What You Should Know Before You Walk Down The Vitamin Aisle

Before creating Today’s Essentials products, General Vitamin did a study of the dietary supplement marketplace. We learned some lessons that we'll share with you.

You may not be getting what you think you’re getting.

Lesson 1: Natural is better.
While cheaper to manufacture, vitamins made from synthetic chemicals are not easily absorbed. Our bodies are designed to absorb nutrients from real food. If the body can’t or won’t absorb the vitamins or minerals, they are simply passed through as waste. Consider it a wasted opportunity to nourish your body and wasted money.

Lesson 2: How supplements are bound together matters.
You simply can’t plunk ingredients into a tablet and expect the body to use them. But, by binding them to enzymes and amino acids their bioavailability can be dramatically improved.

Lesson 3: Slower absorption is better.
Certain minerals and particularly the water-soluble B and C vitamins pass through the body quickly, even when taken in large doses. Many vitamins and minerals are better utilized when absorbed slowly. This goes back to our body being designed to garner nutrients from food.

Lesson 4: Starting with 20% less.
Most consumers don’t realize it, but government regulations actually allow manufacturers to put 20% less of the ingredients that their label claims. (US Code of Federal Regulations 21CFR101.36(f), 101.9(g) (revised April 2000).

Lesson 5: Potency off by 60%.
To make things worse, other factors can further diminish the potency of a product by 60% or more. Many consumers think that because they are tablets or capsules in a bottle, that dietary supplements are manufactured with the same guidelines as pharmaceuticals. That is just untrue. Impurities or excess moisture during production, improper storage conditions and improper packaging contribute to this loss of potency.

A Cheaply produced product may only give you 50% of the label claim. A bottle of Vitamin C 1000mg for example may contain less than 500 mg of active Vitamin C per tablet. Such deception affects thousands of shoppers everyday, in countless retail stores across the United States.

Lesson 6: It may not be in there at all.
It may shock you to know that most manufacturers of supplements do not have an independent testing program. They may be afraid of what the independent laboratory will find:

• They may not use the best raw materials.
• They may not use natural ingredients when they claim to.
• Their active ingredients may be weak or inferior.
• They may include far less than the label claims indicate, or…
• Their active ingredients may be entirely missing from the product.

So what’s the BIG lesson?
There is little point in paying for, and ingesting, products with questionable ingredients, lesser formulations and lesser freshness – they won’t increase your energy or improve your nutrition.

Today’s Essentials is better than what’s out there.

Millions of Americans have decided to make their health and overall well-being a priority in their lives. General Vitamin’s mission is simple, to provide the very best dietary supplements to people who have made the commitment to making good nutrition part of their daily health regimen.

By combining high technology, extensive research, good manufacturing and pure bioavailable ingredients, Today’s Essentials supplements provide the vitamins, minerals and essential cofactors necessary for the natural conversion of food into energy.

We took the lessons from the marketplace and created a better product – Today’s Essentials.

Lesson Learned: Natural is better.
The first step in creating exceptional vitamins is keeping the ingredients as close to real food as possible; and that means using all natural ingredients. Our vitamins and supplements are made with 100% natural ingredients. No scary chemicals, no questionable fillers. Just the freshest, pure ingredients available.Lesson learned: How supplements are bound together matters.

Today’s Essentials supplements are formulated for optimum bioavailabilty. In order to make them bioavailable vitamins and minerals must be bound to carriers such as amino acids; resulting in amino acid chelation or amino acid complexes. Amino acid chelates, those used primarily in Today’s Essentials formulas, are superior.

So Why Are Amino Acid Chelates More Absorbable?
There are several theories on why organically bound molecules assimilate more easily than other forms. Here are just a few:

1. Our intestines actually seek out and physically grab organic molecules, like glucose and amino acids, but not most minerals. Minerals can bind to organic molecules, using them like a Trojan horse to sneak into the bloodstream.
   
