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Answers: Hello,
From what I know of this topic...whole food supplements are derived from the actual food whereas synthetics are man made. I would stick with nature vs. man made anyday when it comes to nutrition.

Best of Health
Dr. Marcotte

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In general, synthetic means it's created in a laboratory, and whole food vitamins or minerals come from food sources..... I'm really surprised nobody answered this yet.

Some people prefer only "natural and whole food" products because they feel that synthetic products (and anything "man-made") are either inferior or will kill you with chemicals. However, in most cases, those created in laboratories are the bio-identical (meaning exact same chemical compound) versions of those vitamins.
The only one that's really bad to take the synthetic form of is vitamin E.... all the others have yet to be proven to not be beneficial for you.

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A LOT of vitamins are made or derived from coal tar. They do not really help you like whole food vitamins and minerals from a company like Standard Process. I know of no other vitamins and minerals that are truly food other than what Standard Process makes. I also think that Standard Process uses the plant form of the vitamin or mineral, meaning it's something your body can better use. The raw element is difficult to absorb to my knowledge. I think that the word is synthesized, that is, the plant synthesized the raw elements from the ground or (hopefully!) natural fertilizer into a usable form.

Some manufacturers may also rely on the government's definition of a vitamin. For instance, did you know that the government's (FDA's) definition of Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, when in fact ascorbic acid is only 1 of 6 parts of vitamin C. When you give someone an isolated (e.g., processed) part of the whole, it's not going to do much good. Uh, right, it's no longer really vitamin C, it's just ascorbic acid. The full spectrum Vitamin C from a quality source such as Standard Process is what you want.

Another element you may want to consider is synthetics are a lab's attempt to copy nature. It's dead food. It's just chemicals. Whole food vitamins and minerals are really food. One thing you can try in comparing processed vs. whole food is to put two containers of flour on a table. One whole wheat that is hopefully stone ground and unprocessed. Another is white, enriched, processed flour. See which one the bugs hit first. I guarantee it will be the unprocessed because nature knows food. The same would be true for vitamins and minerals from a food source. I've never tried this, but I would say there's a high likelihood that if you broke two different pills up into bits the whole food version would be eaten first. Synthetic or coal tar based will likely not be touched. Same goes for your body - it very well may be treating synthetics as a foreign substance and simply getting rid of it.

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A man in our business who works on septic tanks, told us that he has clean out many synthetic supplement piles that get passed thru undigested, my family chooses whole foods are you needing some healthful food ideas ? if so write vicki at chuckdelph@yahoo.com I'd love to share.

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It may surprise you to know that most synthetic vitamin supplements are petroleum based, yes they are made for crude oil, whereas whole food vitamin supplements are produced by extraction of naturally occurring beneficial plants and herbs to harness the maximum potency available in the plant. Most extraction methods include cold press, heat, or by dehydrating the product to get at its beneficial properties, then either using it like a seasoning in food, or like a tea, or putting it in either tablet or caplet form for consumption. I hoped this helped Laura.

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