**HOAX** Why the terms "Natural" & "Time Release" or "Sustained Release
In continuation of my last blog on “The Wholefood Deception,” this is to further provide insight into the deception that plagues the supplement industry. The issue I have with the deception is one of ethics in marketing. Companies and individuals know exactly what they are doing; capitalizing on what they believe is ignorance of the consumer. My goal is to help you to understand the deception so that you can make an informed decision.
If the supplement market was a garden, I'm trying to be a gardener. As I pull out the weeds, the plants will continue to grow. If I let these weeds control or overtake the garden then...; well, let's not get to that point. Time to pull some more weeds.
In supplements, most often when you see the word, “natural”, the product is not natural at all. In vitamin supplements, the description of “natural” refers to a synthetic (man-made) “vitamin” that is a replica of the natural vitamin molecule as found in nature.
You will never find an isolated “vitamin” in nature.
You can't go to the garden and pick some “ascorbic acid” or “pyridoxine Hydrochloride (HCL)", or "cholecalciferol.” These are the synthetic names for so-called “natural” vitamins sold in the industry as Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin D respectively. These synthetic chemicals do not and have not appeared in any living cell tissue upon this planet, and are not “Natural”.
So how could they call it “Natural”? These ingredients have been artificially concocted in a pharmaceutical laboratory. These chemicals were treated in such a way that the end product's molecular structure appears to be “identical” to the molecular structure of a vitamin in food. Although the outward appearance of the synthetic vitamin molecule may seem identical in one dimensional thinking, the synthetic replica could never be and should never be considered equal to the real vitamin as it is found in nature.
Comparing the synthetic vitamin so-called “natural” to the true “natural” vitamin that is embedded in wholefood, would be similar to a celebrity standing next to a wax sculpture of themselves and stating that everything about their wax self is the same, inside and out. This human replica wax sculpture, although it appears “life-like” with “identical” outside appearances, is void of a very important aspect in order to be considered equal. Vitality. Life. The wax sculpture near the celebrity, although some could claim they are identical, one would be foolish to ever consider them as equals. The wax figure is to the human, as the synthetic “vitamin” is to the wholefood vitamin that appears in nature.
Now on to the term “Time Release or Sustained Release Formulation”.
This marketing hoax is quite the story. This strategy was formed to “prolong” the absorption of the material that is poor to absorb in the first place. What they have done is simply add a binding material to their synthetic or isolated nutrient in a heavier than normal dosage, so it will take the body longer to dissolve the outside binding material. And because it takes longer for the body to break down the extra “glue”, there is your “technology” of a “time release”.
Why does this hoax exist for “Time release"? Before we explore exactly why this hoax exists, let's examine nutrients that are actually delivered in food. Here is an excerpt from a peer-reviewed study on actual foods, or wholefoods (as found in Re-Natured® nutrients):
“The finding that the ascorbate in Re-Natured® Vitamin C is more bioavailable and more slowly absorbed than ascorbic acid alone, i.e. that it acts as a timed release formulation, is advantageous for supplementation. The water soluble Re-Natured® Vitamin C does not suffer from the disadvantages of previous time release forms which were found to be less bioavailable than conventional forms of ascorbic acid.”
In layman terms, the time release formulations were shown to be even less utilized than the standard synthetic free ascorbic acid powder as it is. Marketers, as clever as they would like us to think they are, are trying yet once again to mimic nature and how the body deals with real vitamins and minerals in wholefoods and wholefood supplements.
You see, when the body is equipped with real nutrients, the body holds onto them longer, or retains them longer, to call upon and use as the body sees fit, or when the body requires its usage.The concept of a “technology” that has created or duplicated this effect is misleading, as it is truly a use of “technology”, and not nature and how nutrients delivered by nature exist.
These “clever” or deceptive marketers are trying to combat or hide the truth that the material they are offering in synthetic or isolated form is a poor substance to begin with, and therefore lead us, the consumers, to believe that they have solved that problem.
This reminds me of a funny story. One year, for my birthday, a friend of mine presented me with a gift. Inside a nicely wrapped present, I discovered that there was a thick layer of packaging tape around the present. After clawing and tearing away at the tape layers, there was yet another layer of electrical tape beyond that. After a more than an hour of removing the outside (useless) layers, I finally got to the present inside, a gag gift of cornmeal fish fry. I laughed in amusement of how clever my friend was in deceiving me into thinking that what i would find would be an amazing gift, not a useless gag gift.
The moral of the story is, that no matter how many layers of tape and packaging surrounded the item, it did not change the contents of the item inside. Similarly, the extra added ingredient to wrap over the isolated mineral salt and/or chelated mineral, will not change the fact that after the body fully dissolves the extra layers of “technology” in a time-release formulation, the body will still be be left with an unusable material.
Not only are we wasting our money on a useless “technology” with a time-release formulation, but our body has to expend even more of our actual nutrient reserves to dispose of the ingested chemistry.
Science or technology does a great job of analyzing components in nature; however, science and/or technology does an extremely poor job of attempting to recreate nature. The rest is deceitful marketing wrapped up to sell or promote to us, the consumers.
It is now “time” to “release” this concept and unveil the truth of the deceitful marketing behind such a concept.
Read "The Wholefood Deception" HERE
