Why are the true facts about these Brands so difficult to discover?
BRAND COMPARISON: New Chapter, Garden of Life, and MegaFood are considered the first 3 whole food form multiple vitamin Brands. (For Women's Multiple comparison between these three companies, go here.) These 3 Brands have, unfortunately, falsely represented their products for far too long. While there have been some improvements lately, they still need to correct false impressions. You deserve to know the whole truth. They do contain some synthetic vitamins. See box labels below. But, even with some synthetic vitamins, these are pretty good supplements. A few additions and they could become very good. The new Garden of Life MyKind Organics claims to be quite different. Article
In order of quality:
1. Tie: Megafood and New Chapter
3. Garden of Life
New Chapter and Megafood are very close to each other, with one winning out here and the other there. Overall, New Chapter is a few ticks above Megafood. It is mainly the Costa Rica herbals that help native Farmers that gives NC the nod even though Megafood has organic foods, the foods are at very tiny amounts. For an analysis of each Brands' Women's multiples, go here. They all have some formula weaknesses that the foodfrom aspect does not overcome. Garden of Life (GOL) trails both. Why?
Historical results show New Chapter has good quality controls, MegaFood is very close. Both New Chapter and Megafood suffer from misleading stories about what is actually in their products. New Chapter in their book did briefly mention it while both use confusing verbiage to hide the real facts. Some formulas are better in New Chapter, like Zyflamend, while Megafood gets the nod for others, like Adult B-centered and complex C.
Garden of Life, at least from past records, both new and old, apparently has the most quality problems. While it is possible for a company to change and improve quality, Garden of Life recently had a major salmonella contaminated ingredient in flavors of their Raw Meal Powders that made people sick enough to be hospitalized. ref Garden of Life at first said that it routinely tests for salmonella on all finished products and has never found salmonella in this product before release to the Public. Later they admitted finding the one ingredient from a single supplier that was the source of the salmonella contamination. This is unfortunately typical GOL behavior. The blame is not only with the single supplier, it is with GOL not testing and finding the contamination before it built and released the product to the Public. How did they miss it? The contaminated Raw Meal made many people sick enough to require hospitalization in multiple States. Government new requirements for the Good Manufacturing Process should have stopped this product. ref
Definite advantage: They all exhibit low dosages that are actually a better fit with human physiology than most regular synthetic and isolated natural multiple vitamins at much higher dosages. BUT, what exactly are the forms of vitamins in the 3 "self called" whole food vitamin products?
UPDATE: First MegaFood with the introduction of their Dr Low Dog line and then New Chapter have updated their labels to accurately reflect what has always been in their food form Multiples, namely synthetic and natural isolate vitamins fed to yeast cells. See new MegaFood changes to correct labels below. Notice in the new ingredient boxes, somewhat blurred in MegaFood's webpage, that for vitamin B1, it lists Thiamine HCL, the synthetic form of B1. MegaFood writes: The most notable of these changes was the shift from delivering nutrients “in food” to delivering nutrients “with food.” How much difference can one word make? Well, when it comes to clarity, it turns out it can make quite a bit of difference!
Yes, it does! This one word change represents a major integrity move to greater transparency. The only logical definition is that synthetic vitamin B1 added to the growing yeast is then combined with food and put in a tablet. The vitamins were NOT made by nature in the food, they are just with (added to) the food. New Chapter at least made an attempt to describe that the yeast somehow bio-transforms synthetic vitamins into a more food like form. The new label box of nutrient forms is also pictured at bottom of this page below.
Garden of life mentions what is really in their older products like the Living Multiple and the Code Multiple in their Marketing literature to set the stage for their new MyKind Vitamins, but has not changed any labels yet. Plus, GOL also has to answer some logistic questions about sources for their new all from food MyKind Multiples. article
Update: New Chapter is owned by Proctor & Gamble. Garden of Life is now under the Nestle group ownership. And MegaFood is now owned by a large vitamin manufacturer, Pharmavite, LLC, who puts out the brand Nature Made sold in Drugstores and Supermarkets. Many of the issues raised in this article for these Brands were under their old ownership. With new ownership, there may be changes, so another analysis will have to be completed in the future, especially looking at any new literature, marketing information, labels, or formula changes.
In the early life of the GOL company, one of their fish oil products was tested and found to not only exhibit early stages of rancidity, similar to a few other Brands in the test, but GOL was the only company to also show long term rancid elements rarely seem in supplements. These conditions may develop over time after the product was built. Exposure to high temperatures may have played a role as well. Plus the age of the product tested was not revealed to settle these scenarios. This report made GOL improve production methods and diligently monitor future products. But, the recent salmonella contamination shows there is still need for more consistent monitoring and testing.
