(NaturalNews) I'm absolutely shocked at how many people don't
investigate what's really in the products they swallow. When something
is sold as an herb, vitamin, superfood or supplement, they think it's
automatically safe. And while the natural products industry has a truly
remarkable safety record -- especially in contrast to the massive number of deaths caused by pharmaceuticals -- it still suffers from a lot of hidden toxins that are routinely used throughout the industry.
I
know this because I've been an investigative journalist and activist in
the natural health industry for over a decade. Natural News is arguably
the most-read natural health news website in the world, reaching
millions of readers a month. I've walked the floors of countless trade
shows, conducted hundreds of interviews and spent tens of thousands of
dollars on laboratory tests to determine what's in these products. On
top of that, I'm deep into organic product formulations and certified
organic food production, serving as the supervisor of a USDA-certified
organic food production and packing facility.
When I look around
the natural products industry, I see examples of super honest,
high-integrity companies like Nature's Path and Dr. Bronner's. I also
see an alarming number of cheats, crooks and charlatans who are only
involved in the industry to profit from the explosion of interest in
health supplements. In truth, some nutritional products are downright
dangerous to your health. My role as a journalist and activist is to help you tell the difference between products that are GOOD for you vs. products that might actually be toxic. Because ultimately, I want you to be healthy, vibrant, intelligent and active. I want you to enjoy life and improve the quality of your life.
Be
prepared to be shocked in reading what follows. After reviewing this
list, you will probably throw out quite a few products in your
refrigerator and pantry. Very few people are willing to tell you the
truth revealed here, so some of this may come as a complete shock (see
#1 and #2, below).
#1) Maltodextrin (from GM corn)
Let's
start out with the big one first: If you pick up a natural product and
the ingredients list says "maltodextrin," chances are very high that the
maltodextrin in the product is derived from Monsanto's GM corn.
Virtually
all the maltodextrin used throughout the natural products industry is
genetically modified. Products that are certified USDA organic, however,
are not using GMO maltodextrin.
The non-GMO, non-corn replacement for maltodextrin derived from GM corn is tapioca maltodextrin,
and you'll find tapioca starch / maltodextrin in many certified
organic, non-GMO products. Corn maltodextrin should be avoided unless
it's certified USDA organic. Look for tapioca maltodextrin instead (or
no maltodextrin at all).
#2) Vitamin C / acorbic acid (from GM corn)
Here's another whopper that's sure to open some eyes: Nearly all the "vitamin C" sold in vitamins across America right now is derived from GMO corn.
This
means that many of the supplements sold at Whole Foods, the vitamins
sold on Amazon.com, the pills at your local pharmacy, and especially the
products at the grocery store are (nearly) all routinely made with
genetically modified vitamin C. It's typically called "ascorbic acid,"
and nearly 100% of the ascorbic acid used in the natural products
industry is derived from GMOs.
Sourcing non-GMO vitamin C
requires you to go outside the United States. There is no existing
supply chain of certified organic, non-GMO ascorbic acid available
anywhere in America (at least not to my knowledge). You can't even run
batches of non-GMO ascorbic acid production in the USA because all the
facilities are contaminated with residues of GM corn.
Rest assured that all those cheap "vitamin C" pills sold at retail are derived from genetically modified corn.
#3) Hexane-extracted soy and rice proteins
Nearly 100% of the "natural" soy proteins sold in the USA are extracted in China using a hexane extraction method.
CLARIFICATION
(updated): The primary manufacturer and distributor of brown rice
protein in the USA, which imports brown rice protein processed in China,
insists that hexane has never been used in the extraction of their
product, not in the conventional brown rice protein nor their organic
brown rice protein.
Their brown rice protein is a "hexane-free,
non-GMO, Prop 65 compliant, Gamma Oryzanol-rich whole grain Oryzatein
powder" and the manufacturer is Axiom. They supply a lot of the brown
rice protein to numerous sources in the USA, and this is the best brown
rice protein product available today, partially because it is NOT hexane
extracted.
There is brown rice protein that's hexane extracted
in China, however, but that's not carried by Axiom. So if you're buying
anything with brown rice protein, make sure it's sourced from Axiom and
not from another source that uses hexane. I also encourage you to eat
only certified organic brown rice protein, not conventional brown rice protein.
Anything
from China, by the way, should be double checked for metals content
just to make sure it's all clean. This is true across the board for all
food products from China, not just brown rice protein. We have
consistently found nutritional products from China to be contaminated
with worrisome levels of metals, which is why I personally won't put my
brand name on anything from China other than a few exceptions that are
well-tested such as goji berries (grown in the Himalayas). The Axiom
company says their brown rice protein tests completely clean, but until I
run those tests myself, I can't say for sure whether I concur with the
claims.
