The Supplement Truth: What You're Taking vs. What You Need

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Ever wonder why Americans are spending more on supplements than ever before, yet somehow getting sicker? That paradox kicks off my eye-opening conversation with Jared St. Clair, host of the Vitality Radio Podcast and a third-generation supplement store owner who's spent 31 years separating supplement facts from fiction.

Jared pulls back the curtain on an industry that many of us trust with our health without understanding what we're actually putting in our bodies. He explains why most multivitamins "literally belong in the garbage," why calcium supplements might be increasing heart disease risk by 25%, and why the form of magnesium you take matters more than the dose. We dive deep into how supplement companies exploit consumer confusion, with fascinating insights into why the cheapest options on Amazon might be counterfeit products manufactured outside FDA jurisdiction.

The most valuable segment comes when Jared reveals his "Vital Five" – the core supplements he believes most adults should consider taking daily. His recommendations might surprise you, especially when he explains why creatine isn't just for bodybuilders anymore but potentially crucial for anyone over 35 concerned about cognitive health. We also tackle the sunscreen myth, exploring how our obsession with SPF might be creating more problems than it solves.

Whether you're a supplement skeptic or someone with a cabinet full of bottles, this conversation will transform how you think about supplementation. You'll walk away with practical advice for identifying quality products, understanding what your body actually needs, and reclaiming authority over your health decisions instead of blindly following so-called experts. Subscribe now, share with someone who needs this information, and remember – fitness is medicine.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Health and Fitness Redefined, brought to
you by Redefined Fitness.
Hello and welcome to Health andFitness Redefined.
I'm your host, anthony Amen,and today we have another great
episode for all of you today.
Another fellow podcast hostwho's only been doing this for a
couple of weeks I mean, sorry,16 years.

(00:24):
So, without further ado, let'swelcome to the show, jared.
Host of the Vitality Radio ShowPodcast.
Jared, it's a pleasure to haveyou on today.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Thank you, Anthony.
I'm excited to do this.
I always love guesting on otherpeople's shows.
It's fun to see how you dothings.
I always learn something andhopefully I can give something
to your listeners that they'llappreciate and be able to use.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, man, we're going to talk about one of my
favorite topics in the entireworld, which is all about
supplements, because that iswhat you live, breathe, die by
guys.
Starting from a story yourparents had when you were
younger, taking it over at 15 tomanage it, so a lot of
background associated with that,but tell me a little bit of
kind of what got you into it.
Was it just your parents thatforced you into starting to nerd

(01:05):
out about supplements or didyou feel like a natural
inclination to dive into thatworld?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, I anticipate, if it wasn't for my parents,
well, I don't know where I'd beif it wasn't for my parents.
As far as the supplement worldgoes, clearly I wouldn't be here
at all without them.
But as far as supplements go,yeah, they opened the store when
I was five.
As far as supplements go, yeah,they opened the store when I
was five.
It was a terrible time to openup a health food store or a
supplement store.
1977 was pre any kind of realhealth craze.
Everybody was just consideredlike a granola, you know wacko.

(01:34):
That was, you know, eatingwhole wheat bread or whatever
back then, and so it was verymuch a passion project for my
dad.
He was the catalyst of it.
He'd been in the supplementindustry on the manufacturing
side of supplements, for yearsprior to that, and one of his
first jobs as a young man wasmanaging a health food store for

(01:54):
a couple of years, so it wasalready kind of in his blood.
He's told me that there weretwo primary reasons he wanted to
have the store, and they'revery frankly very self-serving,
I guess.
The first one is he wanted tobe able to buy his own products
for wholesale for the family,and the other one was he wanted
a place for his kids to work,that he thought they could learn

(02:14):
something, and so that was thecatalyst of having the store was
a place for the four of us towork and learn stuff, and you
know and also to be able to buystuff a little cheaper for the
family.
And the business was barely abusiness for years, really
didn't start to becomeprofitable until around the time

(02:34):
I finally bought it from himwhen I was 22.
I'm 53 now, so we're like 31years into this thing since I've
owned it.
But from a young age my parentshad a rule you could work at the
store before you were 14,unpacking boxes, cleaning up
shelves, all that sort of thingbut you couldn't work with
customers actually answeringquestions until you were 14.

(02:58):
They wanted to make sure thatwe had a decent grip on the
topics that we be asked about,and so around that time, when I
was 14, 15 years old, I justdiscovered that I had this crazy
passion for it.
I couldn't get enough oflearning about.
You know everything from whatomega-3 was, because I'm old
enough and I've been doing thislong enough, anthony that I

(03:20):
remember when there were notomega-3 capsules on the market.
I remember when those firstcame out and I didn't know what
an omega-3 was back then, and soI had to read up and of course
you know the library was youroption way back then on what an
omega-3 even was and whysomebody would want to put it
into their body.
We had cod liver oil and it wasreally gross that you drank but

(03:41):
we didn't have capsules.
So, anyway, every timesomething new would hit the
market.
I remember when I was 18 andcreatine hit the market for the
first time and I was like whatthe heck is this?
And then I had to learn aboutcreatine, and that was when I
first learned about what ATP wasand why this would make sense
for athletes.
And then, of course, now youfast forward.
What, 35 years later?
And now half the people takingcreatine are taking it to

(04:03):
prevent dementia, not justworking in the gym.
So I just am fascinated withwhat supplements can offer to us
and our need for supplements ina world that has gone pretty
far south when it comes to ourdiet, our stress levels, the
toxicity in the environment andall the other things that are

(04:24):
kind of stacked up against usoptimizing our health.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, I feel like we're in a awkward phase where
more people are spending moremoney on supplements than ever
before, but we're still gettingsicker and fatter.
Yeah, the same.
The same is true for gyms.
I'm not going to just pinpointsupplementation.
Health and fitness at a whole.
More people are spending even ahigher percentage of their

(04:48):
funds on health, fitness andsupplements, but yet the trend
is still going the wrong-assdirection.
So why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
I have a couple thoughts on that and that's a
really interesting question.
I don't think anybody's everasked me before.
I love that.
So the first thing is, I dothink that there is definitely.
There are categories of peoplewhen it comes to health.
There are people who take itvery, very seriously, who are
watching you know what they eat,how much movement they're

(05:19):
getting, how many you know hoursthey spend actually enhancing
their fitness, whether that's atthe gym or at home or whatever
else and that are looking outfor organic, that are
detoxifying their homes, thingslike that.
I meet a lot of those peopleand that group is also kind of
split in half.
Half of those people just havean inherent desire to be fit and

(05:42):
healthy and they're in greatshape because they are doing all
those things.
They're healthy and healthy andthey're in great shape because
they are doing all those things.
They're healthy, they're fit,they're strong.
The other half of those peoplewere kind of forced into it
because they got sick, right,they weren't living that
lifestyle.
They ended up with type twodiabetes or 50 pounds or a
hundred pounds overweight or youknow, whatever it is.
Maybe they had a heart issue,you know cardiovascular event or

(06:04):
whatever, and then it's like,okay, I'm going to take it
serious now, because if I don't,I'm going to die or I'm at
least not going to feel good forthe rest of my life.
And I meet a lot of thosepeople who are getting into
fitness and supplementation anddiet because of essentially
being forced into it that way.
Then I think, unfortunately,there's just this huge chunk of

(06:25):
America that still thinks thatit's okay to drink Diet Coke and
eat Frosted Flakes and, youknow, do all of the things.
And a big part of that is justmassive indoctrination, I
believe, from the governmentlevel, saying, well, this is
what the food pyramid is, orthis is what the food plate is,
or here's the four food groupsand it's okay to.

