The Better Question: What Makes Whole Food Supplements Different—and Does It Matter?

Introduction to Vitamin B12 and Whole Food Supplements 0:00

Everybody knows vitamin B12. Got to get my B12 shot or go to the grocery store and get some vitamin B. Where those in a synthetic can be almost dangerous. If you look at the forms of vitamin D12 that are on your supplement, you're going to see names like methylcobalamin, which is better. That's methylated. It's a step in the right direction. But again, it's missing the rest of the aspects of that B-suite or the B complex that exist in nature synergistically in those plants. and animal tissues. Even more so is the cheaper option, which a lot of supplement companies put in their bottles, but don't necessarily tell you, that are sourced from places with chemical names such as cyanocobalamin, right?

Which is a name you might recognize from a poison known as Cyanide. And some of them come from actual coal tar byproducts, is what some have historically been made from, for sure. So we're talking about chemical derivatives and by products of industrial and vitamin E petroleum, right? It's sort of industry standard and pharmaceuticals and it's used a lot of nutraceuticals as well. Welcome to the resiliency method, the truth about healing. I'm Dr. Erica and we are here to uncover the root causes, keeping you stuck together.

We'll restore your energy, your focus and your resiliency so you can finally heal, regenerate and feel truly alive again. Whole food supplements are essentially the nutrients you don't want to put on your plate, but your body actually needs them the most. We're talking about the organ and glandular nutrition, adrenal tissue, liver, thyroid, the more nutrient dense parts of animals that earlier generations regularly ate, that most people avoid today. Welcome to the Resiliency Method, The Truth About Healing podcast.

I'm Dr. Erica. and today I'm joined by Philip Schneider joining me for this conversation. Now the better question we're asking today is really this, what makes whole food supplements different and does it actually matter?

Podcast Welcome and Episode Overview 2:06

Together we are breaking down why the muscle meat most of us eat now is actually the least nutrient dense part of the animal and why organs like the adrenal glands are naturally rich in nutrients like vitamin C. We'll also explore how whole food concentrates can deliver organ nutrition in a simple tablet form without needing to actually put a fork and a knife into it. And we're unpacking the difference between synthetic vitamins made from petroleum or coal tar versus nutrients that come from real food sources designed by nature.

If you've ever thought all vitamins are basically the same, This episode is going to challenge that idea. If you're enjoying the Resiliency Method podcast, we'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave a quick five-star review for us on Apple podcasts. Your support helps more people discover the show. and join this important conversation. Thank you so much for your support. Welcome back everyone. I'm Dr. Erica Schultz to the Resiliency Method, the Truth About Healing podcast. i am joined today with Phil Schneider.

He is a licensed acupuncturist with almost 20 years of experience and a profound commitment to natural health. he brings a wealth of clinical expertise to us today and educational passion and his role as a district manager in the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado and other surrounding states for standard process. And his career is defined by a deep-seated enthusiasm for whole food nutrition and the therapeutic power of medicinal herbs, foundational pillars that he utilizes to empower healthcare practitioners in their own practices.

Philip's unique background bridges the gap between traditional wisdom and modern nutritional science, making him a compelling voice for practitioners seeking to integrate effective nature-based solutions into patient care. And as an educator, he's dedicated to providing high-level clinical insights and inspires fellow professionals to elevate their health outcomes through the transformative potential of whole food philosophy.

Guest Introduction and Whole Food Supplement Basics 4:12

Welcome, Philip. Great to have you here. I'm going to start off just playing off of your bio there in terms of talking about whole food. One of the things I've noticed is that when I talk to people about using whole foods for healing, oftentimes they kind of get this picture of what's on their plate because I think we've had a lot of discussion with the Whole30 diet and the importance of coming back to dietary day-to-day food consumption, meal planning that's based on using Whole Foods, which is awesome, right?

But today, we're talking about Wholefoods from a standpoint of supplementation. I'm gonna kick you off there and making the distinction of what we mean that differs from what's on our plate, WholeFoods, to what were talking supplement-wise. And in terms of supplements, right? The standard process is truly the original and I think most well-refuted, most efficacious brand for whole food nutrition. And yeah, very different than the food that goes on your plate, which is obviously crucially important.

Yes. But we make whole food concentrated supplements, right? In a world where there are so many options for vitamins and supplements made synthetically in a lab, isolated to a specific molecule. Whole foods, by our definition, is actually utilizing the power, nature, the wisdom of our planet to feed people's bodies in a way that they can react to and absorb nutrients the way Mother Nature intended compared to how they were built in the lab. Absolutely. And one of the things I like to say about Whole Foods is these Whole Food supplements are the thing that you actually don't want to put on your plate, but are still necessary for your body.

