SIX COMPONENTS OF HEALTH - SUPPLEMENTS

Lately, I have had a flood of questions on the quality of various protein shakes and supplements available on the market today. As supplements happen to be number five in our “Six Components of Health Series”, it appears to be a timely topic for discussion.

Many of you have heard me say this before, but I will say it again - all supplements are not created equally. And to expand a little further, although supplements and meal replacements are often lumped together in the same category, they are actually two different items serving two different purposes. Supplements are meant to enhance or replace a nutritional component that is deficient or missing. Multi-vitamins, omegas, iron are all common examples. Meal replacements (protein shakes/smoothies, protein bars, etc.) are just that, a complete meal used for those times when whole foods are not availalble.

As with anything you put into your body, quality should be top of mind for supplements and meal replacements alike. Don't be fooled by the packaging. Many products will put things like “sweetened with stevia” or “good source of protein” on the front of the package in hopes that the buyer will take it to mean the product is of better quality than it actually is and not read the label. For example, I have found “sweetened with stevia” to mean only trace amounts of stevia with the rest made up of artificial sugars, the exact thing stevia buyers are trying to avoid in the first place. As well, a shake that advertises a “good source of protein” may not actually be all that good. Just because a product has an acceptable number of grams of protein, does not mean the quality is up to par. Soy protein for example is very low quality and highly processed. And according to the results of a series of tests performed by "Consumer Reports" and published in 2010, “several whey protein supplements on the market, including whey protein isolates, contain trace amounts of harmful heavy metals including lead, cadmium, arsenic or mercury”. You can see how reading and understanding labels is key to making quality supplement choices.

Another thing to consider is the form in which you are consuming your supplements. Liquids are by far the best form as it is quickly absorbed, allowing the body to use a whopping 98 per cent of the nutrients. Capsules are the second best choice and pills are by far the least effective as they must be first broken down, digested then distributed where at this point only 40 to 50 per cent is absorbed and used by the body.

Lastly, when checking labels remember less is more. As single ingredients foods are always the best choice when preparing a meal, supplements, shakes, meal replacements and the like are also much more effective and of higher quality when there are fewer ingredients. There are exceptions to every rule, but generally, the more ingredients there are, the more likely you are to be consuming preservatives, fillers, dyes, artificial flavours and even hidden forms of msg. Preservatives won't preserve you, rather just the opposite. On the other hand, by fuelling your body with a variety of quality nutrients, it will have the tools needed to better fight off illness, reverse chronic disease and even improve health with age.

Bottom line, if you are going to take the time to invest in your health by supplementing your nutrition and making sure you always have a balanced PFC meal on hand with a shake or bar, take that extra minute or two and read the label. You may be surprised at the items you feel you can no longer purchase. Occasionally, there may be a price increase when moving to a higher quality product so think of it as getting in on a grown floor investment. You may not see the results overnight, but over the long term, your pay off in improved health far outweighs the cost needed to reclaim it.