Did y’all know that pretty much anyone can make their own supplements, label them as whatever they want, and sell them to whoever will buy them?  It’s actually pretty nuts, especially when you’re an average joe like me who is trusting the recommendations of others without fully understanding the nutritional science behind it.  It can be easy to be taken in by a nice bottle and label with some trendy references and assume that it’s a quality product just on looks alone.
You could also be paying big bucks for something that may have a formula of mostly fillers, or be just a re-labeling of the same cheap drug-store supplements (but selling for much higher).
Not to mention the question of how easily absorbed any given supplement is.  Or what you can realistically expect from it.  Or the best way to take it.  Or how long you should expect to take it for your desired results.  Or whatever else you’ve wondered when you’ve stood in the vitamin row wondering which kind of fish oil to buy…
 
It’s so hard to navigate the supplement industry!
When I was working through my own issues with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (pre-Brandt, kind of…long story for another post…) I saw a nurse practitioner at the recommendation of a friend.  After our first visit I  dropped close to two hundred dollars at the health food store (it could have easily been much more) to get all the supplements she was suggesting.  I also drove across town to find a distributor for Standard Process so I could do the 21-Day cleanse.
She had explained as much of the science as I could process and then recommended specific brands and told me where I would find them.  Off I went, trusting her recommendations and hopeful for a positive outcome.
Stay tuned for a future post about how that all went down (spoiler alert–my thyroid was 6 times as heavy/big as it should have been when it finally came out), but my point here is that it can be really confusing and overwhelming to face the world of supplements and figure out what you really need–unless you are working with a practitioner who really knows their stuff and who you really trust.
Enter The Chiropractor.
From Day 1, he was sharing his passion for nutrition research.  He seriously has so much of his brain devoted to this.  And I’m lucky have access to him every day.  🙂  He’s helped me with so many things and I know now through experience that I really do need those B vitamins, among other things!
During our first year of marriage, The Chiropractor and a few of his colleagues launched their very own formula called Fruit Greens Daily.  Brandt created the formula following his own (very high) standards.  He also did the branding and label design (did you know he also has a degree in design?!).
He put a ton of time into this project because he was excited about offering a high quality supplement and certainly not because of a guarantee of anything financial.  In fact, I don’t think he ever made a dime off it.  The initial advertising campaign kinda flopped and then we were in the middle of a cross-country move that had him taking over his brother’s business so he essentially stepped away from the project at that point.  But you can still find Fruit Greens Daily on Amazon if you’re interested in it!
Not everyone is lucky enough to be married to someone who spends hours and hours every week researching supplements and understanding everything on those labels.  And while he doesn’t know it all (not sure that anyone can with new things coming out all the time), he is a GREAT source for guidance and he only recommends what he truly believes will help any given individual’s healthcare picture based on his own experiences, years of nutrition/supplement counseling, and vast amount of research.
So if you want to know some of the products he feels good about, check them out here.  But if you really want to find supplements that will help your unique needs, schedule a phone consultation with The Chiropractor so he can help you navigate this crazy world and only spend your money on what will actually help!  (By the way he can also order labwork and will make recommendations with those results in mind.  Labs…another place we can drop a lot of money without understanding why…)
Once you figure out what your body really needs, it’s amazing how resilient it is.  But that process can be tricky unless you have someone in your corner who knows their stuff.  So if any of this rings true to you, consider either marrying a functional medicine practitioner or (if that’s not in the cards…) giving The Chiropractor–or someone else like him–a call.    😉