(06:48):
You know, just eat these things, you don't need organic, and
seed oils are great for youbecause they're lower in
cholesterol, of course, andbecause and margarine is better
than butter, because obviouslysomething man-made would be
better than something God puthere Right.
And so there's just all thisbullshit for lack of a better
term that's been fed to us quiteliterally and figuratively

(07:12):
through this process, that thereare still a lot of people.
Anthony, there's a placevitality nutrition is in
bountiful Utah.
That's where I'm doing thisshow from.
This is the store that I tookover from my parents.
Two doors down, next to us, isa pawn shop, okay.
Next to that is a is a like acar tinting place, and next to

(07:32):
that is a place called Swig.
Swig is a soda shop.
It's like a designer soda shopwhere you can get your dirty Dr
Pepper or whatever the hell theysell over there, and primarily
it's flavored sodas, because thesoda itself is already not bad
for you enough.
We need to also add someadditional high fructose corn
syrup and artificial colors andsweeteners and whatever else

(07:55):
into the mix to make it evenhealthier for us, right?
And then they also sell sugarcookies, because of course they
sell sugar cookies, and thatplace has a line out into the
street most of the day for theirdrive through, where there's
somewhere between six and 10cars that are in that drive
through all day long.

(08:17):
A gluttonous society when itcomes to that kind of stuff.
Food, I think, is the mostaddictive thing that there is in
America, and I should say dirtyfood, toxic food, unhealthy
food, sugar, all that kind ofstuff, and so I do think that

(08:37):
it's.
I don't think it's a clearcorrelation that you can draw
that says well, there's morepeople spending money on food
and supplements and nutritionand fitness than ever before,
and yet America's getting sicker.
I think the sicker are gettingsicker and sicker and sicker.
The smaller percentage ofpeople that are getting
healthier are getting healthier.
And then there's this group inthe middle who are sick of being

(08:57):
sick, who are starting toshuttle money over there.
But that group of people, onceyou're there, it's a hell of a
job to get back out of it, right?

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I mean I couldn't agree more, and I think
something really interesting Ifound being in this line of work
is it will take me hours toconvince people to buy creatine.
I'm talking unflavored, nothingelse added in.
The only ingredient is creatine.
They ask a thousand and onequestions, but they have no
problem going to a grocery store, reading a label and say, oh,

(09:30):
oreos, that looks good.
And then couldn't evenpronounce the ingredients on the
back of it yeah well, they'renot.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
They're not even looking at the ingredients on
the back of it.
Right, they're not even lookingat that label.
The most they're just going toeat the Oreos.
But you're right, I get parentsin here all the time to
vitality Well, is it safe togive my teenage son creatine?
And I'm thinking to myself well, what else are you giving your
son that you're not even askingthat question about?
It's more likely for them to beconcerned about creatine than

(09:59):
putting their son on Adderall,and that's a problem, right?
And so there's a big educationgap.
There's a reason why peoplelike you and I have podcasts to
try and get this information outthere, and it is shifting.
But decades of momentum theother direction.
It's tough to shift that backand get it going the right

(10:21):
direction, but I do think it'shappening and I am at least
heartened that we're going theright direction, but it's it's.
It's a lot to turn the tide,for sure.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, and I think we face a lot of adversity on the
way up of helping, and I'm goingto explain the adversity and I
think you're going to agree withme on this.
So personal training like thefitness side of it as well as
supplementation side of itnothing's regulated.
I mean nothing.
You can be Joe Schmo and puttogether some things at a pot
and say this is a greatsupplement, it's going to do X,
y, z.
And you can be Joe Schmo andsay you're a trainer and

(10:57):
convince people that you knowwhat they're doing because you
look the part, and then all of asudden they're getting hurt.
And both sides are true and Ithink we're like people are
taking advantage of the factthat supplements aren't
regulated, that personaltraining is not regulated.
Therefore, people will go outand try and spend money on it
because they do have the intentof getting healthier, but then

(11:17):
they get hurt because they'rewith a bad trainer or they take
a supplement that does somethingbad to them Because yet again,
it's some guy in his garageputting things together.
So how do you combatcircumventing that and getting
people on the right track withthe right supplements and kind
of helping them understand thatno, this is what you should be

(11:38):
taking.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, I think there's actually a little bit more
nuance to even that what yousaid, and generally I do agree
with your statement.
But there's one thing that Ithink is really important.
I think the majority ofmistakes that are made on
supplementation is just notunderstanding how to use the
supplement correctly or gettingthe right supplement for the
thing that you're trying toaccomplish, more so than it is

(12:01):
getting a crappy supplement.
Now, there's plenty of crappysupplements out there, trust me,
I know, and and especially onthe number one supplement seller
in the world, which is Amazonuh, where we actually have
counterfeit supplements likelegit counterfeits, where people
are printing off somebodyelse's label, wrapping it around
a bottle and saying they'reselling you that brand's product

(12:22):
when they're not selling youthat brand's product.
That's a big problem on Amazon.
Amazon knows it's a problem,the FDA knows it's a problem and
neither one of them are doinganything about it because,
frankly, the FDA doesn't wantthe supplement industry to be
successful.
They're protecting thepharmaceutical industry, not the
supplement industry.
So they regulate the supplementindustry in a different way.
They regulate supplements asfood.

(12:43):
They're not unregulated, butthey're less regulated than
pharma is.
But 75% of the FDA's budget forpharmaceutical regulation comes
from the pharmaceuticalcompanies, so there's a massive
conflict of interest there, andonly about 2% of their budget
comes from supplement companies,so there's no real conflict of
interest there, and so they'renot really all that interested

(13:06):
in protecting the supplementconsumer, unfortunately, which
means the consumer has toprotect themselves, and this is
the hardest thing, the hardestthing for me to answer, and you
have to be in the exact sameposition.
I sell supplements for a living.
One of the things that I tellmy clients and my listeners all
the time is I have an inherentbias.

(13:26):
I believe what I'm telling you100% and I will always be honest
with you with the informationthat I have, but I am biased and
I do sell the things that Italk about in many cases, and so
you have to decide based ongetting information from someone
else besides just me doing yourown research, whatever it is.
If what I'm saying is legit andthat's on you I'll put the

(13:50):
information out there.
I'll do the best I can to be asclear as possible, but you have
to understand I have a bias.
Well, as a trainer, you have abias.
You probably think you're thebest trainer in the world, or
one of them, and maybe you are,but that's your own bias, right?
And so then the people thatmight hire you or listen to your
podcast have to decide if theyagree with you on that.
And I have the same thing on myend.