TIP: Best to buy smaller size bottles of fish oils and refrigerate products leaving cotton in bottle if already there. Also, buy fish oils from smaller fish, not salmon or cod, even if wild. Larger fish concentrate toxins like heavy metals as well as present greater challenges for rancidity control.
UPDATE: To quickly recover from the damage of the Meal Protein contamination, GOL has set up a new FOOD SAFETY PROJECT panel of Doctors and Scientist to safeguard their products, or is it their name? Project Check out latest facts from CDC on GOL Raw meal and Shake contamination issues here.
GARDEN OF LIFE CHANGES STORY
Garden of Life started out promoting products with many soil bacterial organisms for which they coined the term, HSO. But today there is just one HSO, Homeostatic Soil Organism, bacteria left in their products. If these soil bacteria were such beneficial ingredients, why is there only one remaining? What happened to change their formulas and their soil bacteria story? Maybe questionable quality controls and untested and not GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) soil bacterial ingredients? The genus of soil bacteria called Bacillus are NOT indigenous to the human intestinal tract. Yes, they are sometimes found in humans, but they are just passing through coming in with foods that probably contained soil dirt with the bacteria. These Bacillius bacteria are obviously important for soil conditioning and plant growth and in some animals, but usually are not native for humans unless entering with unwashed food. ref Did the new FDA reporting requirements for adverse effects play a role in changing the HSO ingredients? Did it spur GOL to improve quality by changing formulas? Anyway, they abandoned the Bacillus strains except one that were at the start the major players in their marketing story.
MegaFood is above Garden of Life in quality but both use a marketing story that is FULL of HOT AIR. Megafood has not had any major quality issues other than advertising errors. Early on they put out ads saying their food form vitamins were superior to synthetic vitamins. Challenged in a court trial, they either could not prove superiority at that point or choose not to defend their stance and an injunction was issued requiring them to stop advertising this superior aspect. Over time, new completed research shows some benefits for food form and natural vitamins over synthetic, but MegaFood continues to carefully dance around this aspect in marketing. Could it be due to the fact that they add some synthetic plus some isolated natural vitamins to growing yeast at the start of their food form vitamin production process? YES!
New Chapter is the only one that, at least ever so briefly, does mention they start out with some USP synthetic vitamins, which they all do. Garden of Life only recently also admitted this fact in marketing for their new MyKind Organics plus MegaFood also sort of admitted this truth in new marketing material as well. article
Update: MegaFood has partnered with a Doctor, Dr Tieraona Low Dog, to promote a new line of products with her name. The Doctor evidently either required MegaFood to get honest for labels of the formulas with her name, or MegaFood brought on the Doctor to soften the label change they knew was coming. The new Dr. labels now reflect an honest depiction of what all MegaFood products have always been. Some Synthetics with mostly isolated naturals wrapped or cultured back into a food form by feeding to yeast cells, with adequate and appropriate formula dosages.
This does not imply that New Chapter is off the hook and does not also have some issues. In the past, they promoted their CoQ10 product with a fraudulent comparison. Their 22 mg. CoQ10 product was compared as equal to a powdered stand alone CoQ10 at 100 mg for anti-oxidant activity. The test tube study used was not an apples to apples comparison. More of a horse to elephant comparison. The Scientist researcher picked a test that would show New Chapter a more favorable outcome. What has been shown is that New Chapter's CoQ10 product is absorbed at a 3X greater factor, similar to other Brands of emulsified CoQ10 products. Thus, as far as the other CoQ10 function of electron transfer for energy production, New Chapter's 22 mg product would be equal to only 66 mg of regular CoQ10 (3x 22mg. = 66mg, the amount needed to level absorption differences), and nearly identical mg. to mg. with CoQ10s that are in an emulsified oil base.
Major Issues
Whole food-like vitamins may still provide additional values over isolated natural or synthetic vitamins, but there are two pretty big issues to address. First, why do these companies feel the need to hide what is really in their products and how they are made? The fact that the starting process feeds yeast with some synthetic vitamins is rarely mentioned, unless one digs for it. New Chapter quickly skims over it but does mention it, while MegaFood goes to language extremes to hide it and create the impression that the vitamins are all from a certain amount of different foods. Garden of Life developed a whole new story, the CODE, to explain it without mentioning this fact. Why do you think this is the case? Vitamin store clerks are told that the vitamins are all natural from food and pass on that fallacy like it was a GOLD STANDARD fact to customers.
