The Garden of Life Process of “Growing” Nutrients:
 Vegan
Friendly D3
Garden of Life is dedicated to empowering vegans with
extraordinary health and wellbeing. We offer a full line of vegan friendly
nutritional supplements including Vitamin Code
vitamins,
Perfect Food Raw and other
Green Super Foods,
Raw Meal meal replacement and
Raw Protein protein powders, and a
host of other products.
In formulating for Vegans, we have embraced the mission
of the Vegan Society:
The Vegan Society promotes vegan lifestyles - that is,
ways of living that seek to exclude, as far as is possible and practical,
all forms of exploitation of animals for food, clothing or any other
purpose.I
Our goal in creating this document is to inform and
educate our vegan customers how we balance the basic tenants of the vegan
lifestyle, as described above, while endeavoring to meet vegan’s
physiological needs for vitamin D.
What is Vitamin D and why do Vegans Need it?
Vitamin D is an essential fat-soluble vitamin which acts
like a hormone in the body to help regulate the formation of bone and the
absorption of calcium and phosphorus. Its primary role is to control the
transport of calcium in the blood, delivering it to the bone for
fortification. All people living in northern climates (including most of the
Continental US), and particularly Vegans, are at risk for Vitamin D
deficiency, particularly during Fall and Winter.II
Vegans are especially vulnerable to Vitamin D deficiencies
because the primary source of Vitamin D is from fortified foods and
supplements. While Vegans can find supplemental sources of vitamin D2
synthesized from Soy, the essential D form that has been the subject of
almost all human studies, D3, is only available from two sources. The first
and most important source is ultraviolet light from the sun, especially
during the hours of 10 AM and 3 PM and during the late Spring and Summer
months. The skin must be directly exposed for an adequate period of time in
order for the body to convert its native cholesterol into D3. The second
source is animal derived.III
How we “cracked the code” for “growing” vitamin D:
Hungarian born researcher and pharmacist, Endre Szalay has
dedicated the last 50 years of his scientific life to developing an
innovative scientific process of growing nutrients inside of yeast. Dr.
Szalay worked with Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi’s Nobel Prize winning team on
their discovery of Vitamin C, theorized that isolated nutrients could not be
fully digested and utilized by the human body. His goal was to find a way to
grow them into plant-based foods which the body would recognize, digest and
absorb. Because of his ground-breaking work, we are now able to offer
Vitamin D3, an essential nutrient for human health, in a plant-based
Vegan-friendly form.
Organic fruits and vegetables grown primarily with animal
fertilizers are Vegan friendly.
To appreciate the process of “growing” nutrients, it’s
helpful to first look to nature and world-wide best practices for organic
agriculture. Diagram 1, prepared by the National Sustainable
Agriculture Information ServiceIV, illustrates how plants up-take
essential nutrients (which are later consumed) into their cells.
In the above image we see that organic matter including
water, decomposing plants and animals all nourish the soil. The crops – in
this case, legumes – use their root systems to absorb the soil’s nutrients.
Water molecules provide the transportation and specific peptides present in
the soil allow for penetration – or bonding – to occur between the plant
cells and the soil-based nutrients. The result? A nutrient-dense plant that
is valuable for human sustenance.
It’s very significant to note that animal by products are a primary source
used for fertilizing the worldwide production of organic cropsV.
The use of fertilizers derived from fish emulsion, fishmeal, blood meal,
bone and meat meal are all very common soil-amendments used by the majority
of organic farmers, according to the Organic Farming Compliance HandbookVI.
The use of these materials is specifically addressed, and approved within
the USDA’s Guidelines for the National Organic Program (NOP)VII ,
subsection “C”. ATTRA, the leading non-profit organization dedicated to the
creation and conversion of US farmland to organic farming goes further in
its embrace of animal by products in organic crop production by teaching
that animal manure compost is essential to the proper preparation of organic
crops and the University of Vermont, a leading educator of innovative
organic farming techniques has adopted their advice, making the handling of
raw manure compost an integral part of their organic farming education
programsVIII.
Certainly, the organic crops cultivated by organic farmers
who use animal by products are essential food for Vegans, and consumed
without question or concern. As the Vegan Society mission explains,
“exclude, as far as possible or practical.” A vegan who did not consume
plant life would die from malnutrition.
