Whole health, nutrition, and wellness care are important facets of how we approach treating the whole patient. It would be nice if this could be accomplished utilizing only the nutrition found in whole foods, but the fact of the matter is that due to poor farming practices, our foods only contain a fraction of the nutrients they used to. This places us into the murky world of supplements.

Supplements are crucial in the treatment of a whole plethora of lifestyle related conditions. Finding a good supplement should be easy to find. All it should involve is picking out a supplement with the correct nutrients, in the correct amounts. Unfortunately, in the U.S., it’s anything but that easy. Supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA, so the entire industry is a verifiable minefield of shoddy manufacturing, poor quality control, and even completely fallacious claims. It can be tough to navigate. 

Finding the right supplement takes a lot of research. There are a lot of great companies out there, who have manufacturing practices beyond reproach. I had the opportunity today, to tour one of those company’s factories and it was impressive.

Standard Process is focused on putting whole foods, grown on their own on-site organic farm, into a supplement. They’re good at it, too. They’ve been rehabbing their soil for years now and nutrient density and yield per acre are skyrocketing.

Touring a top-to bottom manufacturing and distribution site was a fantastic educational experience and provided me with a perfect idea of how I should assess other supplement companies I hope to work with. While many of the supplements carried at our NUHS clinic are Standard Process products, even if I decided not to use them, the company sets the standard by which I’ll assess other manufacturers.