What the industry really needs right now is a U.S. manufacturer of brown rice protein,
for which a multi-million dollar market already exists. If Axiom would
find a certified organic U.S. grower for its brown rice protein, the
company would receive a huge endorsement from Natural News and probably
find a whole new wave of demand from consumers who want U.S. grown
products. Texas, by the way, produces a lot of organic brown rice.
Surely there must be a way to extract the protein in America and not
have to go all the way to China to find this.
On the issue of soy
protein, no one disputes the fact that it's routinely extracted with
hexane. Here's a list of many of the protein bar brands currently using
soy protein:
Hexane
is a highly explosive chemical. It is not only extremely hazardous to
the environment, there may also be trace amounts of hexane left
remaining in the resulting protein products. My understanding is that
hexane extraction is not allowed in certified organic proteins, so if
you have a choice, go for certified organic instead of just "natural"
(which means nothing anyway).
Hexane extraction, by the way, is also used in the manufacture of textured vegetable protein (TVP). Read more about TVP here:
#4) High levels of Aluminum in detox products
Natural News helped expose high aluminum levels (over 1200ppm) in a popular detox liquid, causing the main U.S. distributor to issue a "recall" notice and provide over $1 million in refunds to customers.
The manufacturer of this product, Adya Clarity, intentionally and knowingly deceived consumers
by mislabeling the product and not mentioning the 1200ppm of aluminum
it contained. The FDA seized some of the products and ran its own lab
tests, confirming the high aluminum level as well as identifying multiple labeling violations.
Adya
Clarity is just one of many so-called "detox" products containing
alarming levels of aluminum and other metals. Ingesting these in order
to "detox" your body may be harmful to your health. This experience also
proves you can't always trust health products sold through online webinars, where manufacturers can ignore labeling laws and fabricate false claims. Buyer beware when it comes to metals in detox products that claim seemingly magical results.
#5) Lead and arsenic in herbs from China
China is the most polluted nation on the planet (by far), yet many fruits, vegetables and herbs are grown in China and exported to North America for use in natural products.
High
levels of lead and arsenic are routinely found in various food,
supplement and herbal products from China. I'm not concerned about 1ppm
or lower, by the way, of heavy metals like lead and mercury. Even
aluminum isn't necessarily a problem when found organically grown inside
foods that test at higher levels such as 150ppm. But when lead,
arsenic, mercury and cadmium get to high saturation levels (or are
present in inorganic forms), it makes the products potentially a source
of heavy metals poisoning for consumers.
Astonishingly, many of the small and medium-sized companies that import and retail products from China conduct no metals testing whatsoever. I know this as a fact because I've talked to people doing this.
For the record, everything packed under my own brand name (Health Ranger Select) and sold at the Natural News Store is independently tested by us to ensure full product safety and regulatory compliance.
#6) Inorganic minerals in cheap vitamins
Would
you eat iron filings and call it nutrition? The majority of people
don't know that most of the cheap vitamins sold today are made with iron
filings. "Scrap metal," almost.
The calcium found in cheap
vitamins is often just ground-up seashells, and magnesium is often sold
as cheap magnesium oxide which may be completely useless to your body's
cells. If you're buying mineral supplements, you may be wasting your
money unless the minerals are in the right form: Magnesium orotate or
malate, for example.
When it comes to mineral supplements, you'll
often find trace levels of scary things like barium and lead in liquid
supplements, but these are typically at such low levels (ppb) that they
are no real concern. But the No. 1 best source for all minerals is, not
surprisingly, fresh plants. If you really want to boost your minerals,
feed 'em to sprouts or garden plants, then eat or juice those plants. Your body wants "organic" minerals from plants, not inorganic minerals from rocks.
#7) Carrageenan?
The Cornucopia Institute, a highly-effective food activism group that we've long supported, recently published a warning about carrageenan
in foods. Cornucopia says carrageenan is linked to "gastrointestinal
inflammation, including higher rates of colon cancer, in laboratory
animals."
It goes on to report:
Given its effect on
gastrointestinal inflammation, Cornucopia urges anyone suffering from
gastrointestinal symptoms (irritable bowel syndrome/IBS, spastic colon,
inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, etc.) to consider
completely eliminating carrageenan from the diet to determine if
carrageenan was a factor in causing the symptoms.
Personally,
I have never had any problem with carrageenan, and given that it's
derived from seaweed, I also didn't mind the source. I actually consume
quite a lot of carrageenan in Blue Diamond almond milk, which I drink
when I'm too busy to make my own raw almond milk. And I've never had a
problem with it whatsoever. So from my personal experience, I don't see
carrageenan as a worrisome ingredient, but I do understand that some
people experience it differently, and it may be troublesome for people
whose digestive systems are more sensitive than my own.
For the record, I definitely don't consider carrageenan to be anywhere near as worrisome as, say, aspartame, GMOs or MSG.
