I have been “out of the supplement loop” the last few years. Lately, I have been looking over a lot of different product labels and one thing I noticed is that they all seem to have a million different ingredients in them now. Man, has supplement techn...

Technology sure has changed alright…MARKETING technology! Don’t you worry…all you’ve missed while you were “out of the loop” was a steady trend of companies becoming increasingly more complex at how they “spin” their product. Although it is true that supplement technology is ever-changing and developing based on new research, what you have pointed out has unfortunately become the new standard in supplement marketing known as “kitchen sink technology” or pixie dusting.

Pixie dusting is a method of developing a product with as many ingredients as possible in it in order for the label to be more marketable. Basically, they take a small amount of every ingredient relevant to the product (and many that aren’t) and pack it all into a pill or scoop. Then they list all of these ingredients on their label in their proprietary blend so it looks like they have a superior product. Their goal is to take every ingredient that they can dig up and have it on the label as a competitive advantage over the other brands. These all-in-one products are often called “kitchen sink formulas” because they have everything in there but the kitchen sink. This way when a consumer is looking to see if their product contains a specific ingredient, they see it there.

The problem is, although pixie dusting makes for a great looking, enticing and comprehensive label; in reality it makes for a shitty, sub-par product. Pixie dusted products contain only a sprinkle of each ingredient in there, instead of the efficacious dose that has been shown by research to produce a result. In these instances, “clever” marketing might lead you to believe you are getting a great product with everything in it, but in reality you are really getting a product with a whole lot of nothing in it. There is only so much physical space in a scoop or capsule and when it is filled with tiny amounts of 200 different ingredients there is no room left for enough of any one ingredient to be included in a potent dose. Make sense? For example 0.1 grams of 6 different types of creatine still equals a little over a half a gram of creatine per serving. Not anywhere near enough to produce the results you would expect from creatine. See how deceptive, misleading and unethical pixie dusting can be? Another trick most of these companies use is to cover the lack of effective doses of ingredients by overloading the product with something you can “feel” such as caffeine or beta alanine. So you are tricked into thinking you bought a great product because you “feel” an effect, when in reality the effect you are feeling is a cheap caffeine buzz you can get from a $4 bottle of Vivarin from the corner drugstore. FYI: Most pre workout powders on the market work on the principle I just laid out, especially the most well known ones.

Think about it from a common sense standpoint, if there really was an efficacious dose of each ingredient that they list, the scoop inside would have to be the size of a shovel! What good is a product with everything ingredient in it if they are in minuscule amounts that have a negligible effect? You got it! No good. Your product should not contain every ingredient known to man, but instead be targeted around providing you several key ingredients at full, effective, potent doses based on the research of each of those individual ingredients. You don’t want a watered down, wishy-washy supplement…you want something that actually going to do what it claims to do!

The reality is that when you are shopping for supplements, you should always look for targeted formulas. If you see a product with a proprietary blend that has a million different ingredients in it, take that as an indication of a deceptive and unethical brand. That’s right brand, not product. Personally, if I see a pixie dusted product in one particular brand’s line of products, I don’t use any of their products because it reflects the nature of the people formulating the product and their willingness to “trick” unsuspecting consumers for a quick buck. It’s misleading, deceptive, unethical and just plain wrong! Keep your eyes peeled for the “Pixie Dust Fairy”, she lives in virtually every major company’s laboratory out there. Check it out for yourself.

The post I have been “out of the supplement loop” the last few years. Lately, I have been looking over a lot of different product labels and one thing I noticed is that they all seem to have a million different ingredients in them now. Man, has supplement technology really changed that much? appeared first on 1st Phorm.