Vitamins and Raw Material Sources

As more and more individuals begin to practice preventative healthcare, most start with supplements to either address a concern or issue or to supplement their diet to fill nutritional gaps. When taking this first step there are a lot of questions and decisions to make given the variety on the market. Unfortunately the price tag ranges a great deal as well and is not always indicative of quality. Though you can purchase great supplements for a reasonable cost, a vast amount of cheap vitamins are so because they use cheap raw materials. Every product starts with raw materials; therefore, where the companies purchase the materials they utilize needs to be brought into consideration.

To further discuss raw materials, I sought the expertise of Margaret Conklin, N.D. With 20 years in the Nutraceutical business, Margaret Conklin, N.D. has visited many of the major manufacturers in the United States, allowing her to have intimate knowledge of which are truly pharmaceutical grade factories, which companies are striving to get to that level, and which are nothing but old machines in warehouses or even garages. She has been in the vitamin and natural health field her entire life, learning from her father, and starting fresh out of college managing the oldest health food store in St. Louis. Here she shares her insight into the supplement business and origins of raw material.

"No matter where you go in the world there are good businesses and bad businesses; those that are proud of what they make and produce a high quality product, and those that are simply interested in the profit margin. Mix in with that logic the fact that some countries have more governmental regulation than others and we get to the question of Chinese and Indian raw materials. Now, so called "First World" countries have governments that regulate the manufacturing procedures of consumed goods, highly educated workers, and the infrastructure that allows them to build highly advanced buildings and machinery needed to make good products; vitamin, herb, mineral, and nutraceutical raw materials in this case.

So called "3rd world" countries don't have the ability to build factories to make these kinds of products, or workers educated enough to run the machinery. The problem falls inside "2nd world" countries that do have educated workers and infrastructure that allows the building of advanced factories, but where the governments either can't, won't, or don't care to put into effect rules and regulations guarding the quality of these products that eventually are consumed by people.

Unfortunately China and India are notorious for having contamination problems with their products. All of these events have been traced back to one or a few individuals who "spiked" their product with something cheaper to make higher profits, or changed their manufacturing procedures for the same reason, but they were caught. Although these two countries have many high quality factories that have produced consistently good products, we have to be aware that there are few regulations in effect to prevent the few bad seeds from contaminating the raw materials that go into many supplements.

Let's bring our focus back to North America. There are many high quality supplement factories here that purchase the vast majority of their goods from 1st world (North American, European, Japanese, etc.) raw material manufacturers and are happy to pay the difference in price for quality and peace of mind. There are also many companies that are more interested in price and people who will always purchase the less expensive brands and take that risk.

This being said I am happy to see that, over the past many months, AllVitaminsPlus.com has noticeably made the conscience decision to turn their focus on the higher quality supplement companies. They choose quality and peace of mind over bottom line, and are still able to deliver these premium products for a fair price." Margaret Conklin N.D.

It is often recommended that one does not purchase a vitamin from a retail mega-store because supplements are not their expertise, instead choose from a specialized and knowledgeable distributor that focuses on quality products and ingredients. Read the labels carefully, if the product is tested for purity and the manufacturer follows the cGMP's, more than likely it will state this on their label, and if in doubt, contact the manufacturer and ask.