We will now explain how the Vitamin Code process for the
creation of Vitamin D, which we perform by growing nutrients inside a
plant’s cell wall, mirrors the above growing of a plant.
Our Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a living, growing
plant-like yeast.
Growing vitamin D starts with a single-celled plant; in
this case Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker’s yeast. S. cerevisiae was
chosen because is retains the complex cell structure of a plant, but it is
also easy to grow. Another important feature of the S. cerevisiae is the
fact that it produces Vitamin D2 as a normal, non enhanced function, and on
a cellular level, there is a specific receptor site for the binding of
Vitamin D3.
To begin the process, the plant is mixed with water that
has been subject to a multi-stage purification process. This ensures that it
is free of any unwanted ingredients that will affect the growing process.
Molasses is then added as food for the yeast and the yeast is allowed to
begin the growing (budding) process.
At the same time the yeast is growing in its tank,
isolated Unites States Pharmacopeia (USP) grade vitamin D3 is put into a
much smaller preparation tank. Widely used, the commercially available D3 we
purchase has been synthesized from animal cholesterol, primarily lanolin.
The starting material is subjected to a lengthy conversion and UV exposure
process briefly described belowIX.
Chemists follow a two-step process in order to synthesize
vitamin D3 from cholesterol. During the first phase the molecular structure
of the cholesterol is converted into crystalline 7-dehydrocholestorol.
During the second phase the 7-dehydrocholestorol is exposed to ultraviolet
light (similar to the sun’s rays). The resulting material is entirely pure
D3, free from any chemical residuesX.
All USP grade D3 is manufactured using this process and,
as a result, is described as “synthetic” – or synthesized through a chemical
process. (Researchers are still studying ways to synthesize D3 from plant
derived sources, but have not yet succeeded.) XI
In nature, chains of amino acids called peptides are
required to make nutrients available to yeast cells.
In the vitamin D tank we add a solution of water and
specific peptides which are chains of targeted amino acids and are part of a
proprietary process. The peptides have a single mission: to penetrate the
cellular wall of the vitamin D through a portal (called a receptor or
binding site). This step is necessary if we hope for the plant to eventually
up-take, or metabolize the vitamin D.
At the proper time in the growing process, the
peptide-bound vitamin D is added to the plant (the growing S. cerevisiae).
The peptide allows the nutrients in the vitamin D cells to pass through the
plant’s cell wall. With the peptide’s help, the vitamin D is fully
metabolized into the plant and, literally, becomes a part of it. Just like
in our example above where the legume has metabolized the soil’s nutrients
and they have become a part of its matrix. The very nature of the vitamin D
is converted from synthetic to whole-food. The newly converted vitamin D,
now plant-form, contains all of the co-factors you would normally find in
any vitamin D-rich food.
Diagram 2 illustrates the Vitamin D specific binding site
allowing the vitamin D to penetrate the cell wall of the plant and bind
itself to the cell. This process is commonly referred to as metabolism.
What proportion of USP vitamin D is used, as compared to
the amount of yeast when “growing” renatured vitamin D?
After decades of innovation, Dr. Szalay’s exact formula
and ratio of USP D3 to Yeast are important trade secret but the vitamin D is
an exceptionally small component of the formula.
How much vitamin D is in a renatured yeast cell?
 When
one examines the renatured vitamin D yeast cells on a cellular level, each
yeast cell contains so many nutrients and other components that the weight
of the vitamin D present, when compared to the entire cell structure of the
plant is proportionally very small. This is illustrated by Diagram 3, in a
drawing of a renatured vitamin D yeast cell:
Could some of the USP vitamin D remain in the batch,
without being metabolized by the yeast?
One may question how we know that, at the end of the
growing process, none of the USP vitamin D3 is left in its original,
non-grown or non-re-natured state. There are analytical tests that verify
this fact. These tests are performed on every lot of re-natured vitamin D we
manufacture.
The first analytical test is performed using High
Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) equipment. To demonstrate the
efficacy of this test, one must first understand that all vitamin D is fat
soluble. All vitamins are either fat soluble, meaning they dissolve in fats,
or water soluble, indicating that they dissolve only in water. And as we
learn in grade school science, fat and water never mix. Therefore, to test
for the presence of fat soluble vitamins, the lab must first wash whatever
is being tested with alcohol. Alcohol will cause the fat soluble components
present to separate from the rest of the medium.
