What do you look for when choosing your supplements?

How can one bottle of supplements cost less than three euros, while another costs much more? The price difference between supplements lies in the ingredients and their quality. Read on, and you'll know exactly which one to choose next time .

There are many supplements available. Perhaps even too many. As a nutrition and menstrual health expert, Guud founder Morgane supports women with their cycles so they feel better.

When she first started, she recommended certain supplements to women, but too often they returned with ineffective supplements. This was one of the reasons she started developing her own supplements, Guud Woman.

At Guud, we only use active ingredients that are linked to health claims. In this blog post, we'll explain what active ingredients are and what else you should pay attention to when buying supplements.

First things first, do you need supplements?

Let's start with the beginning. You're healthy and eat a varied diet. Do you still need supplements? Opinions differ, but our answer is yes. And we base our answer on various studies.

• Only 5 percent of the Belgian population reaches the recommended daily amount of vegetables, fruit, and iodine. On average, we in Belgium eat about half of the recommended amount of vegetables. The Dutch don't fare much better. Only 15 percent of the Dutch population meets the recommended intake.
• The soil in which fruits and vegetables grow contains fewer vitamins, minerals, and trace elements than it did about thirty years ago. For example, broccoli contains 73 percent less calcium than thirty years ago, and an apple now contains 60 percent less vitamin C. Bizarre, don't you think?
• We eat a lot of processed foods (white flour, white pasta, white rice, white sugar, oils). These foods lack important nutrients.
• We have few hours of sunshine and spend a lot of time indoors , which means that we do not always produce enough vitamin D.

Supplements based on complaints or your life stage

But which supplements should you take? Consider your symptoms or stage of life. You can also have a blood test to determine your deficiencies, but physical symptoms can also be a good indicator of certain deficiencies. Consider symptoms such as:

• Irregular cycle
• Cramps
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Food cravings
• Low libido
• Acne

Or look at your life stage :

• Desire to have children
• Pregnancy
• Breastfeeding
• (pero)menopause

Are you experiencing symptoms and don't know what to do about them? Chat with us , or do some research yourself using our menstrual symptoms guide .

What should you pay attention to with supplements?

Do the supplements do what they claim? That depends on which supplements you take. The Dutch Consumers' Association conducted a study on multivitamins in 2019. They found that:

• Every multivitamin contains something different. So there's no standard ingredient list.
• Many supplements don't contain enough active ingredients. This makes the supplement ineffective.
• Sometimes a supplement contains too much of a particular ingredient. That's not good either.

So, not all supplements meet the standards we expect. And not all supplements are of the same quality. Cheaper supplements often use only the cheapest raw materials, cutting back on key ingredients. Not ideal, especially if you're taking supplements specifically for the ingredients.

Kaat is one of our Guud Ambassadors. Together with her sister Marie, she runs her own business, The Mocktail Club , where they create delicious, natural, non-alcoholic cocktails. Kaat understands the importance of quality ingredients: " We want only the very best for all our customers at The Mocktail Club. That's why we only work with refined, natural ingredients of the highest quality. "

What should you look for when buying a supplement?

1. Use ingredients that can be absorbed well

The most important thing is that you take a supplement that is well-absorbed by your body. What does that mean? Your body is complex, and all its processes are closely intertwined. Simply taking individual vitamins or minerals doesn't always mean they'll be absorbed well.

Most vitamins and minerals work together so the body can effectively convert them into what you need. Here are the most important ones to pay attention to:

Folic acid → Active folic acid

Folic acid is a water-soluble vitamin B9 (or vitamin B11 in the Netherlands). It's an important vitamin for the body. A folic acid deficiency can cause all sorts of symptoms.

Vitamin B9 comes in two forms: the synthetic form folic acid and the natural form folate.

It was long thought that normal folic acid was well absorbed, but this appears not to be the case. Therefore, choose active folic acid , such as Quatrefolic. You can read more about folic acid in our blog: Everything you need to know about folic acid .

Magnesium → Magnesium citrate/bisglycinate

Magnesium is an important mineral. You can find it in pumpkin seeds, broccoli, seaweed, algae, spinach, bananas, and cocoa, among other foods. So, it's perfectly fine to treat yourself to a piece of dark chocolate every now and then. Just make sure it contains the highest possible percentage of cocoa solids.

Magnesium is often sold as magnesium oxide. The body has difficulty absorbing this and it causes many gastrointestinal problems. The body absorbs naturally bound forms of magnesium (magnesium citrate and magnesium bisglycinate) better.

Zinc → Zinc Bisglycinate

Zinc is found in your body's cells. The mineral plays a key role in maintaining healthy hair, nails, and skin, but it must be effectively absorbed into the bloodstream to function properly.

To ensure that zinc is properly absorbed into the bloodstream, it needs one of its BFFs to help it move through the bloodstream: the amino acid glycine.

Omega 3 → Vegan Omega-3

Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fatty acids. There are three:

• Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)
• Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)
• Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)

Omega-3 is important for your heart, brain, and eyes, and is healthy during pregnancy and for vegans. ALA is plant-based, and EPA and DHA are found in oily fish. Therefore, getting omega-3 is a bit more difficult for vegans—at least if you look at traditional supplements.

At Guud, we get our fatty acids from algae. Here's how it works: If you were to eat fish, you'd get DHA and EPA. But that's really only because the fish ingested them through their own food: algae. So why not skip the fish and use the algae right away?

Because algae are not animals, but seaweed.

Furthermore, we don't use bovine gelatin for the casings of our supplements, but instead use hydroxypropyl cellulose. This is made from cellulose, an important complex sugar found in wood and plants.

2. Food allergies and intolerances

A good supplement also contains as few additives as possible and is as free as possible from allergy triggers. These ingredients include:

• Yeast
• Gluten
• Corn
• Lactose
• Soy
• and colorants and flavorings

All our Guud supplements are free from gluten, wheat, and lactose. They are also free from preservatives, added sugars, and artificial colors.

3. Approved by the FAVV

They are made in Belgium, approved by the FASFC , and include a notification number. A notification number guarantees that the product complies with all Belgian regulations.

4. Fillers and whiteners

Many nutritional supplements also contain silicon and titanium dioxide (E551 and E171), as well as magnesium stearate. These substances are used to improve capsule filling and make them white.

We do not use silicon and titanium dioxide, because the EFSA (European Food & Safety Agency) no longer considers these substances safe because they can damage DNA.

As a natural alternative we use rice concentrate, rice starch and transparent HPMC capsules.

5. The recommended daily amount

Finally, stick to the recommended daily amount and don't take more than that. Some supplements can have adverse effects. Also, be careful not to combine supplements arbitrarily . At Guud Woman, the supplements are formulated so that you can safely combine them.

Have any questions? Contact us, we're happy to help!