By that, what we're specifically talking about is most of us are getting our nutrition from the muscle. of animals, right? We eat mostly the muscle or the fattier areas. Those are the least nutrient-dense regions of the body. And oftentimes what we're talking about when we talk about whole food supplements is organs, glands, things that for most of human history were on the menu. But let's face it, in our modern world, organ meats are not necessarily coming back on Yeah, our grandparents ate them.

I know that, mine did at least. But I got to tell you, I'm going to be honest, the thought of it repulses me sometimes when I think about putting a fork in a knife into whole food, but I love the ability to have it in tablet that I can just throw back with a little bit of water. And I knew I was getting that nutrient, that density that in terms of why my body really thrives on and uses for the healing process. And it's looking for, but it not getting it, right? That the human diet in the last hundred years has constricted substantial.

And to your point, muscles, which is what we eat most of the time when we go out to dinner, animal muscles from steaks and fillets are really the least nutrient dense part of animals. You think to indigenous cultures, even to this day, where adrenal glands are even for vitamin C, That's one example of many. One of the best sources for vitamin C. Absolutely. Right. And one of reasons that is, I know is because when you're eating it in that form, you are getting all the necessary cofactors that are needed for your body to actually intake use that nutrient or what we call, I like to call the cousins.

So we've got our cousins, we are taking in that vitamin C in the form. We've all the necessary things that are needed to actually use it along with it. The first cousins rather than the distant cousins Big happy family. Yeah, right. So I know that we want to talk a little bit too about the distinctions. That's a good intro into Whole Foods, what we mean by that. But I think one of the biggest values that people can get from understanding whole food nutrition is in the context of synthetic nutritional supplements.

What do you think are the things that make those things unique?

Synthetic vs Whole Food Nutrients 8:24

I mean, I think, you know, all of us are conditioned now because we all have vitamins in our pantry somewhere, right? And I, think we're all conditioned to see the label of those products from the lens of a synthetic product, right? How many milligrams? What's the percentage of my RDA, and then you see those yields. Oh, hey, this product has 5,000. I use the vitamin D3. This one's got 100, 000. That must be better, correct? I love that bigger is better mentality, but really it's a single molecule that's missing all to your point, those necessary coenzymes and cofactors that exist in nature, the complexity of nature that our bodies need to put those specific nutrients that we might be working for to work in the body.

So when you make a synthetic molecule in a lab, you know, the, body isn't built to absorb that, right? So you need incredibly strong yields of these molecules to get the to do anything with it. And, You know that's why we, we have the sort of joke in our side of the supplement world that You know, synthetics give you very expensive Pete. Yeah, that's true. And sometimes dark color. That's how you know. Right? Tell, tell, sigh. Now we were talking about 5M and C, so let's go there for just a second, because I know that that is an instrument most people are familiar with.

And we talked about one of the greatest sources of that being from, for example, you know, adrenal tissue, right? And, we know also that one and the most important cofactors to make vitamin C effective and used by the body is in coming along with vitamin A. Okay. Right? Let's talk about that though in context of like ascorbic acid, which is the vitamin c that most people are taking in a synthetic form. To use that and drive that point you just made home, we're talking about a single nutrient or aspect of vitamin C.

How would you describe that a little bit further in terms of the uses of ascorbic acid or the vitamin that most people are buying off the shelf in the supermarket? Yeah, again, here's a molecule, ascorbic, acid that's synthesized in a lab that, most of us think of as, oh, that is vitamin c, right? That's how conditioned we all are to look at these molecules as. you know, what our body needs, right? Where in reality, vitamin C exists in nature almost as an entire complex, and not just of one type of vitamin, but again, you think of like your B vitamins, like how many of them there are to make up that vitamin B complex.

And vitamin c in a whole food form has a wide array of those additional what we call coenzymes and things like bioflavonoids, that help really turn vitamin C into a powerful antioxidant that helps support the immune system, helps with the collagen elasticity, gives your body those building blocks that it uses to stay strong. And in a synthetically derived single molecule form, you can take as much ascorbic acid as you want, and you're not really going to give your the results that is looking for from, say, those dietary components that you are not eating.

