Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh View Post
With essential vitamins and generic products like garlic, I don't expect the research to be predominantly skewed by pharmaceutical companies. Although I suspect that items used in "traditional medicine" may be heavily pushed by researchers with a "home" bias (for example, ginseng by Koreans). I doubt that producers of garlic or magnesium supplements would be able to afford television ads.

If you look at the vitamin content for most fruit/veg powders - e.g. for Vitamin C, you'll find that a single serving will not even equal the Vitamin C you'd get from a single daily dose of fruit or veg - which means they're an expensive way of selling you something that has little nutritional value. I think Green Vibrance was the closest I found to an exception.

Either something is beneficial or it isn't - "natural alternative" doesn't mean anything.
You are absolutely right about the garlic and the magnesium research not likely being skewed by pharmaceutical companies. I was thinking more like studies that say vitamins are useless. Recently I purchased Magnesium again for a problem (that was quickly cured with it), and to decide what to order I typed in the search engine there "Magnesium" and "bioavailable" and then looked at results with best customer reviews. Then I read reviews and made a decision based what people said about it's bioavailablility [which if they were using it to treat a chronic problem, they had a valuable testimony], it's potency, and price per doses of the same potency.

I say "natural alternative" because I don't know how else to describe what I do. I've tried many things for many problems that seem serious, or were. Like I was diagnosed by our city's most reputable allergist as having adult onset asthma and being in need of daily cortisone inhaler and other things to heavily manage it. I didn't do those things, but researched and found Buteyko Breathing online, and joined a yahoo support group for it, and practiced it, and got over what was being treated as a lifetime problem practically immediately, and fully in a month or two. That was all free of course, as often finding a cheap way to fix a problem is often needful. Also I mentioned working with an herbalist for a period of time.... So how to lump all these various things together, I don't know. I just label it "natural alternatives" for lack of any other better term I can think of.

Your problem with my word "natural alternative" may have to do with the differing way our different types process information. In my opinion, you process info much more like an INTp than and INFj. My type processes large masses of information without pausing too much at details but is still able to come to good conclusions. Other types take in things more linearly and can get stuck at improper use of a word or phrase, while that would be something I would ignore (like, I would say to myself, "I see what they are getting at though i wouldn't use that term", and I would go on taking in lots more info in order to glean what is key for me from it.

It's interesting that you mention garlic, which is actually the very first thing that got me on the path to "natural alternatives". It was an article I read, which I have shared many times, and can scan and post here if you are interested.

Interesting point about the vitamin C. At the time period I used Miracle Greens I did not research it much; it just seemed like a simple solution to my concern that I might not be getting enough nutrients. But even if the C is deficient in these powders, I wonder about the other amounts? I guess you can just find a pic of the ingredients online and find that out. The fruits and vegs in the powder mix would have other minerals, including trace ones, that are needful. [and speaking of that, make sure you take in plenty of sea salt or mined salt vs. the stripped and processed iodized salt. It's an important thing, and a cheap thing to do for your health].

But really, really good for your diet, as mentioned by the very intelligent Lierre Keith who expresses herself so well in that video link above, is animal fats and organ meats. They are 100x more nutrient rich than any plant food! 100x! My naturopath says to just say not to Vegetarian, because animal foods are the MOST bioavailable foods. I'm not fond of liver and kidney, yuk. But I've been feeling I need to get over that and do what's good for me...