The very best nutritional products are much more highly absorbable than cheap products delivering many more precious nutrients to your body. You see mis-conception most people have about nutritional products is they read label and cheap product says for example 500 mg Vitamin C, 500 Mg Calcium. Then they read label of high quality and it says essentially same thing.

Except here is big difference - with cheap product your body in some cases only absorbs 5-10 percent of nutrients. While in high quality product your body can easily absorb 5 -10 times or even more of these valuable nutrients.

This is because manufactures are only required to put on label what they put in product before manufacture. This can be a far cry from how much your body absorbs of final product. The high quality products are formulated so your body absorbs a much higher amount of actual product.

Here are characteristics that only highest quality products employ during development.

First let me share with you a little bit about nutrition and herbal industry as a whole.

Raw Materials First of all did you know that they are huge differences in quality of herbal raw materials. There can be big differences in amount of active ingredients based upon where plant was grown, seed used for growing, what part of plant is being used, how plant was harvested, when it was harvested, and even how plant was stored. Plus some batches can have many more contaminants and impurities than others.

Raw ingredients especially herbals should be stored in low humidity and a low temperature environment and yet many aren't stored properly.

Of course a good product starts with strict inspection processes of raw materials.

Raw materials are screened, inspected and even quarantined to assure they meet optimal standards.

Any tablets and capsules go through strict sizing and weight requirements.

Also a good quality capsule, tablet supplement will contain a coating for ease of swallowing and this coating will typically contain a high quality antioxidant like alpha-lipoic acid to help protect tablet against oxidation and loss of potency.

The Product Testing Phase

High quality nutrition supplements will undergo a Battery of Tests like:

Disintegration Testing – tests to insure tablet will disintegrate under conditions found in human body

Dissolution Testing - tests to insure tablet will dissolve in order to be absorbed and utilized by body.

Microbiological Analysis - tests to insure absence of harmful bacteria, yeast, and mold.

Potency Analysis – tests using sophisticated laboratory equipment like Spectrometry, Chromatography and Spectroscopy.

Content Uniformity Analysis – In this test samples are analyzed to make sure that they contain same levels of active ingredients.

Also with high quality supplements manufacturer pays great attention to packaging to assure it protects valuable active ingredients.

So you now have a basic idea of what to look for in a super high quality nutritional supplement.

How to cook:

• grill or roast meats • steam or boil vegetables • steam fish • microwave • use low fat oils

Foods to avoid:

• crisps, biscuits, chocolate, sweets • don’t add whole milk, butter, rich sauces or cream to pasta dishes or any other meal • try avoiding white bread • alcohol • fizzy drinks

Tip: If you love pasta dishes with sauces, try low fat versions such as adding a tin of tomatoes with a dash of garlic and Worcester sauce as a tomato-based sauce, low-fat crème fresh for a cream-based sauce or a cheese sauce packet-mix made with skimmed milk for a cheese-based sauce.

Get used to experimenting with herbs and spices to add different and exotic flavours to your meals.

Exercise – Love it or hate it!

Do you hate to exercise? Don’t be ashamed if you do, many people dislike doing any form of exercise. The key here is to find something that you enjoy doing. It does not necessarily mean you must go to gym three times a week, or run a mile four times a week. Count exercise as any type of movement that gets you out of your chair! Some examples:

• walking (the dog…) • walk up and down stairs • swimming • cycling • netball / volleyball / basketball etc • gardening • skipping with ropes • dancing • cleaning / dusting house • decorating • look after a toddler for a day!

Try and find something you enjoy doing and do some form of regular exercise as it does play an important role in cholesterol-reduction.