I don't know when the last time you had an adrenal gland, for lunch was. Yeah, never and will be never. Exactly. Me too, by the way. Awesome. Then let's take another example. Let's talk about vitamin B as in boy. And let us look at that one in particular because I think there are some pretty good distinctions to drive home around the use of vitamins B in the form of a whole food versus the used of vitamin D from a synthetic form. Yeah, I mean, especially with vitamin Bs, that's a good one to go down.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Is, you know, say your B12, right? Everybody knows vitamin D12.

Vitamin C, Cofactors, and Whole Food Complexity 12:36

Got to get my B12 shot or go to the grocery store and get some vitamin B, where those in a synthetic can be almost dangerous. If you look at the forms of vitamin D12 that are on your supplement, you're going to see names like methylcobalamin, which is better. That's methylated. It's a step in the right direction. But again, it's missing the rest of the aspects of B-suite or the B complex that exist in nature synergistically in those plants. animal tissues. Even more so is the cheaper option, which a lot of supplement companies put in their bottles but don't necessarily tell you, that are sourced from places with chemical names such as cyanocobalamin, right?

Which is a name you might recognize from a poison known as Cyanide. And some of them come from actual coal tar byproducts is what some of them have, I think historically have been made from for sure. So we're talking about chemical derivatives and by products of industrial. And in vitamin E petroleum, right? It's sort of industry standard and pharmaceuticals and it's used a lot in nutraceuticals as well. Not enjoying the thought of eating a petroleum product. Yeah. I get you on that one. never really thought I really consumed Vaseline internally either.

Don't use it any longer topically, although I once did unknowingly. Yeah, so let's talk about that even a little bit. One of the reasons I invited you specifically on here was because we wanted to talk this conversation of whole food supplements. And you are a representative of one of you know, industry leaders, I would call you, the Cadillac of whole food supplementation. I grew up as a daughter of a chiropractor. So I actually was introduced to your products when I was probably like four years old, a long time ago now.

You're a standard baby. But now I know through my education and even the resiliency method, best ways to utilize your product. And so I want to hear from you specifically on what the history is of this amazing company, how it came to be, and why in the mind eye of a practitioner like myself, why I would call you one of the best of best in terms of Whole Foods supplementation. All right. Well, I will do my best to give you this short version, but you know, standard process today, right? We grow. about 80% of everything that goes into our products on an organic regenerative farm located in Wisconsin, Lake Country, Wisconsin.

I've been to that farm. It's a beautiful place. An amazing place, it's an Organic farm, right, but it is also regenerated. So it really the best of both worlds and thus really in a league of its own where we really invest in soil health year over year without any pesticides or fertilizers, you know, not just synthetic, but fertilisers in general. All we use to put back into our soils is the parts of the plants that don't go into products. Yeah, and let's make that clarification too, because we started tying our animal product in your product itself, but you equally as use phytonutrients inside your products and many of those are actually grown right on your farm.

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Vitamin B12 Forms and Synthetic Concerns 16:48

That's D-R-E- R-I-K-A online. com forward, slash, discovery, or dive deeper with the full initial consultation at Dr. Erica online dot com, forward slashed initial dash consultation, because your health, your clarity, and your freedom cannot wait. Yeah. We have, again, about 20 different crops that we grow. And we don't have any livestock on the farm, right? We do use USDA-approved certified sources for those. Yeah, most of the crops, that, we, grow are the bulk of what we're growing in front of.

What's one of a few of, the biggest ones? Spanish black radish? About a third of our organic farm are about 300 of almost 900 acres is Excuse me, buckwheat. Which is the source of what? So much more than a little rascal. Buckwheats is a super food. It's amazing. We don't think of it as much, although humans have been eating it for thousands of years. If you think food products like kasha, right? Buckweed and soba noodles from Japan, and worldwide buckweed has grown. But today, most of the buck wheat is sourced from like about 95% of Russia and China.

Wow. whereas we grow ours on our organic regenerative farm in Wisconsin. But buckwheat is a multi-mineral in itself, abundant in magnesium, potassium, has the perfect zinc to copper ratio. Additionally, vitamin C with those bioflavonoids and antioxidants, specifically cursitin and rutin. And it's a wonderfully dense source of rutine because rutins are hard a phytochemical nutrient to find in nature. But if you look, the research scientifically on rootin is incredibly compelling. All kinds of data being not just around longevity, but protection against a lot of those big scary diseases that we have common in our lives.

You know, additionally, yeah, almost a full B complex vitamin in there, mixed naturally occurring of soluble fibers and insoluble fiber. So it's going to help with those cravings in between meals and that feeling of satiety. You think about all these medications now that are making billions of dollars to do just that. And, you know obviously it is one piece of that pie. But yeah. It's a wonderfully rich superfood good for all kinds of things. Awesome. lines and areas of brilliance. And I feel like we should, as we talk about this particular type of product, we probably should go back to also even some of the history of standard process because I think this is one of things that makes your product line the most beneficial to modern day diseases.