2. Free minerals, or mineral salts, left to their own devices in digestive system, will form insoluble complexes with other molecules. This type of complex consists of disorganized aggregates that render minerals in-absorbable. Chelates are far more resistant to such interactions because the amino acids surround and protect the mineral.
   
3. Organic chelation protects important enzymes in the digestive tract from being damaged. Free minerals, or mineral salts, can deactivate digestive enzymes by replacing crucial minerals in these enzymes.
   
4. Many minerals require “carrier proteins” for transport into the bloodstream. With organically bound minerals, carrier molecules are not as necessary, because the organic molecule acts as the carrier.

Lesson Learned: Slower absorption is better.
There are only a few ways to sustain the release of vitamins in the body, most of which require the use of sugars, starches or non-natural ingredients. Today’s Essentials uses a 100% natural vegetable micro-gel as the base for our sustained release formulas. We see no sense in using pure natural ingredients only to bind them up in unnatural chemicals!

When our tablet is ingested, the normal moisture in the digestive system quickly dissolves the microscopic coating. The natural vegetable micro-gel system then begins to absorb moisture and slowly swells, releasing the vitamins and minerals at a gradual and relatively predictable pace.

Approximately 30% of the ingredients are released in the first hour, and the remainder is released gradually over an 8 to 10 hour period. This special formula provides a 40% better utilization rate than regular tablets.

Lesson Learned: Starting with 20% less is unfair to the customer.
We won’t allow it.
We don’t care if the government says it’s ok, giving our customers less than what our label claims is unacceptable. Samples of every product are laboratory tested to insure that at least 100% of what we claim on the label is in the product.

Lessons Learned: It's unacceptable to sell reduced potency products.
Today’s Essentials are manufactured using costly, yet effective manufacturing processes to insure potency and product integrity. They are not required by law and you don’t see them on the label, but they are essential for maintaining the quality of every Today’s Essentials product. Some of these include:

1. Purchasing the highest quality raw materials from reputable suppliers
2. Storing the raw materials away from heat and moisture
3. Testing raw materials at the time of receipt.
4. Controlling purchases, only fresh raw materials are used.
5. Rotating inventories to assure freshness.
6. Putting 100% or more of label claim in every product.
7. Using natural colors when necessary.
8. Using natural vegetarian fillers, binders and excipients.
9. Granulating certain nutrients for uniform mixture.
10. Manufacturing in dehumidified rooms to prevent damaging moisture from affecting nutrients.
11. Utilizing the latest direct compression techniques, which avoid the use of damaging heat, moisture and alcohol.
12. Coating tablets uniformly immediately after manufacture, to prevent moisture and oxidation.
13. Performing disintegration tests to assure that tablets and capsules can be utilized in the digestive system.
14. Assaying selective ingredients and verifying input immediately after manufacture, to assure 100% of label claim.
15. Packaging of bulk product immediately.
16. Keeping inventory on a sophisticated computer system and anticipating usage, enabling us to control production and offer fresh, currently manufactured products.
17. Bottling tablets and capsules under sanitary conditions, away from damaging light, heat and moisture.
18. Packaging products in containers made of substances that will not affect or reduce the potency.
19. Packaging in containers that reduce the effects of light, heat, and moisture.
20. Assaying selective ingredients in products periodically, to assure maximum potency.
    Any company wishing to manufacture a lower priced, lower quality product can eliminate any or all of the above procedures. The result could be a product that may look the same as a Today’s Essentials product on the outside, but six months after manufacture, may contain 50% or less of label potency.

So what’s the BIG lesson?
When it comes to your vitamin supplements, you can’t afford to compromise. This doesn’t mean that you only buy expensive designer supplements – far from it – but it does mean that you should only buy supplements with the purest bioavailable ingredients from a knowledgeable and reliable source.

By combining high technology, extensive research and pure bioavailable ingredients, Today’s Essentials energy supplements provide the vitamins, minerals and essential cofactors necessary for the natural conversion of food into energy.