My Best Supplement Brands

by Louise Mclean, LCCH.

Nowadays it can be a total minefield trying to choose good supplements and you may be throwing away your money on useless products.  As one doctor said quite scathingly 'giving you expensive urine'!

So many of the good supplement companies have been bought up by the pharmaceutical industry and reformulated.  What I do if I am thinking of buying from any supplement company I haven't heard of, is simply go and do an internet search on them by asking "who owns........company?"  Then you can see if that company has been bought up by a private equity firm or pharmaceutical company.  If so, expect a less effective product.  Often you will notice that if a company is suddenly under new ownership, the packaging has changed.  That is definitely a sign that so has the product itself, it is weakened or reformulated.  This is my own personal experience.

From Google: "Private equity firms and major health corporations are aggressively acquiring supplement brands, driven by high consumer demand for health, wellness, and longevity products Key deals involve established names like Vitabiotics, Orgain, and Persona, focusing on companies with high margins, loyal customer bases, and digital-first or subscription-based models".

Unfortunately, this is happening on a grand scale, so really good pure and effective brands are getting fewer.

I have also noticed that when I find a good product that works really well, so that I notice a big difference in my health or energy, that product often gets discontinued. I sometimes wonder whether Pharma finds out and does everything it can, right down the supply line, to eradicate good products! Obviously, they would prefer you to be taking their drugs!

At the risk of not being able to get my own supplements, (as they might become sold out), I am going to list what I think are the very best companies.  Yes, some might be a little more expensive but there is no point in you completely wasting your money and buying something that doesn't work.  

My all time favourite supplement company is Regenerative Nutrition  I have been using their products for 21 years and in my Noni article I state that I am hoping against hope that they bring back their Noni product, which was the one thing that boosts energy for me if I feel tired.  It really works amazingly well! I have tried other Noni brands but notice nothing at all after taking.

Do search their website as they have an amazing number of products.  Regenerative Nutrition delivers worldwide, so everyone can buy and the prices they quote for their products actually includes shipping.  So the price they quote is the final price.

In addition, they have a great library of information on all their products, which is extremely informative. I actually once had a long talk with the owner of Regenerative Nutrition and he has been on a long health journey of his own, developing all the products with great care.  From the website:

"Regenerative Nutrition has been a pioneer in natural health since 1994, developing powerful natural supplements to provide a fantastic range of natural health tools. We've built up a wide understanding of natural supplements, and have compiled our natural health information library as a leading resource for learning more about natural health. If you have further queries though, our experienced staff are standing by to help - see our customer support section.

Our natural supplement store enables you to buy supplements to help you on your journey to better health. It's easy to use, with tools to help you buy supplements for your specific condition, as well as useful A-Z search options, or topical groups like vitamins, minerals and superfoods. What's more, with great discounts for regular customers, our natural supplement store will be your one-stop shop for all your natural supplement needs."

Can I just state here that I do not like it when supplement companies add things like microcrystalline cellulose, silica, vegetable stearate, among other things, or fillers, binders, bulking agents, excipients. If you are taking a supplement every single day, you will be getting a dose of those additives each time and they can add up in your body.

Regenerative Nutrition does not add any of these things.  For example if you buy their Curcumin, the ingredients are just organic curcumin, organic piperine (black pepper to make it work for longer) and vegetable capsule shell. 

My next favourite supplement company is Ancient Purity, which also ships products worldwide.  They have a wonderful array of very pure supplements. I buy their Fulvic Acid minerals and also their B Vitamin Complex.  I can vouch for the very high standard of these products and there is a wonderful array of unusual ones.

That's why, although I do use Life Extension occasionally for their Super K supplement, I am not happy with the fact they use some of these additives. I see that gelatin, glycerin, maltodextrin, microcrystalline cellulose are in this K product. If Regenerative Nutrition can keep these things out, then so should other companies. 

I am going to try a Metagenics liquid product with both D3 and K2 instead so I don't have to take them separately, although I see that Metagenics has been acquired by Gryphon Investors!  Is nothing safe?! However, Life Extension has not been bought up and is still owned privately. There is a Life Extension Europe and a Life Extension USA.

Dr. Mercola, at his Mercola Market, where I buy his Women's Multivitamins is very good (though occasionally puts in additives).  His Women's Multivitamins do not contain any additives and contain everything you could possibly need in a Multivitamin. The standard bottle contains 240 big hard tablets and is meant for 30 days, which is 8 a day!  I take 2 a day, so these last a long time!  As I am in the UK, I have to pay shipping but when I buy 3 bottles for about £100, they last for a whole year, so I think it's worth it!  Anyway, they are my standard everyday multivitamin, and as I say, they contain everything good under the sun! They are excellent.  I also buy his Krill Oil capsules which are very pure.

