effectiveness of particular supplements.  Just as problematic is the fact that the larger supplement companies dominate the trade associations, and their primary interest is market share - whether or not said coveted market share comes at the expense of the consumer.

While there are a number of very good supplement manufacturers, the process of finding them is difficult at best, especially for the average consumer. Even when good, reliable companies are found, the competition is so intense that often they are driven out of business or taken over by larger companies, particularly by drug companies where profits become paramount. 

Competition can become so intense in fact that even highly principled companies can succumb to taking shortcuts or compromising quality in order to survive. We have even found instances where products from our recommended sources have been repackaged with inferior ingredients or sold through a second party past the expiration date - at low, low prices of course. This is the brutal reality of the supplement industry today.

And this is why we have come to rely primarily (though not exclusively) on specific products from a select number of relatively small, independently owned companies we have carefully researched and whom we find to be reliable, consistant, value-driven and dedicated to deliver products superior to most - and often any - of what can be found in the marketplace today. 

When you do make purchases through a health store, rely on your own in-depth research on the product and its manufacturer to make selections - and do patronize the small, locally owned stores as much as possible.