Proprietary Blend: The Industry Secret No One Wants You To Know About

One of the reasons MITA was created was because of the issue of proprietary blends being used in supplements. I always thought a proprietary blend was just a great way to keep your formula to yourself so as to avoid others from copying what's in your supplement.

Coca Cola holds its recipe very close, so it would make sense that a supplement company with a unique blend of ingredients that help solve a problem would as well.

In theory that's a nice idea. But that's not why proprietary blends are used. In fact, if you ever see one on a supplement label, don't buy the supplement. Here's why...

Proprietary Blends and Clinically Effective Doses

Coca Cola doesn't share their recipe because of flavor. Coke isn't a healthy drink, they don't have to include certain doses of an ingredient to be effective. Their 'effect' is being tasty and addictive. 

Supplements, however, are supposed to help you improve health, boost testosterone, improve focus, recall, and memory, or aid in recovery or some other health benefit. 

So to be effective, they need to include a full clinically effective dose of an ingredient. If the full dose isn't included, the ingredient isn't necessarily useless, but it's not effective in helping you do what it can and should help you do.

I didn't know any of this until I started doing research for my book, the Man Diet. 

I was doing research on ingredients, namely plants that can help increase testosterone (hint: there are very few that actually deliver on their promises). What I found was that pretty much all - save for a few - of the claimed 'testosterone boosters' don't actually boost testosterone. 

The ones that do need to be consumed in a certain dose to be effective.

That got me thinking about other ingredients, starting with greens powders.

I've always been a fan of getting an influx of natural, nutrient-dense ingredients. It saves time. It fills gaps in nutrition that are hard to cover in a normal daily diet, even a healthy one. So I've used greens powders for years.

I've used Organifi Greens, Athletic Greens, and a few others, until I discovered that they all used proprietary blends. 

Why Do Companies Use Proprietary Blends?

Profits.

It's simple. To include a full clinically effective dose of an ingredient you have to spend money. They're actually quite expensive when you add up the ingredients.

When you use a proprietary blend you can use a tiny dose of an expensive ingredient and fill the rest of the blend with less expensive ingredients that may have more awareness in the market.

On the outside it looks like you have a ton of healthy ingredients in a blend, which looks awesome, but it's not.

With greens powders I thought more was better, that is, a greater variety of ingredients.

Then I discovered that more is actually worse.

When you have 70 'natural ingredients' in a supplement, the odds of you including a fully effective dose of any of them drops to almost zero.

So what you have is a wide variety of ingredients that really do nothing, except have the appearance of quality. And people buy the heck out of these products.

I bought the heck out of these products.

Until I realized that they were utterly useless.

This discovery got me to create Man Greens.

The idea was simple, I couldn't find a greens supplement that included full doses of their ingredients.

Spirulina, for example, requires 5 grams to be effective. Every supplement I found used 1 gram or 500 mg's, which is nice for them because they get to include it on their label, but it doesn't do the customer any good.

Other companies like Athletic Greens and Organifi used proprietary blends to hide their dosages, so I really didn't know how much of any ingredient they used, but judging from the number of ingredients in a blend, and the size of the blend, there was no way they were using fully effective doses.

MITA's No Proprietary Blend Policy

So I created Man Greens, and it was a hit. I haven't done a good enough job at educating guys on the use of proprietary blends, but I'm seeing more companies avoid using them, so I think people are waking up to this practice.

After Man Greens we created Man Boost, that helps boost testosterone, improve immunity, and keep estrogen levels in check. Again, we used full clinically effective doses of every single ingredient.

And we continue to use full effective doses in every supplement and always will.

Why?

Because that's the only way to create a supplement that has an effect.

If you have a semblance of honor in your body you're going to create something that actually works, not just something that fills your pockets.

Sadly, in the supplement industry this practice is rare, but it's becoming more frequent, thankfully.

So, if you ever see a proprietary blend on a supplement, know that it's useless and a waste of your money.

It's better to spend a little more to get something that actually works, that uses fully effective doses and shows it on the label.

What Proprietary Blends Usually Mean...

Now, proprietary blends typically are a tell that the supplement is white labeled. 

A white labeled product is not something created by the company, but something that a third party manufacturer already has in stock that they sell for very cheaply to the 'company' that then puts their branding on it and sells it for a massive profit.

So just watch out for this practice. There are a few other companies that don't use blends of any kind. From there you just have to do a little research to see if they use the best ingredients possible.

But if they're not using a blend, odds are they're pretty solid. 

So, stay healthy, be aware of what you're buying, and buy quality.

This is your health we're talking about. You may want to save a couple bucks but in buying a supplement with a proprietary blend you end up wasting everything.

It's better to spend just a little more and get a supplement that can actually have an impact.

Cheers,

Chad Howse, Founder of MITA