Most vitamins in supplements are petroleum extracts, coal tar derivatives, and chemically processed sugar (plus sometimes industrially processed fish oils), with other acids and industrial chemicals (such as formaldehyde) used to process them. Synthetic vitamins were originally developed because they cost less. Assuming the non-food product does not contain fish oils, most synthetic, petroleum-derived, supplements will call their products 'vegetarian', not because they are from plants, but because they are not from animals. Most vitamins in vitamin supplements made from food are in foods such as acerola cherries, alfalfa sprouts, carrots, corn, grapefruit, lemons, limes, nutritional yeast, oranges, rice bran, soy beans, and tangerines (some companies also use animal products).
Table 1: Composition of Food and Non-Food Vitamins
This table illustrates the chemical nature of Vitamin supplements compared to the considerably healthier option of foodstate sources
|
VITAMIN |
FOOD NUTRIENT* |
'NATURAL' VITAMIN ANALOGUE & SOME PROCESS CHEMICALS |
|
|
|
|
|
Vitamin A/Betacarotene |
Carrots |
Methanol, benzene, petroleum esters; acetylene; refined oils |
|
Vitamin B-1 |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Coal tar derivatives, hydrochloric acid; acetonitrole with ammonia |
|
Vitamin B-2 |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Synthetically produced with 2N acetic acid |
|
Vitamin B-3 |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Coal tar derivatives, 3-cyanopyridine; ammonia and acid |
|
Vitamin B-5 |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Condensing isobutyraldehyde with formaldehyde |
|
Vitamin B-6 |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Petroleum ester & hydrochloric acid with formaldehyde |
|
Vitamin B-8 |
Corn, rice bran |
Phytin hydrolyzed with calcium hydroxide and sulfuric acid |
|
Vitamin B-9 |
Alfalfa sprouts, rice bran |
Processed with petroleum derivatives and acids; acetylene |
|
Vitamin B-12 |
Nutritional yeast |
Cobalamins reacted with cyanide |
|
Vitamin 'B-x' PABA |
Nutritional yeast |
Coal tar oxidized with nitric acid (from ammonia) |
|
Vitamin B Factor Choline |
Nutritional yeast, rice bran |
Ethylene and ammonia with HCL or tartaric acid |
|
Vitamin C |
Whole Citrus Pulp |
Hydrogenated sugar processed with acetone |
|
Vitamin D |
Nutritional yeast |
Irradiated animal fat/cattle brains or solvently extracted |
|
Vitamin E |
Corn, soy beans, vegetable oils |
Trimethylhydroquinone with isophytol; refined oils |
|
Vitamin K |
Alfalfa sprouts |
Coal tar derivative; produced with p-allelic-nickel |