The Sun is Overrated—Shop for Your Vitamin D Instead

During my trip to the co-op, I decided to intensively check out the "Vitamins and Supplements" isle. I didn't have an idea of what exactly to look for, but once I scanned over the entire 2 shelves dedicated to Vitamin D supplements, I was intrigued to look into them more. What shocked me initially was the sheer number of different ways someone could take Vitamin D supplements—capsules, tablets, gummies, liquid drops, body cream, and even CANDY.

<-------------- Questionable Chocolate Vitamin D
I don't think most of the options except the capsule and tablet forms are typically offered at large-chain drugstores and supermarkets like Target and Hy-Vee. That being said, I am tempted to think that perhaps this is how co-ops are so successful in championing a general reputation of being more "health and wellness-oriented" than those typical drugstores and supermarkets: by offering a multitude of brands that market their products with words that ring as "HEALTHY" automatically to the general consumer, but is actually very fuzzy in what it actually means. Some of the words that I noted from taking a look at all the different Vitamin D products were:

"Synergistic"
"High-Potency"
"Certified Organic Whole Food"
"Paraben Free"
"Raw"
"Gluten-Free"
"Vegan"
...etc, etc, etc.

I laughed at one particular one which was that of the Vitamin D body cream. Now, if you can read on this packaging that resembles a generic Microsoft screensaver, you'll see that this product's slogan is "THE WAY NATURE INTENDED." Really? Nature intended for Man to harvest what already naturally occurs as a free resource to us and to mass produce/market a cream that is mixed with said natural resource plus synthetic ingredients??? Oh, not to mention that this cream also contains a particular synthetic ingredient (sodium benzoate) that produces a carcinogen (benzene) with another listed ingredient (citric acid)? Wait, wait, wait, there's more!

On the back of this lovely bottle is a "discussion" paragraph that reads, "Vitamin D3, also known as the sunshine vitamin, is produced naturally in the skin from exposure to sunlight. Smooth on Vitamin D3 Body Cream and get the smooth, glowing skin that you desire—just the way nature intended. A great complement to sunscreen." First of all, there is some serious counter-marketing happening here. Y'all just said Vitamin D3 is produced naturally, but then somehow have the audacity to claim that we have to smooth on this holy grail cream because NATURE intended for us to? I am confusion. Also, hold up—"a great complement to sunscreen"??? You're telling me that this product somehow enhances the effectiveness of sunscreen when you're basically slathering on a product that already produces harmful carcinogens which could enter topically THROUGH YOUR SKIN?! Amazing.

Okay, and some other things that had my mind reeling were the products that heavily marketed their random ingredients that seem to serve no purpose at all except to make the product itself sound fancy.

HOW are these companies going to throw in all these virtually unrelated ingredients and advocate for their significance by not establishing any nutritional/dietary information about them (e.g. the daily values that were not established for the products' vegetable base/blend)? The packaging tells us how many milligrams of the base/blend there are but what does that do for the consumer? Of course, to the general consumer, these questions are largely overlooked. Also, peep the disclaimer on the last picture reading, "These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA." Looked on this company's website to find at the very bottom of the page this same disclaimer which applies to all of its products because the only certifications that this company, and probably every other health supplement company, can rely on are third-party certifications such as the USDA Organic, Non-GMO Product Verified, NSF Gluten-Free, and others that I personally have never heard of.

So, if these are the only things outside of the company that we can look to, I'm wondering if this is truly enough for people to feel absolutely confident in their purchasing power or if we tend to settle because it's too inconvenient for the common person to do anything about it? Is there such an expansive culture of laid-back consumerism that the inevitable fate of the consumer market lies in the hands of these virtually unregulated companies and corporations? Are people actually falling victim to the use of fuzzy language in common marketing tactics? Do people even read labels or do their research before purchasing a so-called "natural health product"? Do people know they're being played right into the cards of hybrids every day?

Also, here are some links I took a look at when reviewing ingredients and the companies:

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/benzene.html

http://naturallysavvy.com/eat/this-is-why-sodium-benzoate-is-so-scary

https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0960076017300316/1-s2.0-S0960076017300316-main.pdf?_tid=5cce60ec-08f6-4848-bd74-7196bbc0659c&acdnat=1520156427_7857e2b8c251c62786a1b210666790f1

https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/about/why-gol/

http://www.nutraceutical.com/company/

And here's a chart showing the varying guidelines (the whole journal article is the third listed link above) for Vitamin D supplementation belonging to different organizations that I found very interesting: