Do Your Vitamins Need Food Coloring?
June 13, 2008 by Dr. Nicole Sundene
Filed under American Sickcare System, Kitchen Sink, Product reviews, Supplement Quality, Vitamins, Whole Foods Diet
Since everyone is always asking me questions, I thought I would pose a question to you all for a change.
The correct answer is of course…NO.
Excipients are unnecessary chemicals that are added to your vitamin and mineral tablets or capsules.
Now some excipients when making tablets are unavoidable, which is why I prefer products in capsules, but do you REALLY need food coloring in your calcium?
NO.
The quickest way to tell if your vitamins are high quality is to check for food coloring. It doesn’t take a biochemistry degree to find the yellow #5 in the ingredients. Most vitamins that have food coloring have an array of other unnecessary excipients that may as well not be given a seat at the kitchen table. Food coloring is an evil villain of the kitchen table! Certainly not something you need to be ingesting on a daily basis to improve your health and prevent disease!
In my over-educated opinion, food coloring found in supplements immediately spells C-R-A-P.
In posting this complaint about food coloring, I am inviting all vitamin manufacturers to remove food coloring from their vitamins. Adding artificial color to a health supplement is HYPE at its finest.
I started Kitchen Table Medicine to hammer out the hype that runs rampant in the field of alternative medicine.
Food coloring is just added to make vitamins LOOK cool. Your vitamins DO NOT need food coloring to work. You do not need to be supplementing food coloring in your diet on a daily basis! You are not running the risk of becoming food coloring deficient.
Todays task: Head to the kitchen and check the labels of your vitamins, if they contain artificial food colorings, you don’t necessarily have to throw them out. I would just use them up, and then switch to another brand that is selling you ONLY high quality vitamins without all the hype.
Because I have been receiving so many questions about how to know if a vitamin or supplement is high quality, I will be posting a checklist soon, so that you can learn how to put your vitamins and supplements to the test. The FDA does not currently regulate supplements in the U.S, and as a result quality is a major issue in the vitamin industry.
Check point one: Food coloring….does your vitamin pass or fail?
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That I can say, mine do not. I spend LOTS of money on my vitamins, and at the health/organic food store, you can bet those don’t contain the nasty additives.
love your question doc.
=x
Excellent point! One that some people might not think about. They are called “Nutritional” supplements for a reason. lol. There is certainly no nutritional value in Red#40. I’m glad to report that our liquid nutraceuticals have no artificial colors. Thanks for the article.
OutsideMyBrain
Hi Dr. Nicole,
What I find so sad is that children’s vitamins are filled with artificial coloring. What are we teaching the kids?
Hey now! My Flintstones vitamins just wouldn’t look right ‘au-naturale’
Yeah kind of a follow up on Barbara’s comment - funny how we think things have to look a certain way sometimes. But then again, good fruit is colorful!
Interesting article… Just a quick note, did you mean “incipients” or “excipients?” I believe that the word is excipient.
Here’s some other ways to tell if your vitamin is ‘high quality”
1. Which country is it made in? USA, China, etc… I would caution against supplements which are made in China due to recent manufacturing concerns.
2. Is your vitamin made in a GMP approved facility?
3. Does your vitamin manufacturer participate in a 3rd party program such as the Natural Product’s Association TruLabel program? (to ensure that the label claims are accurate)
Feel free to visit my Dietary Supplement site: http://jmorrow50.wordpress.com.
cheers,
Jarret
Hi Jarret- Yes that is what I meant. Thanks for catching that!