#8) Acrylamides
Acrylamides
are cancer-causing chemicals produced during the cooking of
carbohydrates. Fried snack chips, for example, contain acrylamides. They
don't have to be listed on labels because they are technically not
"ingredients." They are chemicals produced during cooking or frying.
Consuming acrylamides increases kidney cancer risk by 59 percent.
The FDA has published an extensive reference guide on acrylamide levels in foods, revealing that french fries have the highest levels of all. But they are also present in prune juice and even breakfast cereals.
A
bag of organic snack chips can have just as many acrylamides as a bag
of conventional snack chips. This is why fried snack chips should be
eaten only sparingly, or never at all. I'm guilty of eating some of
these chips myself from time to time, but I limit the quantity and make
sure I'm taking chlorella or other superfoods at the same time to
counteract the acrylamides.
Interestingly, it turns out that vitamin C blocks acrylamides
from causing damage to your body. But if your vitamin C is from a GMO
source (see above), you may want to rethink that strategy. Natural
citrus juice, rose hips or even camu camu berry powder is a much better
choice of natural, full-spectrum vitamin C.
If you eat fried
foods of any kind, make sure you ingest a lot of vitamin C, astaxanthin
and chlorella before and after your meal or snack.
#9) Hidden MSG / yeast extract
Hidden
MSG is a huge issue across the natural products industry. Pick up
almost any veggie burger, and you'll find it's made with yeast extract, a hidden form of MSG (monosodium glutamate).
Yeast
extract is unbelievably prevalent in the food industry because it looks
nicer on the label than "MSG." Most people are trained to avoid MSG,
but yeast extract slips by, so food manufacturers put it into canned
soups, dip mixes, snack chips, microwave dinners and especially in vegetarian products,
many of which are so loaded with chemicals and additives that I won't
dare touch them. Just because a food says "vegetarian" doesn't mean it's
healthy.
Hidden MSG is also labeled as "autolyzed yeast extract" or "torula yeast" or even "hydrolyzed vegetable protein."
#10) Fluoride in green tea
Green
tea is famous for being contaminated with high levels of fluoride. This
is frustrating, because green tea is phenomenally good for your health.
It has been proven to lower "bad" cholesterol levels,
and it may even help prevent cancer and neurological disorders. It's
probably one of the healthiest beverages you can ever drink.
The
tea plant that produces green tea just happens to uptake a huge amount
of fluoride from the soils. So when there's fluoride present in those
soils, the green tea will have a surprisingly high concentration,
sometimes as much as 25ppm.
An interesting article on this issue is found at Toxipedia.org:
While
this fluoride in green tea might not be a health hazard all by itself,
the governments of the world seem insistent on pumping even more synthetic, chemical fluoride into the water supplies, thereby creating a high risk for fluorosis.
Adding green tea to the fluoride consumption you might experience from
tap water is a recipe for disaster: brittle bones, discoloration of
teeth and even cancer.
The final "dirty little secret" of the natural products industry
Finally,
there's one more secret you need to know about. Most importers,
packers, vendors and retailers of natural products foolishly trust the
lab results provided by the manufacturers and exporters!
So
a typical U.S. company that sells, for example, pomegranate powder on
the internet may never conduct their own tests for lead, mercury,
cadmium, arsenic and aluminum. They will simply take the lab tests
provided by the manufacturer and consider those to be absolute fact!
This is extraordinarily foolish. Growers and exporters routinely lie about their lab tests
in order to pull the wool over the eyes of importers, formulators and
retailers. The lab tests are easily faked or simply bought off in their
home country. Contaminated products can be easily sold and exported
because the FDA doesn't routinely check imported raw materials for heavy
metals contamination.
On the good news side, I do know for a
fact that all the higher-end retailers such as Natural News, Mercola,
Gary Null, etc., all routinely test their raw materials for contaminants. I'm pretty sure Gaia herbs (www.GaiaHerbs.com)
routinely tests all their batches, and I know that VitaCost, before it
changed hands a few years ago, was running their own lab to test raw
materials on-site (for their in-house formulations). But I also know of
smaller retailers who absolutely do not test anything and are far
more interested in moving boxes than knowing what's really in them. I
also know that some operations are claiming to sell "organic" products
even though they do not have any kind of organic certification, and
that's an irresponsible practice that should be rectified. (Look for the
USDA organic logo when you buy "organic" products. If they don't have
the logo, they aren't really organic.)
So once again, buyer beware.
You need to be asking for lab test results on anything from China, and
it's good to ask for them on just about everything else as well. For our
part, Natural News Store is already in the process of building a
mechanism where we can post lab results for all the batches we import,
pack and retail. We reject anything with high levels of metals, which is
why it took us so many months to secure a really clean source of chlorella.
