Why I consider supplementation ESSENTIAL in today's world

    • We are all under unprecedented levels of toxic exposure. This constant physiological stress requires vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and energy for the body to deal with it. Detoxification of chemicals, heavy metals, and bacterial toxins takes a tremendous amount of resources – resources that could be better used to keep you young, healthy, and thriving.
    • Many of us experience huge amounts of psychological stress (this depletes nutrients as we create hormonal and neurochemical cascades that put us in the stress response – think cortisol, adrenaline/epinephrine, noradrenaline/norepinephrine, etc.)
    • Our soils have been depleted of minerals over the last century – most of these are not replenished by the farmers and the fertilisers used in conventional agriculture do not supply all the essential trace elements.
    • Conventional fruits and vegetables are laden with toxic chemicals.
    • Conventionally grown animal products often contain residues of hormones, antibiotics, and other toxins that require nutrients and energy to neutralise and detoxify.
    • A lot of the food you buy has been on the shelves or in transit for weeks – this further diminishes its quality.
    • Processed food are stripped of many nutrients and contain countless additives like emulsifiers, preservatives, colours, flavours, stabilisers, etc. that can increase intestinal permeability (leaky gut), cause immune reactivity, inflame the gut, or otherwise have deleterious effects on the body that require energy and nutrients to ameliorate.
    • Many foods are pasteurised, which diminishes the quality and nutrient bio-availability.
    • Many people consume too many seed oils (sunflower, soybean, canola/rapeseed, etc) that are highly inflammatory, thus increase oxidative damage in the body (which again, requires nutrients and energy to repair).
    • Personal care products are full of poisons, increasing our nutrient need for detoxification.
    • Most people’s diets and nutritional status are ABYSMAL. Very few people meet their RDAs for vitamins and minerals, and RDAs are designed to keep you alive, not to keep your thriving!
    • Many people have chronic health conditions that increase nutrient needs.
    • Many people are not properly digesting, absorbing, and assimilating their food due to digestive dysfunction, enzyme insufficiencies, liver dysfunction, gut dysbiosis, inflammation, eating too fast and not chewing well, eating while stressed, etc.
    • In the case of children, not only do they eat a very small volume of food, but they often gravitate toward extremely unhealthy options (bread, sweets, juices, crackers, pizza, etc.) This means you need to increase the nutrient density of your child’s food, and supplementation is one way to do that and have some insurance they won’t go too long without good forms of minerals, B-vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids.

Supplements I use personally and/or with clients

Please remember that this is solely and educational resource. Use it as a jumping-off point to get ideas on how to improve your supplement protocol and always discuss this with your qualified health care practitioner.

For your safety, please keep the following in mind (remember these are not recommendations for you, simply an educational resource and common-sense guidelines):

    • Never start a new supplement without consulting your doctor or other practitioner you work with. 
    • Some supplements will make certain people feel better, while other will feel nothing or may even feel worse. Not every supplement will be compatible with every metabolism.
    • Certain nutrients are very powerful. You can create serious imbalances if you do not know what you are doing. For example, just supplementing B12 on its own can create a relative folate deficiency. If you supplement with iron when you don’t need it you can create oxidative damage in your body. Certain amino acids can create neurotransmitter imbalances! Take this seriously, do your homework, and do not mess around!
    • When in doubt, stick to basic nutrients and follow the manufacturer’s guidelines. Otherwise, stick to what your practitioner has recommended.
    • If a supplement makes you feel bad or you feel like you’re reacting to it, stop taking it immediately. 
    • Always start supplements one at a time so you can immediately know if it is not compatible with your metabolism at this time. Keeping a diary is very helpful as you will quickly forget what you were doing a few weeks or months ago.
    • Do not use supplements in place of a healthy, organic, nutrient-dense diet. I get the bulk of my nutrients from healthy organic meat, eggs, liver, certain seafood, etc. Supplements are exactly that – supplemental to my diet. Think of them as “insurance” or to be used with a specific purpose in mind (e.g. supporting gut function or detoxification)

You can buy most of the supplements below on iHerb.com, use my code AHF7140 to get 5% off (10% if you are a new customer) at checkout.

Daily essentials

Energy system support

Detoxification support:

Detoxification support - binders:

Additional mineral support

Immune support

Immune support (direct and indirect) supplements are already listed on this page: B vitamins, zinc, NAC, selenium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, iodine, glycine, omega-3 fatty acids.

Gut support

Brain support / nootropics