(14:11):
I have a lot of people that say, jared, you're amazing, I love
all your knowledge and I'm sograteful for that, but I don't
ever want people to just liketake my word for it, because we
all are, you know, pushing whatwe believe in and what we want
to push, and unfortunately,there are also people that are
just pushing stuff, just to pushstuff and make money.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, I really couldn't agree more.
And there's you are right inthe sense that maybe it's not
like poisonous supplements, butI'm more related to like you go
to a Rite Aid right or CVS andyou show up and there's a
thousand different types ofvitamin A, store brands this
brand and it's more based uponthe type of, let's say, calcium.
I think calcium is a reallygood case in point.

(14:52):
There's different types ofcalcium, right, and some are
cheaper to make, some are moreexpensive and it's because of
the absorption levels on it,it's because of how they get
that sort of calcium and peopledon't understand that.
They just see calcium.
Oh, my doctor told me to buythis and they're not taking the
right type of calcium to helpwith absorption.

(15:13):
So it's not going to harm thembut it's not doing anything for
them.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
So how do you?

Speaker 1 (15:18):
baseline that education.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, that's exactly my point too.
You really.
You probably made the pointbetter than I did.
But let's take calcium.
We'll go down that road forjust a minute.
So, calcium as a raw materialand as a guy who formulates
supplements for a living, I seewhat all the raw material spec
sheets look like.
You know what the source is,where it comes from in the world
and all this kind of stuff.
The raw material, calcium, iscalcium carbonate.

(15:41):
Calcium carbonate is mined likeyou would mine gold or copper
or something like that.
It's literally a rock, it's aninorganic mineral and it
basically, if you look atcalcium carbonate, it's like a
piece of chalk and I mean Tumsyeah Well, it's unflavored Tums
would be calcium carbonate,right?
It's just this chalky stuff,right.

(16:02):
And so if you think about howthe human body was made to
absorb nutrition, it was nevermade to eat a rock or a piece of
chalk.
It was made to eat.
You know, maybe it's in thecase of calcium.
There's a bunch of sourcescarrots are high in calcium,
lots of green foods are high incalcium.
Of course dairy is high incalcium, and those would be
organic forms of calcium thatare actually coming from a food

(16:25):
source your body pretty muchknows how to parse all that out
and get the absorption out of it.
Now, there's a lot of you knowfactors to that, but generally
speaking, our body handlescalcium from a nutritional
source, a food source, much moreefficiently than it would
inorganic mineral like calciumcarbonate.
So in manufacturing of calcium,to try and make a calcium

(16:47):
supplement work, they'll dowhat's called a chelate, where
they'll actually bond calciumcarbonate.
It's still the same rock, butthey bond it to an amino acid,
for instance.
Or they bond it to an acid likecitric acid, which would be
calcium citrate.
Or if you were to have acalcium bonded to the amino acid
glycine, it would be calciumcitrate.
Or if you were to have acalcium bonded to the amino acid
glycine, it would be calciumglycinate.

(17:08):
If you were to have calciumbonded to I'm trying to think of
another one.
Well, or there may be differentforms of calcium, like calcium
hydroxyapatite.
Hydroxyapatite is the same kindof calcium that's found in the
human bone and the human teeth,and they'll get that from a
bovine source, from a cow, andthey'll get calcium from the
bone meal of the cow, knowingthat that's bio-identical to the

(17:30):
kind of calcium that we make inour bones and in our teeth.
And so then, either chelatingit with an acid which turns it
into a compound that the bodyrecognizes as food because it's
attached to a mineral, or, sorry, to an amino acid, to a protein
Now we're not looking at a rock, we're looking at a protein

(17:52):
attached to a rock and thatessentially tricks the body into
letting it in, and that works.
Chelation works really, reallywell In the example of magnesium
.
Magnesium bisglycinate, myfavorite form of magnesium, is
bonded to two glycine moleculesand when you take that, it
absorbs dramatically better thanmagnesium oxide, which is
essentially just raw magnesiumlike 10 times better, according

(18:14):
to the research.
And so the same could be saidwhen you look at a food-based
like a hydroxyapatite or abonded chelated calcium.
So that's where the consumerthat's actually putting the
product in the body, in theirbody, needs to recognize that
what's on the back of the labelmatters a whole lot more than
what's on the front of the label.
In terms of what's in thesupplement facts panel.

(18:35):
One of the things I talk a tonabout is how to read a
supplement facts panel.
Just help people kind of figureout what they're looking for
there, cause it's it's.
It's like a different languageif you're not familiar with it.
You know what the heck doescalcium hydroxyapatite mean If
you've never heard that wordright?
Or magnesium bisglycinate whatdoes that mean?
So, understanding that matters.

(18:57):
But a point that you made that Ithink is important too, is you
talked about?
Well, maybe they're not harmingthemselves with supplements.
I would say in most casesthey're not harming themselves.
They're just wasting moneyprobably.
But there are some cases whereyou can actually harm yourself
too if you're not well educatedon this, and one of those places

(19:17):
is calcium.
We know now that they've donelong-term studies with women
taking like a thousandmilligrams of calcium a day for
10 years and their bone densityis not higher than it was before
they started taking calcium,but their risk of heart disease
is 25% higher because thatcalcium is not absorbing into
the bone or the teeth.
It's actually laying down inthe arteries and hardening the
arteries instead.

(19:38):
And that doesn't happen with agood, clean source of calcium
and with the right cofactorsmagnesium, vitamin D3, k2, these
things.
It's a lot to understand andit's very overwhelming for a lot
of people, and the whole reasonI do my podcast is to try and
help people figure out that kindof stuff so they can be actual
informed consumers.
Whether they buy it from me orbuy it from someone else, they

(19:59):
at least know what they'relooking at when they look at
that label.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, and I think calcium just to kind of not to
beat you to that horse, but tobring it back up again.
I think the reason I went thereis because multivitamins are a
giant seller and I think ruleone for me, and maybe it's
different for you If the firstingredient is calcium carbonate
in the multivitamin, it belongsin the garbage.
And you see that with a lot ofmass produced multivitamins is
they heavy into calciumcarbonate because we as humans

(20:30):
have this idea that bigger isbetter.
So, like you said, it's a thickpowdery molecule so they can
really pack it in because it'scheap and have the pill looks
bigger and then we think we'regetting a better form of pill
because look how much biggermine is than yours.
I don't know if you thinkthat's, if you agree with me on
that, but that's something I'vealways noticed.
A good advice about.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Well, calcium has been that.
We talked about indoctrinationwhen it comes to health.
We've been indoctrinated thatwe need to be supplementing
calcium, particularly women, ifthey're going to prevent
osteoporosis for years.
And and these, these studiesnow that are observational
studies uh, you know that theylook back at at patient history
have proven that supplementingcalcium is probably more of a

(21:11):
bad thing than a good thing.
Um, because the truth of thematter is most of us get enough
calcium in our diet anyway, soyou don't really need to
supplement and in most cases,what you need to supplement are
the things that help you absorband utilize that calcium.
But one of my favorite episodesof my podcast is called Centrum
Sucks, because it does Like.
It's the number one sellingmultivitamin in the world.
It's made by do you know who?