Second, since these companies do not tell you the form of the vitamin they add to the growing yeast, the real aspect of vitamin form on quality issues is difficult to determine. They would be within rights to use all synthetic forms since the label does not indicate beginning vitamin forms fed to the growing yeast. THEY DO USE SOME SYNTHETIC VITAMINS.
So, back to generalities, if a company goes to such lengths to mask some aspect of a product, are they trying to hide something, some part of the story they are afraid would jeopardize the validity of their products? Like the fact that during digestion, most complex food like vitamin structures completely separate into just the isolated simple vitamin form which would completely negate this yeast re-incorporation into a food form vitamin process. This is similar to Brands that do not list a strain code for their probiotic bacteria. The strain code is a mark of quality indicating that science has tested that particular strain for effectiveness. Why hide this fact if a Brand is using a quality tested bacteria? There are generic bacteria and nutrient forms without any Scientific verification.
This false impression that whole food form vitamins are "from food" has been going on for so long now that the impact if the truth went viral may draw ethical questions about the vitamin industry as a whole. (The cat is out of the bag now. Check out new labels at bottom of this article.) There are only a few Brands that simply concentrate real vitamins from food. Check out this article where Garden of Life now admits the truth to promote their new vitamin multiples, the MyKind Organics. ref As per the Marketing story for the new MyKind Organic Multiples, they are really a giant step forward in vitamin source offerings. This article presents an explanation of new production method to extract all natural form food vitamins and minerals, and also raises a few questions regarding this process that do not make sense and need further clarification. A change on labels that occurred rather quickly after the introduction of the Kind Organics multiples regarding food sources for vitamins reveals one of the issues. Mostly, the quality of these real vitamins hinges on the new water extraction method that increases the yield of vitamins extracted out of whole foods.
MegaFood and New Chapter Clean up (most) Labels
Both MegaFood and New Chapter have been changing their labels to more honestly reflect what is really in their products. Well, MegaFood only corrected the new Dr LowDog product labels. Garden of life now has admitted as much about their older lines of multiples, The Code and Living Multiple, but has yet to update these labels. Below is a new label for MegaFood of their Dr Low Dog formulated products. It really represents how product labels should have always listed. The vitamins are added to the foods rather than coming from the foods. Still, a pretty good multiple. Should have less iron even though it is a women's formula. Iron should be consumed only in a food source since foods protect iron better from oxidation than supplements. While it says OK to take on an empty, this is just a marketing wish and quite unwise from a purely digestive aspect to fully activate absorption processes. Notice no calcium or other major minerals. Best to control these separately since they take up a lot of space in tablets. Formula does need to spell out if any other family members are present with beta carotene, with C family members added, bioflavonoids and rutin, plus mixed tocopherols for vitamin E needs listing and amounts for other family members. Mostly label play as currently stands. Best folate form used and proper levels of Selenium and Chromium. The dosages while appearing to be quite low, are really very effective for not only body processes, but for absorption percentages. Plus New Chapter has also now owned up and is now also putting out an honest label. Watch for Garden of Life to update their Living Multiple and Vitamin Code formula labels soon. This is NOT from a turn of conscience on the part of these companies, BUT rather due to new label regulations the FDA has adopted.
New Megafood Dr LowDog formulated product label below first.
New Chapter updated label, not all websites selling these products have updated to new format yet. To see larger label image on New Chapter website go here. (The OLD label side is really the old NEW label and not the inccorrect label they used for over a dozen years)
TAKE AWAY
The new labels for MegaFood and New Chapter now actually reflect what has always been in these products. This is a huge positive move in the right direction. Customers are going to need some re-education to understand this change and get around or over false impressions created by what they were told in the past.
Since New Chapter is now owned by P&G, the future quality of their products need constant vigilance to make sure it is maintained. Best aspects of the food-grown multiples, really good lower but appropriate dosage formulas. Generally favorable lower Folic Acid amounts around 200, but watch out for a few over 400. They are still missing family members for vitamins C and E, but complex carotenoid factors such as alpha carotene sometimes may be included in food base, but should be listed with amounts to be significant. Generally better overall formulas than most non-wholefood form multiple vitamins.
The key issue is what happens after the vitamins get into the body. Do they fully participate in all metabolic processes? Garden of Life's new MyKind Multiples are like a 747 airplane to the vitamin industry. They are a rather large step up for vitamin production methods in a new direction. All natural vitamins from foods is the ideal situation for vitamin forms. Be sure to check out the behind the scenes story to fully appreciate and evaluate what is happening with the introduction of the MyKind Multiples. article Plus, await further clarification about some strange issues that no one else has uncovered.