My thoughts on supplements pre and post supplement education

I started school almost two years ago to become a holistic practitioner and am smack in the middle of my nutrition class. This blog is a project that each of our classmates are required to do.
I am both excited and anxious to get on with my learning and be able to apply it not only to my family and my self but with my clients.
Supplements are a hard topic for me. Not knowing what to believe about them, what products are best to use and which ones are really needed.
I have stated before that I don't take supplements because I do not know if our bodies can even get from them that we need or if after consumption they just go through us and we ultimately are just flushing them down the toilet.
When I referred to supplements, I referred to the tablets or capsules that you see lining the shelves of every supermarket and drug store.
Name brand or generic, which do we choose, which need to be taken with food or on an empty stomach, which ones only work when taken with other vitamins or supplements.

There is a plethora of bottles, strategically marketed and attractively labeled to appeal to those of us desiring to live the healthiest way possible.
All these bottles of supplements which are very expensive and for me very overwhelming to look at,left me in a blur.
Therefore I walked past those isles, gave them not another thought, except for a little bit of loathing because I figured it was just way too commercialized and that we the consumers where being taken advantage of by the hype that the media and the companies that are trying to capitalize on using our ignorance as their profit.

With all that being said, I gave it another look and realized that I in fact DO take supplements, believe in them and daily ingest them. Just in a different form. I supplement my diet with herbs. Tinctures mostly. I supplement for everything and I AM a believer of a less commercialized supplements.This picture is of about 2/3rds of my supplements that I keep on hand (not daily use).

However with the growing popularity of natural healing, we again have to be educated and careful of which product to buy and consume. There are a lot of companies who harvest unethically and cause plants to go into extinction. There are a lot of rules when harvesting plant materials, companies will capitalize on for instance Golden seal which is a plant that is endangered. How do you know the difference of what company is "good" or "bad"? you have to do a little research and some of the research is quite easy if you look in the right places. I suggest getting involved with or at least reading up on UNITED PLANT SAVERS (UPS) that is one group of several that I know of that are VERY passionate about the earth and her healing plants. UPS's mission statement "Our Mission:
United Plant Savers' mission is to protect native medicinal plants of the United States and Canada and their native habitat while ensuring an abundant renewable supply of medicinal plants for generations to come."


I am proudly a member and encourage you to be too.
I would suggest using reputable companies that follow these standards and or also grow their own herbs, ethically harvest, use only organic herbs, and allow you to come and see their process, willing to expose themselves to the eyes of those that inquire says a whole lot to me.
some of these companies are GAIA, HERBAL VITALITY, HERB PHARM, I am sure there are more.. another companies product that I use is ECLECTIC INSTITUTE, however I have never been there or talked to them but I have heard wonderful things from several different people who believe in the same values as I.