In this case, we wash the high Vitamin D yeast with
ethanol. The yeast is then separated and dried. The remaining ethanol is
collected for analysis. If the HPLC test reveals any fat soluble substance
present within the yeast, then we know that USP vitamin D is present and the
yeast has not fully metabolized, and converted all of the vitamin D. That
entire batch of yeast would then be discarded. [In the decades we’ve been
growing re-natured Vitamin D through our process, we’ve had to discard very
few batches of yeast.]
Our second test is performed once the ethanol wash is
complete and we have verified that the only vitamin D remaining is yeast
cell. The yeast-bound vitamin D is then subjected to HPLC analysis that
actually breaks the cell wall. This time we are looking for the presence of
Vitamin D inside of the yeast cell. In order to extract the vitamin D from
the inside of the yeast cell we must first break the yeast cell wall during
the sample preparation phase. After the cell wall of the yeast is broken we
can then perform the analysis for the presence of vitamin D through another
ethanol wash. This second analysis confirms that the potency of the vitamin
D achieves the specification required for the production of our encapsulated
products.
Finally, the most plant-like attribute of the final
product are the co-factors present in all plant forms of food but not
present in synthetic vitamins. These co-factors include: antioxidants,
glycoproteins, lipoproteins, glutathione, CoQ10 and SOD (superoxide
dismutase). We never add these co-factors; they are endogenous to the yeast
cells. Just as plants contain a variety of food components (proteins,
carbohydrates and fats) that surround the vitamins in the plant the
re-natured vitamin D maintains nutrients that mimic the characteristics of
plants. With the presence of these co-factors the re-natured vitamin D is
ready for use in our vegan friendly supplements.
Through this painstaking and careful process we can now
make Vitamin D3, a vital nutrient, available in a vegan-friendly format for
supplementation.
How much vitamin D, by weight, is used in a typical
Garden of Life product?
 What
may surprise many people is how potent re-natured vitamin D remains. The
amount of high vitamin D yeast needed to deliver a full dose of vitamin D in
one of our Vitamin Code products is proportionally insignificant. Remember,
the daily amount of vitamin D recommended for human consumption is measured
in International Units (IU’s) and generally constitutes mere micrograms of
material.
Diagram 4 demonstrates the tiny amount of re-natured
vitamin D yeast – the bulk material contains vitamin D – that is added to
our Raw Calcium. In this illustration the formula calls for the potent dose
of 1400 IU’s per five-capsule serving. There is almost 5000 mg of bulk
material in one daily serving of Raw Calcium and of that total, less than 2
mg, or .004% is comprised of re-natured vitamin D yeast.
Conclusion
The Garden of Life process for growing vitamin D is unique
and revolutionary. Unlike chelation or fermentation processes which focus on
the decomposition of materials, the growing process mirrors the growth cycle
of plant life. And in the case of vitamin D, the plant (yeast) metabolizes
vitamin D as it grows. A plant rich in vitamin D is then harvested for
inclusion in our formulas.
We are committed to one day find a viable source of USP
Vitamin D that originates in plant materials. When we do, that USP vitamin D
will be used in our growing process as a further expression of our
commitment to the vegan lifestyle. Until that day comes, we believe that the
vitamin D we grow provides valuable and necessary supplementation to vegans
and can be an important part of the vegan diet. Garden of Life has fully
embraced the Vegan Society’s mission, to “exclude as far as possible and
practical” when creating these vegan supplements and proudly offers them to
its vegan customers for their use and benefit.
Copyright 2008 by Garden of Life
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I “The Vegan Society” website, About Us Source
II “The Vegan Society” Vitamin D Source
III Supra
IV Beetz, Alice, “Nutrient Cycling in Pastures”, ATTRA 2002 Source
V Kyepper, George, “Manures for Organic Crop Production”, ATTRA Soils
Systems Guide March 2003 Source
VI Baker, Brian “Materials Used in Organic Farming”, Organic Farming
Compliance Handbook: A Resource Guide for Western Region Agriculture
Professionals Source
VII USDA Source
VIII Grubinger, Professor Vern , “Sources of Nitrogen for Organic Farms”,
University of Vermont Source
IX Norman, Professor Anthony W. “About Vitamin D”, University of California
Riverside 2000 Source
X IBID Source
XI Norman, 2000 |
