If you’ve ever been shopping for multivitamins, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen some brands proudly labeled as “whole food”. If you’re skeptical, that’s understandable.
Plenty of companies use marketing terms that don’t really mean much of anything, but the whole food label can actually be trusted with some level of accuracy.
That’s because the “whole food” term refers to a fundamental process of how multivitamins are created. That doesn’t mean that you should trust a “whole food” vitamin brand without researching a little more, but it does mean that you should consider it as a major factor in purchasing a vitamin.
Whole foods bring a whole lot to the table that you wouldn’t find with synthetic, laboratory-produced ingredients.
The Difference Between Synthetic And Whole Food Multivitamins
The critical difference between synthetic and whole food multivitamins is that the former is made in a laboratory and designed to mimic the way our body absorbs natural minerals and vitamins. That word “mimic” is important.
Despite our best attempts to replicate the natural foods that provide us with minerals and vitamins, the current methods are far from perfect.
Our body knows the difference – or more accurately, they don’t always quite understand how to digest these chemical compounds. That means that your body won’t absorb as much from a synthetic vitamin.
Even worse, since these chemicals are cobbled together as a way to get the effect of natural processes without actually simulating them, there can be conflicts with your body. The act of processing synthetic vitamins can actually be hard on some of your organs. Synthetics can be especially harmful to the health of your kidneys.
Fundamentally, the argument for whole food vitamins is the same as the argument for naturally-raised and pesticide-free food. While synthetics offer cost-effective multivitamins with a nearly limitless shelf life, our bodies have spent millions of years adapting to the needs of the natural world – and seeking out a natural solution means providing your body with what it’s actually craving.
Ingredients You (And Your Body) Can Understand
If you’ve ever read the back of a synthetic multivitamin label, you’ve probably seen a whole list of chemical compounds that you don’t understand.
You may have also noticed that many of the ingredients look the same as what’s listed in the ingredient list for whole food multivitamins. Don’t let that fool you. Because while the chemical makeup of Vitamin B may be the same regardless of where it comes from, your body understands the distinction.
When you take a whole food multivitamin, you can trust that it’s getting its value from natural ingredients like tubers, dark greens, and fish oils. Moreover, you can be confident that the results will be all-encompassing.
That’s because the foods you eat don’t just come with one advantage. Oily fish brings a whole host of advantages ranging from a healthier heart to better-looking skin, and nuts can reduce the risk of both heart disease and diabetes.
And in many cases, whole foods come with supplements for helping you properly process those vitamins and minerals. Known as “trace minerals”, they exist solely for the purpose of breaking down and properly digesting the components. A good whole food multivitamin for men will provide you with a more efficient approach to breaking down compounds.
That means that you get higher absorption from vitamins created in whole foods, but it also means that you don’t have to worry about elements continuing to exist in your body and potentially cause you harm over time. Fat-soluble vitamins are especially worrying because they can continue to live in your body and cause damage to your kidneys over time.
The body craves what the body has been designed to crave, and that means whole food ingredients. And while the cheaper price tag on synthetic vitamins may make them appealing at first, they could cause potential harm in the long term and provide you with less effective results than whole food alternatives.