Another really good make is Kiki Health which I would totally recommend for extremely pure and best quality supplements.  I buy their organic Spirulina and also their Zeolite and Charcoal powder. This is a wonderful supplement company and I think they also ship worldwide.

Terranova is also a very good supplement company and I have been using their Vitamin B Complex for some years.  They make a wonderful every day health food 'pick me up' Terranova Intense Greens Super Shake that many people swear by.

For people who simply cannot afford the high prices of supplement companies, if you are in the UK, I would recommend Health Leads UK for very reasonable vitamin supplements prices (also on Amazon).  I do buy their vitamins C, E and D3, as well as their Zinc.  This is an independent company which started up in 1998.

The last company I am going to mention is one I only recently discovered, called Ethical Nutrition.  It is a family owned business in the UK.  I have only tried their curcumin product which I found to be quite good. Anyway I think they are reputable.

I hope this information has been helpful and good luck ordering high quality supplements that work!

More Tips on Healthy Eating

by Louise Mclean, LCCH.

Further to my last article on MAHA and the one I wrote about how to lose weight naturally by eating real food, At the risk of repeating myself, I would like to add more information that could be helpful to people, as food is a minefield at the moment and so much of it is quite frankly rubbish.  My little joke is that if food was priced on its vitamin and mineral content, 90% of food in supermarkets would be free!

Firstly, it is very good if you can eat eggs.  Today I had three eggs fried in olive oil for my breakfast.  I don't eat toast or any carbohydrates with it and you will find the eggs keep your energy up for many hours without you being hungry. The more I hear about cholesterol, the more I am realising that it has nothing to do with heart disease and high readings are in fact very protective of the body.  We have been sold a pack of lies from Big Pharma and Big Science to get everyone on statins!

Later I will have a Dove Farm organic digestive or ginger biscuit and after that sourdough toast with good quality butter (Castle Dairies or Duchy from Waitrose) and organic honey.  As regards butter, do not buy the cheap brands.  I phoned Castle Dairies to make sure they are not using milk from cows that ate Bovaer feed.  In Denmark it ended up killing the cows and had to be stopped but it was brought in to UK farming, so you can't be too careful. 

Supper is my main meal at about 7pm.  I have been buying organic grass fed beef from Green Pasture Farms. We order every few months.  If you buy more than £80, there is no shipping cost.  Yes that sounds a lot but you can get quite a few things for that and the meat is outstanding!  You can really notice the difference!  

They also sell bones to boil for bone broth (great for making soups), organic butter and cheese, as well as every type of meat and chicken.  We normally buy the mince and I like the 20% fat one, also the diced beef for an organic onion, organic carrot and beef casserole. I am not usually a meat eater but I do feel extremely well after eating their meat. Meat fat is good for you and repairs the myelin sheaths of your nerves, which are made up of 75-80% fat.

If you boil meat or chicken bones for stock, you can make delicious vegetables soups of your choice and I sometimes make sweet potato soup or any root vegetable for winter.

I do love king prawns and also oysters if I can get them.  Our fish shop sells cooked smoked salmon and it is the wild salmon, not the farmed one, which I would definitely avoid. I also eat smoked haddock with organic brown rice.  Some people say white rice is better for you but I don't believe that.  I always feel really well after eating organic brown rice, usually with a homemade curry but I don't feel good after eating white rice.

I often eat organic pasta, which you can get from Waitrose.  It is definitely better on the digestive system than ordinary pasta.  I cook it, then add in basil and tomato pesto sauce, chopped raw basil, tomato juice, black olives and chopped cheddar which melts in. You can add a drop or two of Tabasco, as well as salt and pepper.

We also make homemade pizza.  You buy organic white flour and yeast.  Make the dough.  Then spread out the dough and put your own toppings on, such as tomato puree, cheese, mushrooms, salami slices, etc., or whatever you like, to put into the oven.  At least you know what's in it and there are no nasty preservatives or food additives.  It sounds like a fuss but once you've made the dough, is quite simple.

The truth is that most flour nowadays is genetically modified flour.  Hence any cakes, biscuits, etc., in the shops are usually made with this.  If possible, buy only organic flour, either white or wholemeal. It is a real pleasure to bake cakes and biscuits using these and at least you know they are nutritionally better to eat.

