How to Choose a Whole-Food Supplement

1. 1

   How much is actually in a serving?

   Not how many ingredients. How much. Find the serving weight in grams — it's usually in small print, and it's the most informative number on the package.
   
   Everything the front of the container promises has to fit inside that number. Three capsules hold roughly two grams of powder. A scoop of a bulk powder usually holds eight or more.

   Look for grams per serving, stated plainly. If you can't find it, that itself is an answer.

2. 2

   How many ingredients is that divided across?

   Divide the serving weight by the number of ingredients. It's crude, and it's usually revealing.
   
   Thirty ingredients inside two grams means thirty very small fractions, no matter how good the sourcing is. Every name added to a label divides the same serving further — which is why a long ingredient list should make you look harder rather than feel reassured.

   Look for a short list at real amounts over a long list at trace amounts.

3. 3

   Is this food, or a nutrient doing a specific job?

   Both are legitimate. They aren't the same product and they don't do the same work.
   
   A whole-food supplement is a plant, dried and concentrated. Its job is broad nourishment. An isolated nutrient — vitamin C as ascorbic acid, say — is one compound at a defined dose, and its job is narrow but real. There are moments when you want a proper amount of one thing, and no quantity of food will get you there quickly.
   
   The trouble comes from products that blur the two: priced like whole food, sold like a nutrient, delivering enough of neither.

   Look for clarity about which one you're buying, then buy it for the job it actually does.

4. 4

   What's the first ingredient?

   Ingredients are listed by weight. If the top of the list is fillers, binders, rice flour or sweetener, that's most of what you're holding.

   Look for a recognizable food at the top.

5. 5

   How was it dried — and is it the juice or the whole leaf?

   This matters more than almost anything else on the label, and almost nobody asks it.
   
   Heat degrades enzymes and a good deal besides, so a powder dried at high temperature is a different product from one dried gently, even when the plant on the front is identical. And a juice powder is a different thing again from a ground whole leaf — the leaf brings indigestible fiber that takes up room in the serving, while the juice brings the part your body can use.

   Look for low-temperature processing stated plainly, and clarity about juice versus whole leaf. Companies that do this well say so — it's expensive and they want the credit.

6. 6

   What's the serving actually costing you?

   Compare cost per day, not price per bottle — and check how many servings the label assumes. A cheaper bottle at twice the daily dose isn't cheaper.
   
   Then take that number through the produce section once and see what it buys.

   Look for cost per day, calculated yourself.

7. 7

   Would the food itself be better?

   The honest question, and often the answer is yes.
   
   A greens powder is a reasonable bridge when the greens aren't happening. It is not better than the greens. If the choice is between a supplement and buying more vegetables, buy the vegetables. If the choice is between a supplement and nothing, the supplement has a place.

   Look for honesty about this from whoever's selling. A company that tells you food comes first is telling you something true against its own interest.

The garden came first. Everything else, ours included, is a supplement to it — which is what the word was always supposed to mean.

Blessings,
Paul & Ann

Download the printable version (PDF)