What’s in Your Kids’ Vitamins & Supplements?

Did you know that a supplement’s non-medicinal ingredients are just as important as the medicinal ones? Kids’ vitamins and supplements can contain potentially harmful ingredients like sugar and artificial colours, artificial flavours, and artificial sweeteners. Why are these ingredients used in nutritional supplements?

Non-Medicinal Ingredients

Every supplement sold in Canada is required to list the non-medicinal ingredients, in descending order on the label. According to Health Canada, “a non-medicinal ingredient is defined as any substance added to a natural health product formulation to confer suitable consistency or form to the medicinal ingredients.”

Some non-medicinal ingredients are good for our kids, like fruits and vegetable blends, as they add fibre and additional nutrients. But other non-medicinal ingredients are not. Many non-medicinal ingredients are often used for the manufacturing process (fillers, binders, and flowing agents) or to keep tablets together (glues and gums). Artificial colours are used to make tablets and gummies visually appealing. Sugars and artificial sweeteners and flavours are used to improve taste.

Helpful or Harmful Ingredients?

What is most concerning is that nutritional supplements that are supposed to be healthy for kids can be full of ingredients that are potentially harmful to their health. One product can contain multiple types of sugars and artificial sweeteners and flavours—which are simply unnecessary.

Non-medicinal ingredients to avoid in kids’ vitamins and supplements include:

Artificial colours
Artificial sweeteners
Artificial flavours
Artificial preservatives, e.g. sodium benzoate
Common allergens
Sugar

Kids’ Vitamins and Supplements with Clean Ingredients

KidStar Nutrients was founded because co-founder Caitlyn Vanderhaeghe was tired of being disappointed when reading the labels of kids’ vitamins and supplements on the market. The lack of clean supplements fueled Caitlyn’s mission to create a line of nutritional supplements that she would be proud to give to her own children.

KidStar Nutrients promises to deliver the highest quality nutritional supplements without harmful ingredients. KidStar’s products contain only the ingredients needed and nothing more.