Why you should always check your supplement labels
Do you check the label when purchasing supplements? From Titanium Dioxide (a carcinogen), Magnesium Stearate, and Talc, to boiled hooves, pig stomach linings and lambs’ tongues…sadly some supplements include hidden nasty additives and ingredients. Nasty additives and ingredients are added to both inexpensive and expensive supplements as bulking and binding agents (to stick tablets together), coating agents (to provide specific textures like making them smooth), colouring agents and flow agents (to help prevent them from sticking in machinery). Our friends at DR.VEGAN®, a sustainable plant-based supplement brand, provide a guide on some nasty ingredients and additives you should look out for.
5 ingredients and additives to watch out for in supplements:
Gelatin
Gelatin is a common additive used as a coating agent for tablets or fillers in gels and capsules. It’s sourced from cattle and pigs, specifically, the boiled hooves, ligaments, tendons, stomach and tissue linings from them.
Collagen
Collagen supplements are popular in the hair and skin care industries, but not many know where it comes from - collagen supplements are made from the boiling of bones and tissue of animals, mostly cattle, or taken from sea creature shells.
Titanium Dioxide
Titanium Dioxide has been used for decades as a colouring agent to make supplements appear white. However, it’s actually a group 2B carcinogen. In addition to being unsafe, it stimulates free radicals that cause damage to the body’s cells.
Magnesium Stearate
Magnesium stearate is a common additive used in supplements as a coating agent to make tablets a particular texture, for example, ‘smooth’. The source of this fatty acid comes from pork as well as animals, including, chicken, beef and fish and can irritate the ‘mucus lining’ in your bowels, creating a laxative effect.
Palm Oil
Found in common everyday products including supplements, palm oil is used stabiliser to increase the shelf life of tablets. The production of palm oil is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation, affecting climate change and rare species' habitats including rhinos and elephants.
How to check supplement labels?
Look at the back of your supplements, and find the nutritional table and ingredients list next to it, often in a smaller font. As many ingredients don’t provide nutritional benefits, they can’t be added to the nutrition table, so it’s important to read the list of ingredients, which will include nasty additives.
Looking for higher quality, ethical and sustainable supplements?
DR.VEGAN® is passionate about you and the planet. Whether you’re plant-based or not, and irrespective of your diet, they believe there's a healthier way more sustainable way to get the nutrients your body needs. DR.VEGAN®’s formulas are created by expert nutritionists using naturally sourced, plant-based and clinically studied ingredients, in the most bio-available forms with ZERO animal ingredients or nasty additives.
Discover their wide range of vitamin supplements from gut health, energy, stress and sleep to skin, hair and nails and mental performance.
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