Nature's Own offer a wide range of Vitamin and Mineral supplements delivered directly to your door. Nature's Own have been supplying food supplements for 25 years. Nature's Own hope to take you to the heart of good nutrition and well-being in the simplest way they can. Choose from their special nutrition products and help optimise your well-being whoever you are. There is something for everyone interested in taking charge of their health maintenance. All in the Food State form of nutrition. Nutrition as nature intended, and unique to Nature's Own.

Why is nutrition important?

For many of us our diet lacks the nutritional content of many years ago. Our newspapers are full of stories of concern regarding diet and nutrition.

A combination of many changes in society, including farming methods, food processing, more stressful lifestyles and too much low nutrition fast foods, means many of us only get half the nutrition our parents and grandparents took for granted.

We see filling this nutrition gap as vital in helping to optimise our health and well being. In short we need to ensure daily good food nutrition to be and stay well.

About Nature's Own Products

Nature's Own are committed to offering the most effective products possible. We work with Doctors and Practitioners, as well as the general public, and it is vital that everything we do is the best and most natural possible.

Our most important commitment is to create and sell products that are as close to nature as possible.

The main difference between Nature's Own and other companies is that we sell our vitamin and mineral products in a Food State. This means they work in the body like food, which means the body knows how to use them to nourish whichever part of the body is in need. Chemical isolate products (most other on the market) do not work WITH the body in the same way. They are alien structures to the body, as all the nutrition the body is used to is part of a food complex (vitamin C contained in an apple or orange etc). This is how it is with Food State nutrition.

As an example, our vitamin C comes complete with a full range of Bioflavonoids just as you would find in a healthy juicy orange. This makes it much more effective as an antioxidant, and is why the ORAC score (a measure of its antioxidant capability) is much higher than the same does of vitamin C as a chemical.

We believe this makes our Food State nutrition ideal for long term supplement usage. This is also our experience with our customers. You are effectively taking your supplement in a concentrated food form, so it will not upset the body, and can safely be taken as the much needed top up to our nutrition intake each day to fill the very real nutrition gap.

Nature's Own History

Nature's Own was born in 1979 out of the desire to help the Bristol Cancer Help Centre with its work. The medical director there wanted purer vitamin and mineral supplements to support people who came to the Centre, with less excipients and fillers, and with a higher grade of materials.

Nature's Own was created to meet this need and our reputation has grown ever since with the simple philosophy of offering the best possible solutions to nutritional needs.

"Best" for us means products that work as nature does. Although chemical vitamins and minerals act as a stimulus for change in the body (and we do sell these too) we believe that the true role of nutrition is to support the body in its own processes of healing and well being.

This means not so much stimulating the body, but nurturing and nourishing it. We express this in our philosophy by saying our aim is to help people to help themselves. By this we mean we want to help their bodies by providing them with the most holistic and appropriate forms of nutrition for enabling the body to help itself.

We have achieved this goal with our Food State supplements, which are used by Practitioners and Doctors all over the world. We especially appeal to those Practitioners and Doctors who see that the role of the food we eat is to supply broad spectrum nutrition to the body. In other words, these practitioners understand that the most important role of our food is to supply a full range of food-minerals and food-vitamins to our bodies. This is exactly what we provide in our Nature's Own Food State supplements.

The reason this role of nourishing the body is so important is that, due to lifestyle and modern farming techniques, we are lucky to get half the nutrition our parents and grandparents did in the 50's and 60's.

Now that we are in the 21 st Century and our third decade as a company, our strategy is very clear for us.

We want to help customers like you, Practitioners, Doctors and aware Health Food retailers and their customers to understand the extraordinary role played by broad spectrum nutrition in filling the food nutrient gap which prevails for almost everyone.

Introduction to Quality Assurance

We consider the quality of our products to be paramount. All the Directors and many of the staff use the products regularly themselves (with great success!) and with their families. The biggest proportion of our sales goes to Health Practitioners of all kinds (medical and nutritional) who need to know that they are getting only the very best and most effective supplements. All of our products meet GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) and beyond.

THE FOOD STATE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

How are Food State vitamins and minerals different from isolated chemical formulations?

Food State vitamins and minerals are "re-natured" which means that a concentrated form of a vitamin or mineral is "fed" back into a food medium in which that vitamin or mineral would normally be found. The complex then undergoes a growth and/or activation process which results in the vitamin or mineral being integrated into the food matrix in the same way as it would be found naturally.

The growth process - what actually happens?

The production of vitamins and minerals is slightly different, but both require a growth process to allow the nutrient to emulate natural food. The minerals, B vitamins and vitamin D3 are grown in a special strain of yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This single-celled organism is naturally rich in a range of minerals, essential amino acids, B-vitamins, complex carbohydrates and enzymes. The yeast also has the ability to incorporate more nutrients. Some nutrients such as vitamin C and beta carotene are not found in yeast, therefore the yeast cannot hold these nutrients within itself. Citrus pulp is naturally high in vitamin C, so this is used as an active medium for vitamin C. Carrots are high in beta carotene and hence carrot pulp is used in the re-naturing process of beta carotene. Other vitamins not normally found in yeast are similarly incorporated into media appropriate to them.

The growth process and the activation process have characteristic differences, which are looked at separately below.

The Mineral Growth Process

The growing process takes place in large stainless steel tanks. There are two sets of tanks. The first stage begins with a tank containing a nutrient-rich broth, which consists of a proprietary complex blend of carbohydrates (such as molasses) and vegetable proteins, which vary depending on the nutrient being grown. The specific nutrient being transformed into Food State is then added. The nutrient broth and the added isolated nutrient are thoroughly mixed.

