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Vitamins are essential substances, largely ingested through food. An insufficient intake of vitamins can result in deficiency symptoms. Deficiencies can cause different symptoms and can promote various illnesses.
Natural vs. Synthetic Vitamins – What’s the Difference?
Natural vitamins are contained in fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. They consist of various building blocks (co-factors and co-enzymes), which as a complex all belong to a vitamin. Only this natural combination of substances enables the organism to use the vitamin optimally and reap its natural benefits within the body.
Synthetic vitamins are “recreated” in the laboratory. They differ chemically and structurally from their natural counterparts because they only consist of one component of the natural vitamin. If one of the natural links is missing, the vitamin can no longer be used and processed as well.
A good example is vitamin C: natural vitamin C consists of ascorbic acid, bioflavonoid complex, P-factor, K-factor, J-factor and tyrosinase (enzyme). Synthetic vitamin C, on the other hand, consists only of pure ascorbic acid. In order to make this ascorbic acid usable for the organism, the body must first provide the missing components from its own tissue and convert them. Otherwise, the synthetic vitamin C will simply be excreted unused. The body uses e.g. Tyrosinase from the skin, which weakens the skin's own sun protection and can increase the risk of skin changes.
The Benefits of Natural Vitamins
As opposed to natural vitamins, synthetic vitamins remove valuable substances from the system that they are supposed to support. Here are the advantages of supplying natural vitamins to the body:
➠ overdose is hardly possible
Natural vitamins are almost impossible to overdose, while synthetic vitamins are dosed higher from the outset.
➠ higher bioavailability
Vitamins always need players in the form of enzymes, minerals and co-factors in order to be able to develop their full effect. The body recognises these complexes as necessary and can utilise them better. For example, natural vitamin C has a 35% higher bioavailability than pure ascorbic acid.
➠ dosage can be lower
Natural substances have a higher bioavailability and can therefore be better utilised by the body.
Dog and cat food - why natural food is so healthy!
Artificial vitamins are often added to dog and cat food to ensure a long shelf life. Synthetic vitamins behave more stable and are not destroyed by long storage, unlike natural vitamins, which decompose over time. When using synthetic vitamins, the values do not fluctuate as their quality is always constant. As a result, many manufacturers rely on synthetic vitamins in their pet food.
You need to use up food with natural vitamins a little faster due to its shorter shelf life, but your pet benefits a lot more. Unfortunately, there are restrictions to declare natural food as a complete feed because legislature can’t guarantee that enough vitamins can be retained in sufficient quantities over a long period of time.
Since natural raw materials do not always provide the same nutritional value, you can switch between different types of feed to compensate for natural fluctuations. That way you’re able to ensure a varied diet for your pet.
Which vitamins are contained in our dog and cat food?
We generally do not use any artificial vitamins in our products. The vitamin requirement in our dry and wet food is covered by high-quality meat, fruit and vegetables, as well as natural supplements such as spirulina.
As an additional supplement, our popular multivitamin, AniForte® MultiVetal can be used. It contains natural brewer's yeast, valuable barley grass, seaweed flour, acerola, acai and salmon flour and provides
