Danger: Protein Missing!
I'm often asked what the difference between supplements is, mainly what is the difference between wholefood supplements and non-wholefood supplements. The answer is simple, yet so misunderstood as to its true significance. The simple answer is proteins or branched-chain amino acids.
If you never read another blog from me, at least take away this one bit of information. No single bit of supplement information is as important or helpful to understand than this: “If your supplement is not protein-bound (attached to proteins), then that supplement is useless at best, adversary to health at worst! Without protein-bound nutrients, you are essentially taking a pharmaceutical chemical, or a drug as it is foreign to the body, and the body will be put to stress with its ingestion of that chemical drug.
Just Say No!
Yes, the term drug is derogatory, but then again that is exactly how these chemicals are identified, each one with an adversary “Drug warning” along with side effects and contraindications.
These synthetic chemicals sold as “Supplements”:
are manufactured by pharmaceutical drug companies
are not in the same form as nutrients found in our food (bound to protein-structures)
have never appeared in any living tissue structure in a plant or animal
will NEVER rectify true mineral/vitamin deficiencies
All have contraindications (warnings accompanied with side effects)
If I hold an apple in my hand, or broccoli, or spinach, carrots or beans, it is true that I am holding food that has many nutrients. In fact, every single plant or food upon this earth should be and could be considered as a Multivitamin and MultiMineral. If I further dissect that food, and analyze it in a lab, you will discover that every single nutrient (vitamin and mineral) is protein-bound, meaning that nutrient is attached to branched-chain amino acids, or collectively referred to as proteins.
The most important discovery (in my shared opinion) in the world of supplementation was in 1999 when Gunter Blobel won the Nobel prize in physiology for his discovery that “Proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport to and localization within the cells.”[1]
In simpler terms, what he (Blobel) had discovered was that these proteins attached to our nutrients within our food have bio-chemical signals. These proteins are able to communicate with our body, and our body is able to read these signals, to appropriately determine the end-point destination for these nutrients to travel. So, these proteins act like taxi or limo-drivers, and upon digestion and through communication with these proteins, our bodies are able to effectively transport these nutrients where they are needed within the body. These proteins also have the ability to then enter and deliver these nutrients within the cells of our bodies.
So, this “targeted cell delivery” only occurs as a result of our nutrients being protein-bound within food. Without proteins, or branched-chain amino acids, these isolated chemicals without proteins will be useless, unable to be read by the body, will be treated as foreign to the body, and will be treated as drugs, as that essentially is what they are.
Where's the protein?
Asking that question should be your first rule of measure when looking to take a supplement. Simple rule of thumb, if the vitamin and/or mineral is listed on your supplement bottle, if there is not a food listed as that nutrient's source in the ingredients section of the label, then that chemical is a life-less, protein-less ingredient which was manufactured in a pharmaceutical lab.
In comparison on the market, you will be hard-pressed to find any actual supplement brand that is truly wholefood. This researcher is aware of only one such company that I would feel confident in recommending, which is Grown By Nature. All organic, wholefood nonGMO nutrients. Each ingredient on their labels for nutrients is described along with which plant that nutrient is found in. This means that every one of their nutrients is protein-bound, and is in the same wholefood form that that nutrient will be found in nature.
Buyer Beware!
As many companies are aware of these advantages of taking true wholefood supplements brings for their customers, many companies are trying to purposely fool you, the consumer, into thinking they too are offering such wholefood nutrients. I have also written a blog[2] that points out 2 well known offenders: Dr. Mercola and Standard Process supplements. Both of these companies advertise “Wholefood” but are simply mixing in food powders along with their usage of synthetic and non-wholefood ingredients. In order for a product to truly be “wholefood”, the ingredients of each nutrient in must be from food, as part of the bigger “whole”. Although the consumer may be fooled, and these imposter chemical supplements may end in that consumers check-out basket, our bodies will not be fooled the same!
Our bodies, upon digestion, will see the mixed food powders and use them accordingly as they are in fact protein-bound, but then the body will be forced to now also deal with the isolated or synthetic chelated ingredients that were added to or on top of the wholefood. Our bodies will have to use its own nutrient stores to attempt to rid the body of the chemical supplement “Drugs” we just ingested.
Supplementation and the very concept of replacing that which is missing in our diet was never meant to be confusing. However, the market in selling such items has brought confusion to the market-place, attempting to fool our bodies by replacing that which is missing in our diets with what man has 'man'ufactured in a pharmaceutical lab.
Man cannot create his or her own nutrition in a lab. Man has done a great job in science in learning how to break down food in a lab, how to analyze all the components of that food in a lab; however, man has never been able to take those isolated components and recreate a living food, in that lab!
"We are what we eat, what we drink, breathe and what we think. However; it took me some time to realize we need to rearrange that order, as it is most important How we think, so that we may make the appropriate decisions upon what we eat, drink and breathe." Dr. Eric Llewellyn
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1999/summary/
[2] http://www.jasonthewholefoodspecialist.com/single-post/2017/03/08/The-Wholefood-Deception
