What is your health worth?

Everyday I see people in my store that complain about the perceived high cost of staying healthly. I agree that there are some supplements like CoQ10 that are expensive. If you are one of the thousands of people who have liver damage that results in fibromylagia, Parkinson, or congestive heart failure the price of taking a supplement that will keep you alive with virtually no side effects is priceless. This is all leading towards a couple of articles I read recently that address the problem of the notion of wanting something for nothing. In an article published in the Journal of Agriculture & Food Chemistry (54 9:3242-53, 2006) the article showed that out of 11 bottles of black cohosh supplements purchased between 2002 and 2004, 3 did not contain any black cohosh. The products in question contained a different variety of cimicifuga (Astaea spp.) from China instead of the proper herb cimicifuga racemosa. These are different plants with different chemical characteristics. The two plants can not be substituted for one another. This is why you need to know not only what the front of the bottle says is correct but also what plant species the product is made from.

The other article I read ran on a similar theme. The problem this article pointed out is not a new one in the health food industry, but is becoming more prevalent as more companies are trying to compete on price alone for your supplement business. Many of you may not know how supplements are made. The company whose name is on the bottle does not usually grow the plants that are in the bottle you are buying. Most of the companies use other companies called bulk suppliers. Bulk suppliers are the companies that import and do the initial processing of many of the herbal supplements that you buy at Tri-Valley Health Foods. What you do not know is that some of the bulk suppliers can and do cut corners to try and keep the cost of the bulk herbs low. This has led to many of the larger companies like Nature's Way, Nature's Plus and Nutracuetical (Solaray and Kal) to create their own laboratories to test and measure the bulk herbs when they are received. Many of the bulk herbs these companies measure in their labs are rejected and sent back to the bulk supplier. The reason is the bulk supplier has sent a batch that contains an unknown powder spiked with a synthetic copy of the active ingredient. (Hmmm...eyesbrows go up, light bulb goes off, enlightenment is achieved) After all this background information, what you need to understand is that the bulk supplier does not simply throw this batch of powder away. The supplier will continue to ship this batch until a company that does not have a lab to check the quality or a company that is only looking for the cheapest bulk product it can find, uses this supplier powder in their finished product. Exactly where do you think the powder from this bulk supplier ends up. Places to look are in your local dollar store or a mass merchants' private label product. There is a reason that these stores sell what you believe to be the same product cheaper than anyone else. It is not about them being good guys giving you a deal. It is about them selling a substandard product. All high quality raw material have a price that insures you are getting what you are paying for. When you see a company selling something for what appears to be too good to be true, guess what, it is. When you buy a product from these companies you are saying to them you don't care about the quality. You are robbing yourself of your hard earned money by purchasing a substandard product. You may also be compromising your health by taking a product that is not what it claims to be.

Caveat Emptor. Remember it. Practice it. Never buy on price alone.

Thanks for spending a part of your day here with me,

James