If you are a lover of salami, the best salami in the world is Hungarian salami, which is absolutely delicious!  I've found an online Hungarian shop where I can order whole salamis online.  I usually get two large whole 400g salamis and they last more than two months for all of us.  Two cost about £30 including postage but they arrive very quickly and last well because you can't eat too much of it at once!  I know people will say what about nitrates but this particular salami has been made for decades and I do trust it compared to the flabby salami in the supermarket!  I used to buy this salami in the 1970s in London and I can absolutely assure you that it is exactly the same now as then. That is not true of many foods today that have changed.

Tomatoes.  I absolutely adore them but these days I barely eat them as they are all genetically modified.  You can see that by the tiny white fleck seeds in them, even the so called organic ones!  In the 1980s I used to buy farm tomatoes when I stayed in Bristol, which were so delicious!  The seeds inside them then were round green seeds which contributed to the gorgeous flavour!  I remember talking to a man in a fruit and vegetable stall around 1996 and he told me that tomatoes were the first thing that were genetically modified.  It made me furious!  I would give anything to taste the real tomatoes we used to have.

Broccoli is another one.  It used to be very tender and flavoursome in the 1980s and 1990s.  Now it is tough and flavourless.  When you boiled broccoli, the water would go green.  Now that doesn't happen.

Unfortunately, even in our excellent local fruit and vegetable shop I notice that a lot of things there have been genetically modified.  If you see larger than normal fruits or vegetables, you can be sure they have been genetically modified. You have to be very discerning and pick things out carefully.  If you see insects around them, you know they are okay.  Insects would not go near fake food.

I once contacted the UK Food Standards Agency to ask them if our fruit and vegetables were radiated.  I found out that yes they were!  Radiation effectively kills your food dead.  The whole point of fruit and vegetables to eat the life inside them, which is what happens if you pick them from your garden and eat them straight away.  So people who think they are being healthy eating their salads, are in fact eating effectively dead food.  

If you can, pick fresh dandelion leaves and chop them finely with some kitchen scissors into your salads.  You will feel really, really well after eating.

It is good to eat all kinds of nuts and I like cashews and brazil nuts, which we get from the fruit and vegetable shop. I also eat mangoes, which don't seem to be genetically modified and are incredibly good for you.  Also bananas and black grapes.  There have been very sweet black grapes from South Africa in the shops for the past couple of months, as it is the end of their summer.

My most important food is Avocados.  To keep feeling well, I must have at least half an avocado every couple of days!  Pick out the ones that look a bit purplish in colour on the outside and if they have some markings on the outside, they usually are very good ones.  Unfortunately the ones that look a bit yellowish are awful.

I will eat roasts but worry about halal obviously, with nice organic roast potatoes, peas, organic carrots and we make the gravy with a Kallo organic stock cube and Dove Farm organic cornflour (both from Waitrose). There are lovely flat rib roasts from Green Pastures but you have to cook them very slowly for about three hours in a 140 oven.  We put some nice flavourings on them before we roast.

I make a delicious lasagne with the mince meat from Green Pastures, with a thick vintage cheddar cheese sauce, using the Dove Farm cornflour and organic milk.  When it comes to cheese, we like the Cornish Quartz cheddar from Waitrose, which is very strong and we don't eat any processed cheese.  I also love the St. Agur blue cheese, which is great if you chop a little into your salad.

I do eat crisps but only the Tyrells ones, though now I am a bit wary they contain seed oils, so not often and not many.  Seed oils must be avoided like the plague and cause inflammation of the body.  They are in absolutely everything.  You buy sundried tomatoes in a bottle and the oil is seed oil and the same with artichokes.  I love artichokes but noticed there were unnaturally huge ones in the fruit shop.  When I cooked one, it just never cooked inside.  I am so sick of these scientists thinking they can improve on Nature!  They can't.

So cook only with Virgin Olive Oil, which should look green, not yellow, or otherwise cook with Coconut oil - perfect if you are making a curry.  Avoid all those seed oils completely, such as corn oil, rape seed oil, sunflower oil.

Fruit juice is not always very pure, so we use Cawston Apple and Elderberry juice and we also use the Cawston tomato juice which is good quality. Again from Waitrose for those in the UK.

I also eat the Duchy full fat yoghourt and Duchy cream, as well their organic vanilla ice cream.

I do like Earl Grey tea, which I have with organic whole milk and one level teaspoon of organic coconut sugar.

When it comes to chocolate, eat only dark chocolate and we eat the Hotel Chocolat or Green & Black organic ones.

Try to avoid all synthetic or processed foods completely and you will feel much better, your digestion will thank you and in addition you will keep your weight down!