The cold, hard fact is that many of us don’t get the recommended intake of vitamins and minerals in our diets alone. This can be due to various factors, but the result is the same: we require supplementation to remain healthy and balanced.
Plant-based supplements, in opposition to synthetic and animal-based supplements, are a cruelty-free, sustainable, safe, and effective way to support your overall well-being naturally. So, let’s dive into the 6 benefits of plant-based supplements!
Suitability for vegans
If your diet is fully vegan, you’ll likely want your supplements to follow suit and be vegan as well.
Plant-based supplements are extracted from fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, spices, bark, flowers, leaves, and other botanical ingredients. Therefore, these supplements fit completely within a vegan diet, in addition to many other strict diets.
The best vegan multivitamin is one that is budget-friendly, transparent, environmentally conscious, and aimed at various specific nutrition gaps and conditions.
Top tip: always check the label carefully on the supplement you’re considering purchasing. Some manufacturers will sneak in a gelatin capsule or another animal byproduct.
Effectivity
In comparison to synthetic supplements, plant-based supplements are overall much more effective in their role in helping us achieve balance in our health.
A brilliant trait of the human body is that it can easily recognize the difference between natural and synthetic. In the case of supplements, it has been discovered that artificial vitamins often tend to pass through our bodies without being absorbed.
The name for this easier absorption is bioavailability. Plant-based supplements have better bioavailability than their synthetic counterparts. One study portrayed that Vitamin E from natural sources was absorbed twice as easily as synthetic Vitamin E.
It can take time for artificial supplements to assimilate into our bodies. Plant-based supplements, on the other hand, assimilate more easily. The positive effects and health benefits of plant-based supplements are also much longer lasting.
Natural ingredients
Recently, there has been a heightened awareness and intentionality about what we’re putting in our bodies. This has resulted in plant-based supplements becoming increasingly popular since the good stuff is extracted directly from fruits and vegetables.
Contrastingly, synthetic supplements have been chemically crafted to mimic how your body normally absorbs the nutrients you would usually get from those same fruits and vegetables.
Synthetic supplements are relatively cheap to produce and have a long shelf-life, which is beneficial to us all. However, these positive characteristics are due to the addition of artificial dyes, synthetic fillers, and preservatives, which have many associated health risks.
Have you noticed how you automatically prefer the aromas and tastes of natural ingredients as opposed to synthetic ones? Since plant-based supplements are all-natural, they’re ultimately more pleasant to consume.
Safety
It’s always wise to consume anything in moderation, even supplements.
Certain vitamins, like vitamins B and C, are water-soluble. Therefore, they won’t create toxic build-up in your body since your body will naturally flush out the excess. There is no upper limit for our intake of folate acid, for example, which is a form of vitamin B9 found in leafy greens and legumes.
Alternately, vitamins A, D, E, and K, are fat-soluble. Your body stores the excess, which can develop into toxic build-up.
The gist is that ingesting too many synthetic supplements has a higher risk of causing toxicity than ingesting too many natural supplements (e.g. synthetic or animal-based iron supplements vs. plant-based iron supplements).
The primary reason for this is the presence of preservatives, GMOs, artificial sugars, synthetic chemicals, etc., in synthetic supplements.
Ethicality
A survey conducted in 2019 asserts that 45% of meat eaters in the UK planned to reduce their meat consumption due to primarily health and environmental factors. Supplements made using animal products or by-products are seen by many as unethical due to their impact on the environment and animals.
Farmed animals, such as cows, chickens, fish, etc., are specially grown, bred, and fed for their meat and byproducts, usually in horrific living conditions. Vegan supplements don’t support any animal agriculture business sector, relieving farmed animals of their enforced duties, and leaving a smaller impact on the environment.
One example is omega-3s. Omega-3 supplements derived from flaxseed or marine microalgae are not harmful to the environment. While fish oil omega-3 supplements support the farming of fish and the pollution of valuable water sources.
Presence of co-factors and co-nutrients
Mother Nature granted us a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals, aromatic oils, and phytonutrients in plants that work together as a team.
Scientists isolate specific compounds to put them at center stage in synthetic supplements. This leaves all the supporting co-factors and co-nutrients behind. The isolated compounds synthetic supplements provide us with aren’t recognized or utilized by our bodies in the same natural manner as plant-based supplements.
Some of the co-factors and co-nutrients plant-based supplements have that synthetic supplements tend to leave out are the following:
