I am dedicated to the field of nutritional supplements founded and supported by Dr. Royal Lee and Standard Process since 1929. The whole food philosophy introduced by Dr. Royal Lee challenged common scientific beliefs by choosing a holistic approach of providing nutrients though whole foods. His goal was to provide nutrients as they are found in nature-in a whole food state where their natural potency and efficacy would be utilized. Dr. Lee found that when nutrients remain intact and are not split from their natural associated synergists-known and unknown-bioactivity is markedly enhanced over isolated nutrients. Following this philosophy of whole food concentrates will offer enhanced nutritional support, compared to an isolated or fractionated vitamin. Standard Process products are built upon this holistic paradigm.

In addition, Standard Process was built on the unique belief that the quality of a whole food supplement is dependent on the quality of the manufacturing process. These beliefs are at the center of everything they do at Standard Process and these beliefs are also the reason they offer the best in balanced nutrition and healthy living, year after year.

Simply put, they are supplements made from whole foods. A whole food is any food grown and harvested in nature, without refinement. An orange is an example of a whole food. It is grown and picked from a tree and contains all the things we need for good health-naturally-occurring vitamins, minerals, enzymes and phytonutrients.

Conversely, a food that is manmade and refined is not a “whole” food because it is missing many constituents. It may also contain harmful additives. Donuts, cereal, fast food and canned fruit are all examples of manmade foods-they are not found in nature in this processed form.

Many of the ingredients in Standard Process whole food supplements are grown on the company’s own certified organic farm. We use a unique manufacturing process to concentrate the nutrients from whole foods. This process captures and keeps the food’s enzymes and nutritional factors intact, providing a concentrated whole food supplement full of nature’s nutrient complexity.

As a health care professional, I see patients every day who lack nutrition in their diets. That’s because the level of nutrition in our society has dropped dramatically in recent years, compared with the diet of our ancestors.

The food Americans eat is devitalized. Modern technology and a fast-paced world have enabled us to increasingly eat on the run, eat too much and eat unhealthy foods laden with sugar and fat. At the same time, Americans don’t exercise as much anymore. Because of all this, the percent of people who develop serious diseases increases annually. Diabetes alone has increased ninety eight percent in less than seventeen years. With advances in medical technology there is no other explanation why disease increases except for what we put into our body for food.

Vitamin E
Let’s say you are looking at the label for a vitamin E supplement. If you examine the ingredients of a synthetic vitamin E supplement, you will likely see alpha-tocopherol listed as one of the ingredients. Alpha-tocopherol is just one of the many components of the entire vitamin E complex, but there are at least five other important nutrients within the naturally-occurring vitamin E complex.

If you were to examine a whole food vitamin E supplement, you would see ingredients rich in vitamin E, such as wheat germ oil, listed as ingredients on the label, rather than alpha-tocopherol.

Vitamin C
If you examine the ingredients of a synthetic vitamin C supplement, you will likely see Ascorbic-acid listed as one of the ingredients. Again, Ascorbic-acid is just one of many components of the vitamin C complex but it is only 5% of the naturally-occurring vitamin C complex. Ascorbic-acid is the antioxidant found in Vitamin C and can be duplicated in a laboratory by mixing acids and sugars.
If you were to examine a whole food vitamin C supplement, you would see ingredients rich in vitamin C, such as buckwheat leaf and seed, listed as ingredients on the label rather than ascorbic-acid.

Man can create partial vitamins in a laboratory but humans are never meant to take in nutrients in a piece or fractionated form, like an isolated vitamin. Nature makes food in the form of many constituents, most of which have nutritional value. Humans metabolize these nutrients collectively, not one by one. As a result, whole food nutrients are absorbed and used more effectively for repair, growth and regeneration. Whole food nutrients work synergistically to achieve their biological effects.

Wise food choices and whole food supplements provide you with the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, along with their synergistic cofactors, that you need to sustain a healthy life. Whole food supplements can help support nutritional health.

Educate yourself about healthy nutritional and lifestyle factors. They will be positively affected by eating right and finding supplements to suit your daily needs.