Order products!
About our farm
Farm blog
Why grass fed?
Why organic?
Why soy-free?
Why eat local?
Our difference
FAQ's
Bone broth
Organic chicken
Organic eggs
Organic pork
Frozen is Fresher
Testimonials
Recipes
Contact us
From our family to yours...
We are a 100%-owned family farm, so you can rest assured that everything that bears our name is produced on our farm with the greatest attention to every detail.
You see, we truly care about the health of our family, and we care about yours too.
Our mission is to provide families with truly healthy meat.
Farm Blog
Posted by: Trevor
April 27, 2025
Getting our nutrition from food rather than industrially-produced powders may seem like common sense, but when food is deficient in vitamins, trace minerals and other nutrients, how can we avoid turning to synthetic supplements?
A whole food supplement is different from a synthetic one. It generally contains a broader range of nutrients, in their natural forms, and includes vitamins, minerals, and other factors which work together synergistically to produce a desired health outcome.
Whole food supplements would include things like bone broths, homemade juices from fruits and vegetables, freeze-dried or powdered whole foods, homemade probiotic yogurts, naturally-sourced prebiotic fibers, bee products like propolis and royal jelly, rendered lard and tallow, and fermented vegetables.
Whole food supplements such as bone broth, probiotic yogurt, and lard...
In every case, the whole food supplement can be made in a modern kitchen with a modest array of basic food processing equipment. A nutritious whole food supplement will start with ultra-clean nutritionally-dense food products which are sourced from producers you trust, and will end with a very nutrient-dense supplement which is highly bioavailable and (hopefully) delicious.
Synthetics, however, are the exact opposite: they are standardized and isolated, and often originate from non-food sources such as petroleum or mining ores. It is not uncommon to find residues of heavy metals, pesticides, petroleum, and other contaminants in synthetic supplements (Costa, Vidovic, et al. Contaminants: a dark side of food supplements? Free Radical Research. 2019).
Nearly one-hundred percent of the supplements sold in stores are synthetically derived. They are produced on an industrial-scale, through chemical reactions and processes that would be impossible for you to replicate in your kitchen. Their feedstock is usually a non-food source, resulting in an artificial compound that mimics the structure of natural occurring ones.
You may have heard scientists (and medical doctors) claim that synthetic supplements are chemically identical to their whole-food counterparts, and therefore provide the same benefits. However this claim is false and has largely been debunked (Thiel. Natural vitamins may be superior to synthetic ones. Medical Hypotheses. 2000).
Besides, common sense should tell us: How can a synthetic supplement possibly be as nutritious and beneficial as a whole food?
Yet the myths concerning synthetics continue. Why? Because the value of the global dietary supplement industry is estimated to be about 180 billion dollars annually, and is getting bigger each year. And as peoples’ health continues deteriorating due to the poor quality of their food, their nutritional deficiencies keep getting worse, causing them to turn to synthetic supplements. It is a vicious cycle.
In nature, food-based vitamins and nutrients are never isolated. They are always in the form of complexes of substances whose biological functions are synergistic. There are multiple mechanisms through which our bodies metabolize these substances, and their absorption is dependent on things like ratios, particle sizes, and the presence of certain enzymes, to name just a few.
Nutritional science is still in its infancy, so it is little wonder that synthetic nutrients are so ineffective. Whole food supplements are always superior to synthetic because the nutrient complexes are in physiochemical forms which our bodies recognize. It is not uncommon for synthetic analogues to either have no vitamin action, produce deficiency symptoms of the nutrients they are analogues of, are even function antagonistically to their natural counterparts (Thiel, 2000).
Most of us know that industrial agricultural practices have depleted soils of their nutrients. Modern foods may look healthy but are anything but. Our taste buds reveal the truth --- plump tomatoes, gorgeous apples, or bright-orange carrots may look healthy but they lack taste. They are optical illusions, tricking our eyes into thinking they are nutritious yet in reality they are empty calories.
There can even be natural reasons for soils to be deficient --- such as in areas of heavy rainfall (like here in southwest BC) where the soils become selenium deficient as a result of run-off. Incidentally, traditional sustainable agricultural practices can solve this problem easily and rapidly through better management of rainwater run-off and regenerative composting of organic material --- but modern farms often won’t do these things because they are rewarded based on yield rather than nutrient density, leading them to favor chemical quick-fixes.