So we're going to talk and throw a big word out to the listeners right now, something called protomorphogens. We call them PMGs for short. Do you know how many off the top of your head are in that line? say probably around what 20 to 30. Okay and this is where we get into things like where are we bringing up the adrenals again we'll call it adranotrophin or you've got one for the liver, hepatrophen, you got 1 for that thyroid, thytrophine, PMG and I always tell my patients this this your your golden key and especially when you're talking about longevity You know, we approach longevity slightly different from a lot of practitioners out there in that we're going after the performance and improvement and healing every organ tissue and gland in the body because we see that if we optimize that and create the necessary healing in those areas that were going to actually have a longevity ahead of us because we cleaned up enough of the toxicity and we've really

Standard Process History and Farm-Based Nutrition 21:00

allowed the body to heal and unleash that intelligence. So, PMG, the cortomorphogen, really is the answer to a lot of autoimmune situations we're dealing with. We're talking about cancers, that we are talking things that when you really facilitate and open up that design, an incredible result. And Dr. Royal Lee, who's the founder of Standard Process, I mean, this was his brilliance. I feel like this, was like way ahead of time. So many ways to talk about it ahead this time, and you read it in his writing, you know, he's talking about concepts that haven't even been named yet.

Even the word vitamin was not in the dictionary when Standard process started selling full-food concentrated supplements. But yeah, tautomorphogens are sort of crown jewel in our line. a really wonderful way to add specificity to your supplement protocol that, uh, you know, it's, one thing to say, there's dietary gaps that we can fill in with whole food concentrates, things that you're not eating anymore. Or, no, I think Dr. Lee saw the writing on the wall very early in his career was that humans were eating enough calories, but still suffering from malnutrition, right?

Because science was already starting to denature foods and to bleach and enrich flowers. things of that nature, and you could see already the health ramifications that came from doing those things. Take us back in history for a second. What, around what time period was Dr. Royal Lee really writing about this? And I want to mention too that at your farm, I think it's so cool that you've all preserved this history by actually having a library of his original writings. You can actually walk through the library, see some of the original tools he used, some that have been created.

Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit more about him as a man when he was in the prime, when was he doing this, and give us little more of that right now. Yeah. Fascinating individual, Dr. Lee. Both made millionaire early in his life in 1920s, which, you know, millionaire in 1920s was a pretty amazing accomplishment. And originally a dentist. Correct. A dentist and engineer. Dr. Lee actually is credited with inventing the constant speed governor, which was used to create the world's first dental drill.

So every time you hear a dental, drill was in a way and every dentist office on the road, you can think back to Dr Lee. But he also had patents for the U S military, the space program. He died with about 80 patents to his name. It's really brilliant. Nutrition was his great love. And I think he again saw that. you know, as, industry really started to get involved with processing food that again, there was a price to be paid for the health of humans. And that was his great passion. That's what's.

He was living in his prime was about a century ago. Uh, correct. Yeah. The, yeah, he passed away in the 1960s. So standard process was founded, uh, in 1929, almost 98 years old. Again, selling vitamins before vitamin was word in dictionary. Yeah, protomorphogens, cellular cytosols, I mean, and then of course all the whole food concentrates, animal tissues as well, everything the body needs in one product. Yeah. Amazing. Why do you think many healthcare practitioners choose whole foods supplements as a part of their approach to supporting patient health?

What would you say about that? Simple answer is they give results. And again, it's, our bodies are designed to absorb food, right? Our bodies, are not designed. To absorb synthetic molecules. And I think, you know, results obviously keep the patients coming back and also help other patients refer to their, their friends and network to you as practitioners. You know results refer as one of my mentors would say. But additionally, we've spent a lot of time and effort and resources to marry those clinical outcomes that have been enjoyed for decades with a gold standard

Protomorphogens and Clinical Applications 25:12

clinical science now as well. So we actually own, sure, our own research facility called the Nutrition Innovation Center, or NIC for short, that's embedded in the Whole Food Science Research Suite in Kannapolis, North Carolina. You can look it up. It's pretty cool. The Dole Pineapple founder, when he died at a trust that he wanted, you know, research done on old foods. So we actually bought our own wing of this facility where we can now do clinical trials on patients, our R&D formula, and on our formulations and ingredients.