In the second stage the nutritive broth is introduced into the growth tank. This tank contains the yeast solution. The yeast is a living organism, which metabolises the nutrient-rich broth. The yeast in the presence of all the nutrients from the broth undergoes a process of growth, fermentation and biotransformation to produce a wholesome, vitalised, concentrated food. For example, if one feeds selenium to a growing culture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, under appropriate conditions, selenium will find its receptor sites and incorporate itself into sulphur containing amino acids such as cysteine and methionine. During metabolism the sulphur groups are replaced with selenium and the finished product contains protein of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with selenomethionine and selenocysteine embedded therein. This process can take anywhere from 12-24 hours, depending on which nutrient is being metabolised.

The growth process is monitored by an infra-red spectrophotometer. This instrument identifies a single food matrix resulting from the process. Once this process is complete, vegetarian digestive enzymes are introduced. This process breaks down the cell wall. The final step is to dry the finished product. This is accomplished with a rapid drying process (spray drying) to protect the nutrients. This is the same process as is used to dry enzymes whilst retaining their activity.

The resultant powder is subjected to rigorous physical, chemical and microbiological quality control tests before being passed for release.

Most people who have yeast allergies are sensitive to the proteins in the yeast wall membrane. The enzyme digestion process breaks down this membrane so that there is no active yeast left in the Food State nutrients once the process is finished. In fact the whole yeast cell structure no longer exists, yet it retains all the vital nutritional components in an easily digestible form.

The Nutrient Activation Process - (for vitamins not found naturally in yeast)

For the first step a complex nutrient-rich broth of specific carbohydrates and vegetable proteins are placed in stainless steel tanks to create the perfect environment for "nutrient activation" to occur. In the second stage, either a broth of vegetables or fruit concentrates (depending on the Food State vitamin being produced) is added to the tank. There is a unique recipe for each nutrient, carefully matched with a food concentrate naturally rich in the individual nutrient being activated. For example, beta carotene is matched with concentrated carrot pulp, providing a spectrum of carotenoids. Vitamin C is matched with a concentrated citrus fruit pulp, rich in active bioflavonoids. Each one of these natural sources has the receptor sites for one particular vitamin. This is due to the fact that these sources already contain the same nutrient naturally in their structure. Nature never completely fills the receptor sites and there are always a number of sites left behind without an active attachment. (This is the main reason why the same fruit, vegetable or plant grown in different places will contain varied amounts of nutrients, due to the condition of the soil, water and climate in that region.)

The temperature and conditions are controlled and the mixture is continuously stirred. Specific enzymes make the receptor sites available to the nutrient and the conditions naturally promote this enzyme activity in, for example, the citrus pulp. The nutrient is attached to a carrier peptide, which carries the vitamin to the activated receptor sites. Thus a new food matrix is formed. The reaction takes from 8 - 16 hours. Infra-red spectrophotometers are used to check that molecular integration has taken place and the new Food State products have been formed.

At this stage the liquid product is spray dried. The finished product is then subjected to rigorous quality control procedures and microbiological examination.

FACTORS WHICH AFFECT QUALITY AND BIOAVAILABILITY OF THE TABLETS.

Manufacturing and bioavailability

The way the tablet is manufactured significantly affects its bioavailability and absorption potential in the body. Many so-called innocuous excipients used inthe tabletting process can themselves affect the availability of the active substancesfor absorption, hence the importance of reducing these excipients to a minimum. Food State products use only minimum excipients.

Pressure and bioavailability.

The bioavailability of the active ingredients is affected by the pressure applied to the tablet in its creation. Pressure generates heat which deleteriously affects theactive substances. It also disturbs the disintegration time of the tablet, consequentlyproducing a poor or negligible absorption. This is why Food State tablets aregently pressed.

Heat and bioavailability

It is essential that the punch heads, which shape the tablets, are allowed to cool at frequent intervals. The practice of very high output runs causes the punch heads to overheat and allows too high temperatures to build up in the tablet. This damagesthe active ingredients in the tablet. Food State tablets are made in small productionruns, so preventing the punch heads from overheating.

Excipients and our formulations

Excipients are ingredients used in nutritional supplements for several reasons. They are required in manufacturing under certain circumstances and deemedimportant by marketing departments for other considerations.

With regard to the manufacturing aspect, some excipients are indeed required and the following are some of the reasons.

BULKING:
If the active component of a supplement is particularly small (micrograms or low milligram) then clearly a larger measured material size is required in order to form a tablet.

BINDERS:
This aspect of manufacture is essential to hold the tablet together when required.

The other main areas of excipient use are:

• Colourings/Flavourings
• Preservatives/Gums
• Emulsifiers/Stabilisers
• Disintegrators

Natures Own do not include materials for cosmetic purposes. The focus has been to deliver the active ingredients in as pure and unadulterated form as possible.

Natures Own do not include materials that can be considered undesirable for human ingestion.

Many materials used in supplement manufacture are not illegal, but Natures Own consider them undesirable.

Free from Live Yeast

Some people are concerned that Food State mineral and Vitamin B products may not be taken by people who have a yeast sensitivity because they are grown in a yeast.

Natures Own ensure that in the production process ALL live yeast cells are destroyed. This is done by removing the outer cell wall which contains the allergens at the completion of the growth process and before the Food State nutrient is granulated. These Food State products have been demonstrated in allergy clinics in the UK to be safe by wholeyeast sensitive people. There are no known allergic reactions to Natures Own's Food State products.