Some of you would face similar problems like me where it’s hard to find the same or reasonably priced supplement alternatives because of where you live.
Or, you may be faced with a situation where you’re bombarded by the sheer variety of the same product. Eeni meeni miini moh..?
Hopefully I can show you a simple way on how to read supplement facts and labels: by searching for the active ingredient that you’re looking for.
Beware when looking for alternatives: don’t just look at dosage and price. Not all supplements are created equal…and quite often…pricing is not a good indicator of quality/dosage.
One of the most important things to look out for is the Ingredients List under Supplement Facts.
In my search for alternatives locally (I’m in Singapore) I noticed that many supplements may have a high volume but little or no active ingredients.
Let’s take EGCG (Green Tea) as an example:
Life Extension Mega Green Tea Extract 725mg (Recommended by Tim, Available at iHerb)
45% EGCG or 326.5mg per capsule
GNC Herbal Plus® Standardized Green Tea Complex 500mg
25% EGCG or 125mg per capsule
Good N Natural – Green Tea Extract Capsules (750mg)
No indication of EGCG
So, from here, even though per bottle they’re pretty similar in price, to get the recommended dosage of EGCG of 325mg per sitting (page 119, 4 Hour Body), you need to take 3 GNC capules instead of 1 Life Extention cap.
You’ll end up paying and swallowing 3x more than what’s required.
Then you have products like Good N Natural…where there’s no idication of any EGCG at all. This is a good example of having a high volume of ‘stuff’, but having little or no active ingredients. I was wondering why the price was so low. It’s most likely to do low or insignificant EGCG yield, even though it is still an extract from green tea.
So, remember, just turn the bottle around and look for what you need. If it’s not there, move on.
Remember to use the code ‘ZEL439‘ at iHerb to save US$5 off your first purchase!