And we're really diving into why we get such phenomenal results with our products. Awesome. Yeah, I love it. And there's a lot of noise out there in terms of the supplement industry. What we hear a lotta times too, the latest and greatest is some peptides and, and or, you know, we've always got, seems like some kind of supplements gonna be the answer to everything and everyone's problem. what are your thoughts in term of, how does whole food supplementation, which is, fairly in some respects, very classical.

in nature, but you know, I also know you're trained in Chinese medicine, what have you seen in terms of understanding the difference between how whole food nutrition plays inside the body against even some of these things? What do you think are the biggest things that are falling into why people make the choices they're making? You know a lot of it's I think really effective marketing. and compelling speakers, that there's always a speaker or representative for different products that get you on board.

And every brand's got a reason why their product is the best. You notice a lot of those brands and things, they come and go and they cycle through like most fads in our culture. A lot of dietary fads, a lot, especially in the healthcare field, there's always some kind of hack or some product or something we all do. And then you don't hear about it a year or two later. I've noticed that too, that the latest thing is we've got the research and I know you guys research too and that's very relevant.

One of the things that I remind people of too when it comes to research is you really want to see not just six weeks out, or even six months out, you really want to know how that person's doing with their response to that particular magic product or magic hat, a year or two later. Is it still working for them? Are they still seeing the same result? Because we can get an immediate result from some of these things. There's a little bit truth in everything, right? But long-term, sometimes we're not seeing that sustainable result, which is what we're going for with the resiliency method for people.

So we heal that, that tissue organ or gland. We know they're gonna get a sustainable, long-term result. Right. Yeah. How have you seen supplement industry evolve in terms of whole food nutrition and where do you think it's headed in the future? Especially with all this other noise. It's really exciting and yeah, a lot there to unpack, but yeah. You know, I think fads come and go, you know? I You know, the miracle solution for weight loss now for almost a few generations, right? From Atkins to Paleo to Keto and now it's GLP1s and peptides are coming in for a while now as well.

And, you know you see the anti seems to be getting upped each time that innovation happens. The side effects and the long-term outlook is getting more and more severe. You know, to me, it makes it a really compelling case for Whole Foods, right? Because, you know through the rise and fall of all these different, uh, You, know crazes and fads, our products, Whole Food products have basically stayed

Research, Industry Trends, and Long-Term Health 29:24

the same. And we've had to learn how to adjust our way of reacting to these influences, but not changing our product. The products stayed, stayed same and the way that we educate has to adapt. But the products themselves have changed very little. since the time they've been created, many of them going back way to the early days. Awesome. Right. What do you think, wrapping this conversation up for today, what do we think is a better question that you would recommend that listeners ask themselves about their health in general?

And as particular as it applies to this particular topic. Absolutely. Well, speaking of supplements, I would like everyone to think about The supplements that you have in your home, the supplements you put in you body, where do the individual ingredients come from? Do you know where they're sourced, how they are made, and really what is the long-term goal of that company? Many supplement companies now, it's a multi-billion dollar a year industry just in the United States, around 25 to 30 in 2026. There's a lot of marketing involved and people are making a lotta money.

And is that what's gonna drive your health? So you know, the company likes standard process. We are. still in family hands, right? We haven't been bought by private equity or pharmaceutical companies or... Pfizer? Yeah. Well, we're actually going to buy Pfizer. There was a rumor, yeah, years ago. The healthcare practitioner is still not in the know or being corrected on that. They were not bought my Pfizer... Or Nestle, or Nestlé. I know. We're, actually, the company is, still held by the descendants of Dr.

Royal Lee and future generations of the family are, you know, in active training and education right now, experientially, to carry our company forward for the next hundred years in family hands, which I think is really cool. Awesome. And that's so, like, not sneering very much, but yeah, I've actually met these people. I have met the owner of The Current Owner, who has an interesting story about, we won't get into today, about how he even acquired the company. A very good story, but you have genuine people and a father who is training his children to take on and continue on the legacy of standard process, which is quite frankly amazing.

So yeah, to have these tools and again, our process really integrates whole food nutrition into it because we see the value of using these. What nature intended to really produce a healing response and it's the best way to do it. You know, we use other types of products, herbs and homeopathy, but we always use it as what they, and even some nutraceuticals. We're not just banging up on nutriceuticals today. But we used all those things in their own brilliance for shorter times and really with the goal of getting the body to fully accept and utilize in the end what nature intended, which was our bodies are intended to heal.

with whole food supplementation. So awesome to have you here today, Bill. And we will have your back again for future episodes and thanks for coming. All right. Thanks again, Doc.