(21:33):
It's made by Anthony.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
A lot of people don't know this.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's made by Pfizer, so am I going to trust my
supplement.
Yeah exactly right Now.
Centrum started out as its ownthing, but Pfizer bought them
out decades ago.
Now it's the number one sellingmultivitamin, it's the most
marketed multivitamin and it'sthe most copied multivitamin, so
almost every store brand and,like your CVSs and your
Rite-Aids, like you were talkingabout Kroger Costco they're all

(21:59):
based on Centrum.
So they're all pretty much thesame thing and they literally
all suck.
There are things in theseproducts that are bad for you.
Not only are they not good foryou, but they're bad for you,
and there are studies that havebeen done You've probably seen
some of these that actually showthat you're at higher risk of
disease if you take amultivitamin than if you don't
take a multivitamin.
And those are all based ontaking that crap in Centrum.

(22:21):
And yet I have something I callmy vital five, the five
supplements that I think mostAmerican adults should take on a
regular basis.
Now, there's no universal youknow way to create that list and
make it perfect for everysingle person, but on average, I
believe my vital five holds upreally, really well, and one of
the things on my vital five is amultivitamin, but I always

(22:44):
preface it with a greatmultivitamin, because 90% of the
multivitamins out there are notgood.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, I think that's super important is to understand
that most multivitaminsliterally belong in the garbage
and people just don't understandwhat they're taking.
So I want to.
I want to bring up a couple ofcommon ones, cause I think if we
go in the weeds and talk aboutreally specific ones that excite
me, most people listen to theshow.
We'll just turn it off.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
So if they didn't already turn it off when they
found out who your guest was.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
They're probably good so maybe I think we talk about
the common ones, at least what Isee, that I because I like and
don't like, so I think a big onefor me recently is a lot of
people I've been talking to thatare 50 plus are taking zinc as
a supplement because they readon a label that zinc helps with

(23:38):
preventing cold flu and I haveto sit there and educate them
that you know.
Yes, but zinc also has amillion other side effects if
you take it for too long.
So it should be only takenwithin that window of you
getting sick.
But then it fights withabsorption of other vitamins

(24:00):
that you'll now be malnourishedwith.
So to me that's a big one thatstands out is zinc.
What's a one, the other thingthat stands out with vitamins I
think people take too much ofand two, if it's not zinc, then
what is it?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
yeah, so with there's a bunch of stuff that falls
into that category where youknow, um, a little bit is good,
a much too much is not not,enough is not right.
I mean, if you think about justhuman hormones, particularly
the hormones that most peopleare the most familiar with, like
the sex hormones, we know thattoo much of a good thing is too
much of a good thing when itcomes to hormones, and too

(24:37):
little is also not good.
It's all about balance, right.
And even having enough of onehormone and not enough of the
other hormone we'll takeestrogen and testosterone as a
perfect example of that thebalance of the two is pretty
important, and so you can havean optimal level of one, a
suboptimal level of the other,and you're not going to be where
you need to be.
And zinc is a perfect exampleof that, and it really is a

(25:00):
perfect example of how nature isdesigned to optimize our health
.
You don't find zinc as ageneral rule in nature without
copper.
Copper and zinc are broughtinto the same through the root
system of the same plants and,interestingly enough, the
research indicates that it'sabout an eight to one to maybe a

(25:22):
10 to one ratio of zinc tocopper is an optimal ratio.
And so you know I made themistake, and I'm always happy to
admit my mistakes too, as I'mlearning.
Before we hit record, I wastelling you I've only been doing
this my whole life.
Hopefully I'll get good at itone day.
Right, but there's just so muchto learn.
But I formulated a product.

(25:43):
It was a rush job.
It was 2020.
I don't know if you rememberwhat happened in 2020, but there
was this big thing that hit thefirst few months of 2020.
And everybody was coming in tomy shop looking for vitamin C.
That was the first thing thateverybody wanted to do.
There was a very early study onCOVID that said that IV vitamin
C was preventative and curativeof COVID.

(26:04):
So we had a lot of peoplewanting to stock up on vitamin C
and, interestingly enough, thebig supplement companies were
running out of vitamin C.
It was all of a sudden.
For the first time in my career, it was hard to find vitamin C,
and the other thing that washard to find was zinc.
Those were the two big thingseverybody was looking for and
we're talking about, like March,april, at the very, very
beginning, before, anybody wastalking about quercetin or any
of the other things that peopleused for COVID.

(26:27):
And so I called my manufacturerand I said hey, I don't know
where this thing's going, butwe're getting a ton of demand
for vitamin C and zinc.
I want to formulate a productwith vitamin C and zinc.
What do you have?
What do you have on hand rightnow in your warehouse that we
can formulate with?
Because I knew they were goingto have a hard time finding
anything they didn't already own, and thankfully they had

(26:48):
exactly the type of zinc that Iwanted.
That I think is is the mostbioavailable form.
And they had the mineralascorbate forms of vitamin C,
which are my best, my favoriteforms of vitamin C, because
they're much more bioavailable,they're much easier on the
system, they're buffered andnon-acidic and all this kind of
thing.
And so I hurried and threwtogether a formula and then,
instead of putting a filler infor the rest of the capsule, I

(27:10):
put in olive leaf extract, whichhas antiviral, antibacterial
and antifungal properties, andso we put that product out.
We call it Vital C, and again,it was a rush job.
I put it out.
I didn't.
It was the.
I've never done a supplementthat quickly.
I I the all the rightingredients, except I didn't

(27:36):
think about copper, I justtotally spaced.
Copper and zinc needs copperbecause they imbalance one
another, uh, if they're nottaken in together.
So it wasn't too long before Iwas like, uh, oops and hurried
and did the next batch withcopper in it and corrected the
problem.
Um, but uh, I had zinc is aperfect example of that, where
if it's not done right, uh, itcan be wrong.
And so, like in a, a greatmultivitamin is going to have a

(27:58):
little bit of zinc, not a crazyload, because we do need zinc.
Many of us are deficient in zinc, but we don't need 50
milligrams or a hundredmilligrams a day, which a lot of
people are taking.
Uh, in fact, I think that's abad idea pretty much all the
time, and unless you're activelyfighting a cold or something
like that, and we need copper tobalance that.
So my multivitamin, the UltimateVitality Multi, has a small

(28:21):
amount of zinc with a equivalentratio of copper to make sure
that we're staying in balance,both in chelated forms that are
more easily absorbed, and it'sthat type of thing that, as a
consumer, I think is prettychallenging to figure out,
because if you look at the backof a multivitamin, I don't care
if it's Centrum or somethingthat's actually good.

