Frequently Asked Questions and General Help
Q: How are your products created differently than other companies create theirs?
A: There are two distinct approaches to blending herbal ingredients. These are (1) our use of the hand-mixed traditional small batch apothecary method and (2) other supplement companies' modern use of a large batch ribbon blender.
While they may appear to produce the same result based on the outside bottle label, the effect on the interior ingredients are radically different. Knowing which method is used to create any supplement you take is important to your body receiving the highest quality nutrients it needs for health and healing. Read below for a side-by-side comparison of the two methods.
We buy from a network of reputable botanical importers and local brokers with worldwide access to top-grade raw botanicals. Our criterion is to purchase based on highest quality, never based on cheap price. While this creates a more expensive product, your health is always worth the greater investment. We buy only what will be used in four to six weeks rather than large quantities to be warehoused for months. This ensures the herbs you take were formulated at their freshest, rather than lose their potency before being used and sold to you, as other companies do.
Q: How do you determine the quality of your ingredients?
A: Our technique combines intensive quality-control procedures. We require a certificate of analysis for each herb supply, we also personally run each botanical through an internal grading process before using it. To assure each item's purity during its screening, sifting, and milling process, each raw ingredient must pass our multi-phase screening and quality control procedures. This ensures you only put only herbal supplements of the utmost quality and potency into your body. We have worked hard to earn our long-standing reputation of trust by our customers.
Q: Small Batch Apothecary Method
A: Mixing individual batches of handcrafted herbs is steeped in thousands of years of tradition as the best method of creating herbal medicine. We hand mix and hand screen in small quantities. This technique produces none of the destructive heat associated with large blenders; thereby keeping the nutritional values intact.
This traditional practice also allows the botanical ingredients to be combined in a precise sequence, following a carefully developed formula. A base of two or three ingredients is mixed and then other ingredients are accurately hand-mixed into those using traditional mortar and pestle techniques for the exact amount of needed time. This small-batch method of creation requires highly-skilled trained professionals.
Q: Large Batch Ribbon Blender Method
A: Using a ribbon blender to create large batches provides convenience and cost-savings to the manufacturer at the expense of the consumer.
The large-batch approach uses a ribbon blender, which can mix up to 4,500 pounds at one time, eliminating the need for a knowledgeable technician that directly understands the herbs being handled. Rather, this method involves dumping multiple herbs in quantities of hundreds of pounds into a large blender and then running it for and hour more to mix the ingredients. This method creates friction which causes heat; thereby directly destroying much of the nourishment of the original herbs. This can be compared to boiling the nutrients out in food preparation versus the nutritional value found in raw vegetables.
When the big-batch approach for mixing is used, the ability to combine the herbs following a precise formula is lost. Extended mixing times are required with no real way of determining to what extent the ingredients have bonded together. Producing capsules from this large batch also provides the potential for the ingredients to not be in proper proportion from capsule to capsule. The process can be performed by laborers with no professional training in natural herbal healing. There is a science to formulation lost in this methodology.
As an illustration, let's say you need to make five identical cakes. You can choose to buy the cheapest ingredients, dump all of them into a huge mixer, run it for a set amount of time, and then pour the mixture into five cake pans for baking. Or, you can buy quality ingredients, begin by hand-mixing your base ingredients, and continue to individually hand-mix in each additional ingredient until all are perfectly blended. That mixture is then poured into a cake pan for baking. You then repeat the process four more times.
Which cake would you rather eat?
Q: What if I want to take multiple products?
A: At Nutrition Advantages we understand that people will need multiple products to stay healthy. We always tell our users that they should take each product at different times of the day. You loose some nutritional benefit from your supplements when you take them at the same time. An example would be if you are taking the O.D.I. and the Nutra-Performance Pack take the O.D.I. in the morning with food, and the Nutra-Performance Pack with lunch.
Q: Why do the Packs have so many pills?
A: Our packs are designed for maximum nutrition. Our nutritionist has spent years consulting people on health and supplementation and from his expertise we have designed our packs for maximum benefit. Everything in the pack serves a purpose and is balanced to make sure your body gets everything it needs for best results.
Q: Some of your formulas carry diffrent ingredients that I am not familiar with?
A: All our formulas are synergistically balanced to make sure you absorb the main ingredients in the most efficient manner. We add other ingredients to our formulas to make sure that you get the intended dosage and best benefit out of what you take in.
Q: Is the ordering system secure?
A: One of our most important goals with NutritionAdvantages.com has been to make it a 100% secure place to do business. In all of our years of business, we have not even had ONE security problem. No stolen credit cards, no leaked transactions... nothing.
Q: Do you give out customer information? (No!)
A: Not just no, but HECK NO! We strongly believe in your privacy and we really hate spam and wasteful advertisements. This really is one of our core values. We personally hate having our personal information given out to other companies, so we would never do this to you. Many companies have approached us about this, but we have denied them every time. Some greedy businesses believe this is just another way to make money off your customers. If something is not good for the customer, then we do NOT do it.
Q: What is the best way to contact you?
A: Our number one goal is to keep our customers happy! If you are having trouble ordering from our site or have an ordering related question, please go to our acontact us page and we will respond to your email within 24 hours or you can call 1-888-423-8703 9:00 - 5:00 MT
