Why natural ingredients?
At BERTRAND all nutrients originate from first-class natural sources such as grain, oilseeds, almond, nuts, berries, and other natural ingredients in organic quality and we meet the European reference values for nutrients with our product. Other suppliers like Soylent use synthetically produced vitamins and reach the same mark. So what speaks in favor of naturalness?
The answer is simple: We want a product that is as complete as possible. In BERTRAND we created a product that, due to its composition, offers the possibility of living on it for longer periods of time. That requires, however, the composition of the formula to be arranged in a way that ensures an optimal supply for the body with all vital nutrients. This premise can be considered generally accepted and it is shared by suppliers of synthetic products as well.
The view of suppliers of synthetic products like Soylent differs from the view of our company at the point where a statement on the level of experience of the nutrition science is being made. In the market, presently the idea is prevailing that man’s nutrition has been researched in every detail and that therefore all essential nutrients were known. Exactly these essential nutrients can indeed be found in the formulas of the suppliers. Though of synthetic origin, they are there.
Nutrition science itself, however, is far less enthusiastic when it comes to evaluating their own level of experience. Just like other sciences nutrition science, too, will generate new knowledge over time. Over time further nutrients will be classified essential and the current sustenance recommendations will be replaced by new ones. Following this observation it is not wise to choose a product as a regular aliment that consists of isolated, synthetically produced vitamins and minerals.
But is BERTRAND actually any different? Our product, too, technically meets only the current target values of the EU and naturally we can not reflect future knowledge in our product’s formula. What makes our product special though is that it does not consist of synthetic nutrients but of nutritious ingredients, most of which have already been consumed by man for hundreds of years and the effects of which on the human body are researched very well. We use grain, oilseeds, mushrooms, various nuts, algae, berries, and further ingredients in certified organic quality. When at some point, as research progresses, new nutrients will be classified important these will with virtual certainty already be included in the aforementioned group of ingredients. And therefore in BERTRAND as well.
The impact of synthetic vitamins and minerals on the human body have been researched to a smaller extent and ecotrophologists usually recommend not to consume any additional vitamins or minerals in form of synthetics.
In our opinion only one argument can be made in favor of synthetic vitamins in aliments, although it mainly benefits the producer: They are cheap to produce.