(28:43):
There's a lot of ingredients andthere's a lot of names, and you
look at the vitamin itself andthen, in parentheses, you've got
the form of that vitamin right.
And then there's the RDA, andthen there's the milligram or
microgram dose, and many peopledon't even know what the
difference is between amilligram and a microgram.
And then you see the RDA onCentrum looks like the
government formulated theproduct.

(29:04):
It's all a hundred percent.
And so you're like oh, it'sperfect, unless you realize that
you cannot under anycircumstances trust the
government when it comes to yourhealth.
And so then you look at amultivitamin like mine, or what
I would consider to be a greatmultivitamin, and the RDAs are
like 200%, 500%, 5000% of theRDA in some cases, because we

(29:25):
know that optimal doses are notthe same as minimal dose, and
the minimal dose to prevent youfrom getting scurvy is not the
same as the optimal dose to keepyou in optimal health.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Scurvy.
That's a little bit of a piratereference.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
You don't get it.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
But yeah, I think that's a really good case in
point.
Is there any specific vitamin,though?
I know you talked prettybroadly there that you would say
this is the number one thing Isee people take too much of and
I would probably recommendcutting back.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
It would be calcium for sure.
That would easily be number one.
There are a few others.
Probably I'd have to thinkabout it for a second, but
calcium is.
I probably sell less calcium inmy health food store than maybe
any store in the whole country.
I routinely try to talk mycustomers out of buying calcium
unless there's a very specificneed like osteoporosis or

(30:23):
osteopenia.
And then I'm still recommendingsignificantly lower doses and
recommending a bunch ofco-factors more than I'm
actually recommending calciumitself.
And that's after talking tothem about what their diet is to
try and figure out how muchcalcium they're actually getting
.
The average American gets likea thousand milligrams of calcium
in their diet, so supplementinganother thousand or 1200
milligrams of a calcium thatthey can't absorb is just a bad

(30:44):
idea.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, I really couldn't agree with that.
I don't want to flip the scriptbecause I think it's more
important to talk about, becausepeople always wonder what can I
take, what should I take?
And I think I'm not going togive my opinion on this until
you give yours great, it's atest.
It's a test but there's one,maybe two specific supplements I

(31:07):
could generally say, of coursebarring medical conditions.
So let's say general populationOkay, that pretty much everyone
should take.
All right Because they're notgetting enough of it through
their regular diet and thebenefits outdo what any normal
vitamin might, or mineral may,mainly give you.

(31:32):
So what do you say?
Do you think if you were to sayyou had to pick one or two at
best supplements for people totake and for the general
population, what would it be?
All right?

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So, with this being a test, I'm going to answer this
in two ways First I'm going toanswer my answer and then I'm
going to guess your answer.
And I'm real curious if I'mgoing to answer this in two ways
First I'm going to answer myanswer and then I'm going to
guess your answer, and I'm realcurious if I'm close.
Okay, all right, my answer isand I'll start with just what I
was saying before I have myvital five and I'll tell you
what that all is, but I'llnarrow it down to the things
that I think are the absolutelymost critical.

(32:03):
The first thing that I tellpeople if you were to email me
so I had no idea what yourgender was, your age, was, your
health status I couldn't evenhear your voice.
All I'm seeing is is words onthe paper and you said jared,
I'm only willing to take whatsupplement?
One supplement, what will it be?
Then I'm going to tell you totake magnesium, bisglycinate, um

(32:24):
, and I and I always saybisglycinate, not just magnesium
, because, exactly like we saidabout calcium, there are good
magnesiums and not goodmagnesiums.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
And the clinical studies it depends on the type
of magnesium, right, becausesome of them are good that they
use for suppositories.
So if you need to poop, that'sa good type of magnesium.
Magnesium oxidate is what theyuse in hospitals.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, Magnesium oxide magnesium hydroxide and they're
some of the most effectivelaxatives in the world, but
that's not why we're takingextra magnesium in most cases,
right?
So with magnesium bisglycinate,you get the highest absorption
of any magnesium, according tothe clinical trials.
There is a big company outthere the number one magnesium
excuse me, magnesium in themarketplace that has seven

(33:07):
different forms of magnesium init and they say in their
advertising you need seven formsof magnesium.
That is a lie.
You do not need seven forms ofmagnesium, you need one form of
magnesium and you need to absorbit Now.
The other forms of magnesiumhave benefits and, depending on
what you're dealing with,bisglycinate may not be your
best form of magnesium, but whenwe're talking about general,

(33:28):
I'd say for 80 to 90% of people,it's the best form of magnesium
according to the clinicaltrials, and it's the one form
that won't make you run to thebathroom, because bisglycinate
doesn't have an ionic impact inthe colon and so it doesn't
cause a laxative effect, andthat means you can take more of
it because you're able to absorbit without just pooping it out,

(33:48):
and that matters too, right?
So magnesium is always mynumber one.
I already mentioned multivitaminis in my vital five.
I have two others or threeothers that are in the vital
five.
I've got omega-3s.
Now, if you are willing to eatomega-3 in your diet in good
quality and good quantity, youdon't need to supplement with it
.
But that's pretty much at thispoint.
Wild caught Alaskan salmon, andthat's expensive.

(34:11):
Not everybody loves salmon.
There's there's issues, right,and so I believe that omega-3 as
a supplement makes a ton ofsense and it's the most
economical way to do to get youromega-3 even more so than it is
to get it in food.
And then I have two that are inthe vital five because I think
you need them on a regular basis.
One of them you don'tnecessarily need every day, but

(34:33):
you do need it every year, andthat's probiotics.
Now, probiotics are like themost confusing category and
supplements, I think, because,for one thing, all the words are
Latin, so that confuses people.
So that confuses people.
And then, for another thing,there's just so many conflicting
claims about you know why myprobiotics the best versus why

(34:55):
my you know his probiotics arethe worst, and so on and so
forth.
I have very strong beliefsabout what makes a great
probiotic, and if we had another45 minutes I'd share all those
with you.
But basically, in a nutshell,I'm a big believer in spore
forming probiotics for mostpeople, and the reason I say you
need them on a regular basis,but not necessarily daily, is if

(35:16):
you are in good health, yourgut's good, you don't have any
kind of IBS type symptoms at all, your immune system is strong,
your mental health is strongbecause probiotics play a
massive role in mental healthand all that's good.
Then you just need to know thatbetween glyphosate, which is
sprayed on all the non-organicfood and seeps into some of the
organic food, which is a humanantibiotic, and the fact that

(35:40):
70% of antibiotics that are madein America are fed to animals
that are then fed to us, andthen there are a bunch of other
stressors that come with to thegut microbiome that you do need
to fortify the gut on a regularbasis.
Even if you don't ever usepharmaceuticals like antibiotics
that would kill off bacteria,it's being done to you to a

(36:03):
large extent.
So I think at least a fewmonths out of every year you're
taking a good probiotic.
And then digestive enzymes isthe one that always surprises
people in my vital five.
Most people aren't veryfamiliar with digestive enzymes
or they get them confused withprobiotics.
But by the time you hit about30, 35 years old, you're
deficient in digestive enzymesin almost every case, and if you
take digestive enzymes withyour food, you'll absorb more

