Product Review

-- Vital Formulas --

Vital Formulas LLC has the motto: “Daily essentials for your wellbeing”. Their primary product is the Balanced Trio that includes 3 bottles: 90 capsules of morning, 90 tablets of evening and 90 tablets of midday supplements. We originally touched base with Natalia Lukina, founder of http://vital-formulas.com, to set up this review project back on Oct 18^th and we received a shipping confirmation the same day – products are sent via USPS First Class Mail International. The package arrived on Oct 25, which is impressive as it only took 7 days from original contact to receipt of the goods. Natalia is well educated with degrees in drug development and biology, and has many years working in the field.

The morning capsules help you start off your day with special additions such as vitamin c and bio-flavonoids fruit extracts from pomegranate, hawthorn and bilberry, herbs like turmeric and cinnamon, and some trace minerals. The mid-day tablets help you sustain energy by including coQ10, DHA, EPA, carotenoids. To help you have a relaxing evening and proper sleep they’ve included calcium and magnesium, vitamin D3 and a blend of B vitamins and herbs (lemon balm, chamomile and hops) for the evening tablets.  

These special patent-pending supplements do not contain wheat, dairy, gluten, egg, corn or peanuts or any tree nuts, artificial colors or flavors – so they are safe for people with allergies and sensitivities. Vital Formula supplements are made in the US and the bottles I received had an 8-month shelf life.

I was surprised to see that the directions suggest taking 3 tablets of each supplement per day! Upon investigation I found answers to why we need to take so many: "Taking Balanced Trio is equivalent to taking 5 separate supplements: daily multivitamin, fish oil, CoQ10, antioxidant formula and Cal/Mag supplement." Additionally: "One-a-day multivitamins ...often contain inorganic forms of minerals which are cheaper and less bulky than organic forms."

The company specializes in creating formulas that provide optimum nutrients for different times of the day and make a point of educating their customers about nutrient combinations, how the bio-availability (the ability of your body to absorb) the nutrients are either hindered or assisted by combination with other nutrients. In other words the body does not effectively utilize some vitamins or minerals unless they are combined with specific vitamins or minerals. For instance you might already be aware that the body needs magnesium in order to process calcium. Similarly in some cases specific combinations could inhibit the body’s ability to absorb the nutrients.

The package included 2 plastic bottles (morning and evening capsules), and the mid-day’s glass bottle – which is amber in color in order to keep the oils fresh. They were all sealed with a minimum of plastic but the seal was not perforated and therefore I found it difficult to remove cleanly so I had to employ my handy retractable razor knife. An additional seal under the cap that didn’t peel off easily, I had to cut it out from the plastic bottles with a knife - however this seal did peel away nicely from the glass bottle.

You can see by the image here the size and shape of the different pills; I included both a nickel and a quarter to give you some perspective of the differing sizes. The mid-day had a very faint aroma that reminded me of carrots and salmon. The evening had a barely detectable odor of lemon balm (one of my favorite herbs for winter tea and iced tea in the summer), and there was no detectable scent at all for the morning supplement.

While the text on the company’s website is a little on the small side, there is a lot of information to glean from. For instance there is a wonderful resource section on their site where you can learn easily digestible information about vitamins, minerals, nutrients, interactions, and other relevant links.

I’ve included a link here below to an interview we had on our radio show re: the mineral magnesium that you might want to check out:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions/2012/01/17/nutrition-soil-depletion

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