It is not surprising that a large portion of the population has become magnesium deficient, potassium deficient, calcium deficient, B12 deficient, broadly trace mineral deficient, vitamin A deficient, vitamin D deficient, vitamin K2 deficient… and I could continue this list with at least another dozen nutrients. As a result, people reach for bottles of multi-vitamins and multi-minerals, hoping to correct their nutritional deficiencies, but find they get little benefit. Why? Because our bodies are designed to process foods in their natural form. It is not surprising that whole food supplements are typically more bioavailable and easily-digested than their synthetic counterparts.
Synthetics are, at best, fractions of the complete nutrient complexes found in nature. Natural foods contain a host of co-factors which only produce desirable health outcomes if taken together. They don’t work as well if you isolate them. Co-factors can include things like trace minerals, phytonutrients, and amino-acids, which enhance the bioavailability of the natural compound.
For example --- in nature, vitamin C is found alongside bioflavonoids and other co-factors which enhance its effectiveness. Fruits, especially citrus and berries, are some of the best natural sources. However --- ascorbic acid, the synthetic version of vitamin C, is an isolated chemical and comparatively poorly absorbed --- which is why people routinely need to consume mega-doses in order to achieve beneficial effects.
This is often the case with synthetic supplements --- poor absorption. This has led some people to experiment with very large doses, as a way to compensate for the lack of bioavailability. Since some synthetic nutrients, when isolated, can produce both positive and negative biological effects, mega-dosing can result in a confusing array of side-effects as the body tries to deal with substances which are in forms it was never designed to absorb.
Here is another example: It is understood that some people are B12 deficient. But the synthetic form of B12, cyanocobalamin, is relatively bio-unavailable, and can actually make the B12 deficiency worse because it contains a molecule which can interfere with your body’s ability to absorb natural B12.
Or consider Vitamin A. We know it is beneficial when sourced naturally. But a synthetic version, retinol palmitate, is toxic in high doses. In fact synthetic retinoids can cause a variety of negative health effects, including cirrhosis (Thiel. 2000).
Or take thiamin (vitamin B1) --- which is currently in vogue as a supplement. But thiamin HCL (hydrochloride) and thiamin mononitrate (two commonly sold synthetic versions) are coal-tar derivatives bearing little resemblance to the thiamin pyrophosphate found in natural food sources such as yeast and legumes.
Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is readily obtained in natural food products but unfortunately, modern processing techniques such as milk-pasteurization can reduce its availability. This has led to industrially-produced synthetic versions being included as additives in processed foods, yet often these analogues have little biological activity when we ingest them, resulting in empty nutrition.
Folate (vitamin B9) is understood to be critical to human health, but the synthetic version (folic acid) is absorbed differently than folate, and can interfere with our ability to absorb natural folate and also interfere with our absorption of vitamin B12. Excellent natural sources of folate are yeast, liver, and organ meats, but over-cooking them can nullify their positive effects.
As a side note, beware of a common slight-of-hand in nutritional research. Studies sometimes show certain synthetic analogues to be as effective at boosting serum concentrations as their natural counterparts. For example, synthetic ascorbic acid compared to naturally-sourced vitamin C, where blood levels of ascorbate are measured following ingestion. The trouble with these studies is they assume the positive health effects are a function of serum levels, when in reality this may not be the case. What often matters more is whether the nutrient is making it into the cells which need it. There can be multiple health benefits of nutrients which are not reflected in serum concentration measurements.
To summarize: soils are deficient in nutrients, which has led to widespread nutrient-deficiency in the food supply with corresponding negative effects on human health. As people have come to realize this, they have increasingly turned to nutritional supplements --- most of which are synthetic analogues of their whole food counterparts. Synthetics are comparatively poorly absorbed, but they are cheaply and easily mass-produced at industrial scale.
The nutritional deficiencies and negative health effects therefore persist, because people are trying to solve their health problems by ingesting isolated artificial substances derived from non-food sources which their bodies were never designed to recognize, much less absorb. They consume pills and powders which have no resemblance to actual food, yet they feel they have no choice because the foods they are buying in the grocery stores are leaving them starved for nutrition.
Thankfully the answer can be found in the form of whole food supplements which can be readily made at home, or sourced from trusted suppliers. Nutrient-dense foods, concentrated and turned into nutritional broths, freeze-dried as powders, fermented condiments, bee products like royal jelly and propolis, rendered lard and tallow, healthy probiotic yogurts, and prebiotic fibers are a few examples of amazing natural products which are intensely beneficial and easily absorbed. Try making or buying one or two of them today, and see if you experience some of the remarkable effects that natural concentrated substances can provide.
Other Farm Blog Posts