(36:26):
nutrition from your food, you'llease the burden on the gut.
You'll reduce inflammation.
There's a whole bunch of reallycool benefits to enzymes and,
frankly, the two things I willnot go without on a daily basis
are digestive enzymes andmagnesium myself, and I feel
better when I take them thanwhen I don't take them.
Even if I only miss a day ortwo, I notice a significant

(36:46):
difference in those.
Now can I guess yours?
Yeah, go for it.
Okay, I was going to guess.
I have no idea.
I know nothing about how youfeel about this, but if I had to
guess two for you, I'm going toguess it's magnesium and
creatine.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
You got one of them.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Creatine.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Okay, creatine is.
If I had a sixth in my vitalfive, creatine would be it.
Everybody, especially over 35,40, should be taking creatine.
I a hundred percent agree withthat.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Creatine is 100% number one.
I just don't see especially indoses below 15 grams per day, of
course, depending on bodyweight negative side effects and
it's the most researchedsupplement on the entire market
bar none, because everyonethought it was related to a

(37:34):
steroid back in the 80s and 90s.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
so and it's one of the least expensive to take.
So it's easy too, right?

Speaker 1 (37:42):
oh, it's so easy and it doesn't taste like anything.
I mean, you get a little like alittle grit yeah, yeah, yeah, a
little grit.
I mean creatine is one of theeasiest supplements to take.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
You don't have to take it in a pill, you can mix
it in anything.
It tastes like almost nothingand it's.
It's inexpensive and and and Iwill say this, I'm going to
throw this little caveat outthere I don't know if you
recommend a specific brand, butdo make sure that you're not
going cheap on creatine.
Expensive creatine, so to speak, is still cheap.
Get a good, reputable brand,Don't just buy it.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, I'm pretty strong on that one because
there's some pretty crappycreatine coming out of China and
it is cheap and you have to bea little cautious there.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
I do want to break into that.
But there is one supplementthat it's very mass produced.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
A lot of people take it, the one I'm thinking of yes,
so guess, oh, are you talkingabout a brand?
Oh, the second supplement?
Yeah Well, the other one Iwould have guessed was vitamin D
.
Yeah, vitamin D3, specificallythe reason vitamin D is not in
mine is because it multivitamin,so I include that in the
vitamin.
If you have a really goodmultivitamin, it should have a
good high dose of vitamin D3 andit should have a high dose of

(38:53):
vitamin K2 to make sure that thevitamin D3 is doing its work
the best.
So I don't include it.
That's what everybody guesses,that that's in my vital five but
it's hidden in the multi.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
But I will say, magnesium glycinate is very
close.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, it's so critical, we're so deficient.
Everybody needs it.
It's universal, just likevitamin D is.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
And both tie creatine and magnesium to the same like
source right.
So both are very related to onespecific thing that we do as
human beings and that weabsolutely suck at now, and we
keep getting worse at it andthat's our sleep.
So magnesium glycinate helpsyou in deeper sleep.
It helps relax you, which is whyI take it at bedtime.

(39:39):
And then creatine, becausepeople are like creatine.
What are you talking about?
Creatine gets naturallyproduced when we're in deep
sleep and it's where our bodyflushes everything out.
It's related to flushingbetween the blood brain barrier
and we're not sleeping well.
We're stuck at sleeping becauseof our iphones and everything
else associated with this dailystress, and our circadian

(40:00):
rhythms are so freaking out ofwhack yeah so that's another
reason why I really think peopleneed to get that and the
vitamin d.
People just aren't outside, theyjust they just don't go outside
, it's just crazy.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Well, or and or they've been indoctrinated that
they shouldn't go outsidewithout slathering on sunscreen
oh, my god, that is.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I can't tell you such a massive like people think
they need to put on 100, 120 spfto walk outside and I'm just
like are you out of your mind?
are you like, do you really?
I'm so worried about skincancer?
Okay, you're worried about skincancer, which the odds unless
you're going up frying yourselfare extremely low, but you're

(40:41):
not worried about one.
All the issues you can get fromvitamin D and malabsorption and
all the things that vitamin Dgive to us you're not going to
get.
Your immune system is going tobe shot, right, your bone
density is going to be shot.
There's so many thingsassociated in that vitamin D
helps us with and you're notgoing to get that.
And then you're going to takesome crazy chemicals that you
don't know what the hell they doand you're going to slide that

(41:03):
over your body, and SPF above 30does literally no different.
So now it's just moreunnecessary things.
Yeah, that just is absolutelymind-blowing.
Yes, you don't want to burnyourself, but what do you think
we did for thousands of years?
What we did was we were alwaysin the sun, so we slowly tanned.

(41:25):
Right, we're outside in earlyspring.
We're slowly getting the sungetting stronger and stronger
here in the northeast east atleast.
By the time summer comes, ourbodies are now adapted to the
sun.
Yep, but we got rid of that byhiding indoors.
So that's the biggest issue iswe didn't teach our bodies how
to constantly work on a on thesun and train resistance train,

(41:50):
if you want to think of it thatway to get the sun.
Sorry, that is a giant petpeeve of mine, but I just wanted
to address that.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
I've done.
I've done whole shows on thatand I always at least touch on
it every spring because it issuch a big deal.
And, um, you know, when peopleare are out there looking at
sunscreen it's exactly what yousaid about Oreos, right?
They're like okay, well, I needto block the sun because the
sun's bad, so I'm going to usethis SPF because it's good.

(42:15):
And they don't even payattention to what poison is in
that SPF, right?
And so the SPF is more toxicthan the sun by a million X.
And not only is it more toxicthan the sun, but we're now
blocking out all the benefits ofthe sun, and so it's a real.
It's a completely backwards wayof thinking.

(42:37):
That makes no sense if you juststart spending a little bit of
time thinking about it.
But also, we have to remembertoo and I don't know what your
take is on this, but I can tellyou from personal experience my
wife and I, when we stoppedeating seed oils, we stopped
burning.
We we go out in the sun andwe're far less cautious than we
ever used to be.
And if we get a burn, it's mildand it heals right up, and we

(42:59):
rarely, we rarely peel oranything like that.
We're smart about it.
For the most part, we try toget, you know, a small amount of
sun exposure as we're workinginto our outdoor.
We spend a lot of time outdoors, but minus the seed oils.
We spend a lot of time outdoors, um, but minus the seed oils,
which is a major problem inAmerica for me, uh.
And then doing wise sun exposure.

(43:20):
I I talk a lot about you know,you and I have this beautiful
dome that we have.
That is just this.
It's super easy to burn a baldhead right Like that's.
That's the place the sun likesto torch us.
For guys like us and I talkabout intermittent sun a lot I
say, look, if you're going to goon a hike, go hike and be 15,
20 minutes with no sunscreen,they'll get.

