Protein powders are one of the most popular nutritional supplements on the market. Unfortunately for consumers, marketing and profits are one of the main drivers of the protein powder industry, where product quality, safety, and effectiveness can take a back seat.
The main issue is that the supplement industry is essentially unregulated, where companies can police themselves on ingredient sourcing, manufacturing standards, and product claims. This means that if you had no moral compass, you could take sand from the beach, fill it in jugs, label those jugs as protein powder, and be in business tomorrow. There’s nothing that would stop you from doing this. Of course, you wouldn’t be in business very long as people figured out your scheme, but supplement companies rely on a lightly regulated industry to prey on consumers in more subtle ways.
Check out this recent Forbes article, 'Lawsuits Say Protein Powders Lack Protein, Ripping Off Athletes', to get a feel. It’s pretty scathing and accuses several popular protein powders of spiking their products with cheap fillers that they’re passing off as protein – meaning that the products have far less protein compared to label claims, which of course maximizes profits, minimizes health benefits, and creates potential safety issues.
If you’re like me and look to nutritional supplements to optimize your health with safe and highly effective products, this should infuriate you! What can you do to protect yourself as a consumer?
Before I get into the easiest way, here is another example of what poor supplement regulation looks like; this time from the top selling vegan protein supplement on the market – Vega One. In 2013, after initially declining to withdraw it’s products from the market, Vega One agreed to issue an FDA recall after trace amount of an antibiotic, chloramphenicol, was found in their Nutrition Shake and Vega Sports Performance Protein Product. The antibiotic found in their products was a prescription drug that is commonly used to treat typhoid fever and eye infection. Antibiotics should only to be used under medical supervision, yet because of poor testing and manufacturing practices, it was found in Vega’s protein supplements.
Again, this should be infuriating!
So what can you do to protect yourself from products of poor quality, safety, and effectiveness?
#1 Manufacturing Protocols
Would you trust your health to a company that doesn’t have any manufacturing protocols in place? Or, would you rather take products that adhere to pharmaceutical grade manufacturing protocols and test every ingredient and finished product? While it requires a little more research into the company your purchasing from, it’s an obvious answer. Your health is worth the time.
We are one of only a handful of companies that manufactures supplements in a pharmaceutical grade, FDA-Registered facility. While more expensive, we voluntarily adhere to much more stringent manufacturing and testing protocols because our mission is health, period.
#2 Raw Material Testing
In the Vega One example given above, raw material testing should have found and removed the presence of antibiotics in their protein powder, but clearly they did not have proper protocols in place, and this potentially puts your health at risk.
We test every raw ingredient in our products for contaminants, bacteria, metals, microbials, and more to ensure you’re getting the cleanest, safest, and most effective ingredients and products possible.
#3 Production Run Testing
Production run testing are tests run during the manufacturing process to ensure product dissolution, disintegration, stability, hardness, and thickness. These tests ensure that our products are going to do what they’re intended to do. We also test all our finished products to make sure that what’s on the label is in the bottle, and that what’s not on the label never will be.
Bringing it Home
The tests listed above are NOT required by the supplement industry and are expensive, which is why the overwhelming majority of companies don’t do them. Our purpose is to help you live the longest, healthiest, most active life possible and this can only be achieved with products that are guaranteed to be safe and extremely effective. This is why we’ve set out to be the gold standard for how supplements and protein powders should be made.
Given the stringent manufacturing and testing protocols that we follow, it would be impossible for issues like the ones outlined in this post to impact our Nourify PLUS Vegan Protein Powders or supplements. And companies that go above and beyond in this area tend to flaunt it, like we do here in our Previnex Difference Infographic.
When you combine great science, great manufacturing, and a passion for positively influencing health, you get products of unparalleled quality, safety, and effectiveness. We never compromise when it comes to science, manufacturing, safety, and product effectiveness. And neither should you!