(43:42):
Get some shade for five or 10minutes, let your skin cool down
, maybe even throw a littlewater on there, and then get out
in the sun again and then do itagain.
And then, if you're at anamusement park, same thing,
whatever it is you're doingoutside.
It's just kind of basic wisdomthat if you take your skin away
from the fire, so to speak, andlet it calm down, then you can

(44:02):
go out and get more exposure.
So you can do that on a on asame day basis or you can do it
on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
I will say from the sun is bad for human health.
Yes, the only caveat I wouldever add is if you can't hide
from the sun like, you're gonnabe stuck outside all day in the
blistering sun you're notadapted to it.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
For sure, if you're in a swimming pool for two hours
, don't be dumb, right yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:25):
yeah, don't be done, because we do know what burning
does cause right for sure, we dothe media effects and the
long-term effects but butthere's so many ways to train
for it and that's the thing weforget about.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
And there's clean sunscreen and there's dirty
sunscreen, right?
So if you are going to use asunscreen, use a clean one.
So yeah, it's education.
But the other thing, anthonyand I have to assume if this is
a big pet peeve of yours you'veread about this.
We have more skin cancer inAmerica than we ever did before,
and we have more skin cancer inAmerica than we ever did before
, and we have more sunblockbeing used than we ever have

(44:55):
before.
And you're not nearly as old asI am.
But I can tell you that when Iwas a teenager and younger, we
didn't use sunscreen like ever.
We just went out and played andif we got burned, I mean we
weren't necessarily super smartabout it, but you know, we got
burned here and there.
We recognized we were going toget burned, so maybe we'd cover
up a little bit or whatever.
We hardly ever used sunscreenback then.
And then sunscreen became likethis gospel thing that was all

(45:18):
of a sudden taught it's becauseit was a song, it was like a
class song they did.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
If I were to tell you kids just to do one thing it's
wear sunscreen.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
It's a song.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah see, I don't even I don't know about that,
but I don't doubt it was like90s and it was just a speech
that they kind of put music inthe background of all right.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
But yeah, I think that was after I was out of
school, so I didn't get thatindoctrination.
But it's crazy because we havenow.
It is so gospel that you don'tgo to the beach without
sunscreen, you don't go to theswimming pool without sunscreen,
you don't go on a hike withoutsunscreen, you don't go to the
beach without sunscreen, youdon't go to the swimming pool
without sunscreen, you don't goon a hike without sunscreen, you
don't do anything withoutsunscreen.
And they tell you put it onbefore you get out there,
because it takes 20 or 30minutes to be active, which

(45:59):
means that we're blocking all ofthe benefits of the sun,
whereas with a mineral sunscreenyou can actually go out for 20
or 30 minutes.
You can put the sunscreen onand it immediately starts
blocking the sun so you can getthe exposure that you need
before you cover up.
So it's just, it's a differentway of looking at it, but in my
opinion it's the logical way oflooking at it.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
No, I couldn't agree more.
I really couldn't agree more.
I do want to do talk about onemore thing before we got the
show up.
That's testing, and it's kindof where you talked about the
absorption of differentsupplements and how to know
something is clean and I don'tthink expensive is the right
answer that you mentioned before, and I'll make a good
comparative analysis for you.
All right.

(46:40):
So wine as a case in point Iknow totally different, not a
supplement, not healthy.
A lot of the times what they dois expensive wine brands will
pull from the same grapes andsay these three bushes are now
our exclusive brand, slap alabel on it and charge six times

(47:00):
the price Because now it'sexclusive and expensive.
So I understand your pointwhere more expensive could
theoretically be better, but Idon't think it's the one.
I'll be all kind of analysis.
Instead, I would argue thatit's more brand reputation and

(47:21):
it's something you should leaninto, and I look for brands that
are heavily third-party tested.
So a good example, just becauseobviously this is the first
time I'm hearing of yours, whichI'm sure is great.
So a good example, just becauseobviously this is the first
time I'm hearing of yours, whichI'm sure is great.
But Thorne is a big supplementwe sell because that's something
that the Olympians use and itconstantly gets tested.
Because, they have to putdifferent outside chemicals

(47:43):
inside of it to make sure thatthere's nothing illegal so they
can go ahead and perform theirsport.
So that's like a specific brandthat I look for specifically a
label.
I think it's the NSF, so thenational sports federation,
correct that third-party testsspecific supplement brands.
And then you look for I use acompany called full script which

(48:04):
I know they third-party test alot of the companies that come
on there and they will actuallyshow that like their testings
they use on it and so for.
As a basic consumer like myself, I think it's really tough to
figure out what is and whatisn't tested.
So in your professional opinion, you're shopping around.
Is there anything specificlabel?

(48:24):
You look forward to know thatthis is right, this is not.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Well, that is.
That's the tough part, becausethe let me.
Let me take just a couple ofminutes minutes giving you a
little bit of background on this.
I think it'll make more senseif I do so.
When people talk about thesupplement industry not being
regulated, that's not actuallytrue.
It is regulated.
It's not regulated the same aspharmaceutical companies are

(48:48):
regulated.
It's regulated literally thesame as Nabisco or whoever is
making food.
That means the regulation ismuch, much more loose.
However, the law still statesthat what it says on the product
is supposed to be in theproduct.
That descending order ofingredients means that that's
the order that the ingredientsactually are in there.

(49:08):
If it's at the top of the list,it's more than what's the
second behind it or third behindit and all this kind of stuff.
And reputable and this is theimportant part, and this is the
part where you have to do somehomework to figure it out
Reputable manufacturers will dowhat's called CGMP manufacturing
, that's, certified goodmanufacturing processes.
That is not a law.

(49:29):
It is an agreement between FDAand the supplement industry.
That is a standard for howsupplements should be produced,
and so the companies that wantto be reputable and want to
actually essentially prove thatthey're doing it right.
Use CGMP.
You're opening up your facilityto regular FDA inspection, and

(49:55):
regular FDA inspection isinteresting because it's not
typically scheduled, or at leastnot scheduled in advance.
They kind of pop in when theywant to and then they grab
whatever batch records you'vegot and essentially try and
catch you not following therules.
Essentially, now there are abunch of manufacturers that are
putting out supplements that arenot CGMP.
The vast majority of them, inmy experience, are sold on

(50:17):
Amazon and eBay and Walmartcomplaces like that and it's
important to understand what'ssold in Walmart is not what's
the same as what's sold onWalmartcom.
Walmartcom is more Wild Westy,like Amazon is.
So you have some manufacturersof CGMP, some that are not.
If it says CGMP on the label,that's a great sign.
It should say that if it's aCGMP company.

(50:39):
But it doesn't mean somebodycan't put that on the label and
just lie to you, right?
So that's a problem as well.
So then you've got to do alittle bit of homework and try
and figure out who owns thecompany.
One of the greatest thingswe've got right now as
supplement consumers is we havethe world at our fingertips on
our iPhones or computers orwhatever else, and we have AI is

(51:00):
actually a pretty good tool forthis.
You can just plug in who ownsThorne supplements and you can
find out who owns the company,and then that's one way that you
can determine or at least it'sone way I determine if I either
A trust the brand or B want togive the brand my money, because
it's two different things,right?
So, like if Pfizer had a greatsupplement product, I still

(51:23):
wouldn't give them money becauseI don't like Pfizer.
So then it's just a.
Who do I want to actuallysupport with my supplement
dollars?
If Centrum was a bad-assformula which is not I would not
buy it based on who puts it outA because I don't trust them
and B because I don't want togive them my money, right?
So that's one thing that aconsumer can do is look and see
who owns the company.
There's a brand called Garden ofLife.

(51:44):
It used to be one of the wellstill is one of the biggest
supplement companies in thehealth food world, and they're
owned by Nestle now.
Well, I stopped carrying Gardenof Life when they got bought by
Nestle, because I also don'twant to give them my money and I
frankly don't trust Nestle withmy health.
So that's one thing that youcan do.
You can also dig around andjust get a lot of the brands now

(52:05):
will offer what they call C ofA certificates of analysis on
their website.
When I was talking aboutcreatine and certificates of
analysis on their website.
When I was talking aboutcreatine and it's so funny
because the point you made isinteresting you said well, just
because it's more expensivedoesn't make it better, and
that's 100% true.
However, thorne is a moreexpensive creatine than what
they sell at Walmart, for sure.
Why do you buy it?

(52:26):
Because it's got NSFcertification, and so you trust
that and you should trust that.
Nsf is a very reputablethird-party testing company.
My manufacturer that makes allof my supplements is an NSF
certified FDA facility, sothey're doing CGMP and NSF
certification, same thing aswhat Thorne does.
And so if you start digging andyou look at this kind of stuff,

(52:49):
it's interesting because NSFand there are other brands with
a company called Isura that doeseven more stringent testing
than NSF they're very, very cooland you start digging around,
those companies will actuallypolice it.
If they find out a brand isputting NSF on their bottle and
they're not.
They'll go after them andthey'll sue that company to stop

(53:10):
lying about who's actuallycertifying their products.
So when you look forcertifications like that, you
actually have a little bit moreprotection that way.
At a certain point, you have tocome to a conclusion that you
trust the brand based on alittle bit of research.
And maybe and I don't thinkthis is necessarily a bad thing
if you find people like Anthonythat you consider reputable, or

(53:33):
you find someone like me thatyou consider reputable because
you've listened to enough of ourstuff that you're like you know
what.
This guy's just legit.
I like what he says.
It makes sense.
I don't think he's BSing me.
Then you can start take theirword for it too.
But I don't think you shouldever take their word exclusively
.
You should always be looking alittle bit beyond that to see if
they're really full of it ornot, right?

(53:54):
So when it comes to you knowwhat you're looking for in a
brand, I always want to know whois the company that makes it.
If you cannot find a website fora company, that is a massive
red flag.
And if you look on Amazon atthe cheapest berberines and the
cheapest turmeric products andthe cheapest creatines, good

(54:14):
luck finding those brands online.
You won't even see them otherthan Amazon.
They're Amazon exclusive brands.
In many cases they're not evenAmerican companies, not that
that matters.
I don't care where the stuffcomes from if it's legitimate.
But in most cases they're notAmerican companies because
they're evading the law of theUnited States of America, so
they're likeading the law of theUnited States of America.
So they're like, okay, I'mgoing to do this offshore so

(54:34):
they can't bust me if I getcaught lying about you know
what's in my product and so it's.
It's those types of things andunfortunately there is no
foolproof way of knowing you'vegot a good quality brand or a
bad quality brand.
Like I said, you kind of got todig in, find what you can about

(54:55):
the company If it lookslegitimate.
Frankly, the people that arecheating.
They're not putting a lot oftime and effort into making
their stuff look legitimate andthey're certainly not providing
any back end information.
My favorite creatine I don'teven have a creatine, by the way
, anthony in my brand.
My favorite creatine the one'teven have a creatine, by the way
, anthony, in my brand.

(55:17):
My favorite creatine, the onethat we sell here at Vitality.
And the reason I don't have acreatine is because I love this
brand and I can't make itcheaper than them because their
volume is so much bigger thanmine.
So it's like, why put out thesame creatine for more money?
Is a company called Nutrabio.
Nutrabio, third-party testseverything.
They provide lab assays forevery single batch.
They have the exact same colorsas your podcast, so you should
love them, and they just have areally good quality but very

(55:43):
inexpensive creatine.
Their creatine it's a 200serving bottles like 57 bucks,
so it's very economical to useand it's super good stuff.
It's what I use myself, so youcan get a inexpensive creatine
without getting a crappycreatine.
But like.
Here's another example VitalProteins.
Do you know who they are?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, I've heard of them.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
They're a collagen company primarily.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
They were a great company.
They got bought out by Nestlelike six months ago and now
they've got a creatine in Costcothat is the cheapest creatine I
have ever seen and I justsimply don't believe that it's a
high quality creatine.
Just based on I think it don'tquote me on this, but I think it

(56:31):
was like 29 cents a serving isthe math.
That is like wow, that'sfreaking cheap versus like 50
cents a serving from Nutribio.
But you're talking or sorry, no, that's not right, sorry, it's
like 15 cents versus 25 cents.
I'm getting all mixed up, soit's a little bit more expensive
, but you're talking about 25cents a serving.
So just buy the high qualitystuff.
It's not that much different.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I couldn't agree more , Jared.
I do have to wrap this up, soI'm going to ask you the two
final questions I ask everyone.
First one if you were tosummarize this episode in one or
two sentences, what would beyour take home message?

Speaker 2 (57:02):
My take home message would be do your own research,
be your own expert when it comesto this.
I always tell people I thinkthe biggest mistake in American
health is that we have offloadedour health to someone that we
consider an expert and we nolonger are taking the authority

(57:23):
to make the right decisions forour health.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
All right, wow, that's a great one.
And the second question how canpeople find you, get ahold of
you and learn more aboutVitality Health?

Speaker 2 (57:37):
The best place to find me probably, if you want to
be educated by me anyway, isthe podcast.
Vitality Radio podcast withJared St Clair is the full name.
I'm on all the podcast apps andthen our website is
vitalitynutritioncom.
That's where you can find allthe stuff that you know we sell.
We sell our own brand.
We have about 50 items in theVitality Nutrition brand that
are formulated by me, and wehave a couple thousand items
that we sell from other brandsthat I have deemed reputable

(57:58):
from all the years that I'vebeen in this business and
believe are really doing itright.
So if I sound like I know whatI'm doing, hopefully that's a
good resource for you as far asthat goes.
And then my biggest presence onsocial media is Instagram at
Vitality Nutrition Bountiful,which is the city that we're in.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Jared, thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you guys for listening tothis week's episode of Health
and Fitness Redefined.
Don't forget to subscribe,share it's only where the show
grows and remember fitness ismedicine.
Thank you guys for listening tothis week's episode of Health
and Fitness Redefined.
Please don't forget tosubscribe and share the show
with a friend, with a loved one,for those that need to hear it.
And, ultimately, don't forgetfitness is medicine.

(58:38):
I'll see you next time.