The Wellness Industry Is Gaslighting People — And They Don’t Even Know It: Dr. Abby Kramer Exposes the Truth About Supplements

Check out this scenario. So you go to Trader Joe's, for example, and you're like, oh, look at this supplement. I was told I was supposed to take vitamin D or vitamin C or iron or you name it. And you say like, wow, it's so much cheaper than what I saw when I went to an actual supplement store or practitioner-level store. And you're like, woohoo, I'm saving money. But the reality is you're actually getting taken. You're actually getting a very low dose. You're getting more filler than actual active ingredient. And that is the truth, because today we are talking about the truth behind the supplement industry with Dr. Abby Kramer. Dr. Abby is someone that You would think, "Well, wait, she's a doctor. Why? What does she know about formulation and supplements?" Well, it's because she's actually a co-owner of a supplement company, and when they went down that rabbit hole of creating really clean, transparent supplements, they started to learn a lot about the industry and a lot about the hidden ingredients. Dr. Abby Kramer is a chiropractor and holistic physician practicing in the greater Chicagoland area through her own experience with chronic migraines, fatigue. and hormonal imbalances in her 20s and being told repeatedly her symptoms were normal, she sought out alternative care. Once she realized her symptoms were simply her body's way of communicating deep physical and emotional imbalances, true healing occurred. Changing the course of her professional career, she became a doctor inspired to bring that same type of transformation to her patients. When not working with patients, you can find Abby working with the brilliant team at Fringe, creating innovative, high-quality wellness products. She's also creating health and wellness content online through Instagram and her Substack, and recording episodes for her podcast, Coffee with Docs. On days off, she's spending time with her spicy 5-year-old. Yes, she's a mom, and her husband and her 3 dogs. I'm your host, James Barry. Please enjoy this Everyday Ancestral episode with Dr. Abby Kramer. I feel like everyone in the health industry is here for a reason. And it's usually because either they got sick or someone they loved got sick. What's your story?

My story is a couple parts, as many people's is, it's usually not one thing. Initially, my journey began, I got in a pretty bad car accident when I was in undergrad and got real bad whiplash. Just really bad neck pain, like couldn't turn my head. I didn't know what a chiropractor was. I was not into like health and wellness. I mean, that wasn't a thing in like the early 2000s anyway. So I just did the typical thing, went to like the student clinic on campus to see someone. They did the typical thing and gave me pain medication and anti-inflammatories. When the pain meds ran out, my pain came right back, right? And I was like, hmm. There's got to be a different solution here. And I grew up a swimmer. I was very into like athletics and sports performance. I was majoring in exercise sciences. So I reached out to one of my professors and was like, hey, I was in this accident. I have this horrible neck pain. Do you know something that could help, like physical therapy, you know, something like that? And he was like, oh, go see my good friend who's a chiropractor in the area. He'll like fix you right up. So I went to his office. I'd never seen a chiropractor before. I didn't even really know what they did. And long story short, in one visit, I was like 80% better. And I was like, whoa.

Wow.

That's interesting. So it really was helpful to me. I remember I kept seeing this chiropractor throughout the rest of my kind of college education, just for like maintenance and recovery and prevention. And he kept telling me like, you need to go to chiropractic school.

You were taking all the time? Does he do that to everyone, or like, that's interesting. No, but I— Why you specifically?

I think he just knew because, A, I was like kind of in the field. I was studying exercise and movement sciences. I was very interested in anatomy and biomechanics and like all of those things. Like, I could speak his language. I was taking all of those courses. And that's kind of a natural trajectory for a lot of chiropractors. They kind of come from that world, right? And he's like, this is like what you should be doing. But I was like, of course, very stubborn and was like, no, I'm done with school. I'm going to be a trainer. Whatever. Long story short, very quickly into personal training, I realized that wasn't the best fit for me, and I actually wanted to be a chiropractor. So it took me a couple years to then come to the same conclusion. But at the time when I was applying for chiropractic school, getting ready to start the program, I started experiencing chronic migraine headaches. And this is more what got me really into what I do now, which is much more like integrative functional medicine approach. Like, I don't only work with patients on physical conditions. I see a lot of people with autoimmune diseases and gut health issues and hormone imbalances and inflammation, right? All of that stuff. I was like, I am not going to make it through chiropractic school with having all these migraine headaches. Like, it's not going to be possible. I have to figure this out. And I was taking a couple last-minute, like, prerequisite courses I needed to start the program, one of them being biochemistry. And my professor at the time was a chiropractor who did a lot of functional medicine work as well with his patients. And so again, it was one of my professors. I asked him, hey, I have these horrible migraines. Like, what is your go-to with patients with migraines from like a supplement diet, more like lifestyle perspective? And he was basically like, go gluten-free and take feverfew, which is an herb, and it works as a preventative. So he's like, take it every day. He's like, it's a 50/50. For half people, it does nothing, but it won't hurt for you. But for half of the people that like literally Cures their migraines. So I was like, okay. And literally changed my diet, went on feverfew, never got a migraine again.

Wow. And feverfew is an herb that you drink as a tea, right?

I actually did it as a supplement. You can go to like Whole Foods will have it. It's like more common than people think. Most people just probably haven't heard of it unless they're like a migraine person. So it works as a preventative. You take it every day. You know, it's not just you take it if you start having pain. And then through some more like reducing inflammation, doing some other work on my health, I was able to wean off of that as well. But that really threw the point home to me of how important, like you can see a chiropractor every week for an adjustment for your migraines and it will probably help you, but the root cause is probably coming from something going on inside.

Yeah. And I think that's the awareness you got to look at things from a holistic standpoint, not just a symptom.

Management. Yeah.

What got you into supplements and starting your own supplement company? That's a little bit of a leap. I know that you're probably, as a chiropractor and a physician, you're recommending supplements, but did you see something wrong?

That's been quite the evolution as well. So in my practice since day one, I've always done a lot with supplementation because when you work on a more holistic level, people aren't just coming to see me for like back pain or neck pain, right? The traditional new patient I see has like, I've seen 10 people, no one can figure it out. Or I don't want to take medications for my kid's eczema. Like, what else can we do? Right? So that's just what I've attracted. So I studied a lot of that kind of stuff in school. Nearly every patient I see, we're talking about their diet. We're talking about optimizing stuff with supplements. So I've been like deep in that world for a really long time. And then what happened is a few years into practice, Dr. Allison Evans called me up, who's the founder of Fringe, who I knew through previous things. She used to work for a company called Rock Tape, and that's a whole story in and of itself, but we met through them. And she was like, hey, I'm starting up this new thing and it's called Fringe. Do you want to be a part of it? And I was like, yeah, sounds great.

I'm coming back. You're like, I'm in just because of the name.

Oh yeah, 100%. I'm like, literally, I am fringe, so yes. When do I start? It was at the perfect time in my career. It was actually in 2020 when like the world, everything slowed down and I was kind of feeling like, yeah, I'm ready for like to add something else to what I'm doing. And Fringe actually started out as a CBD company, which many people now actually don't even know. And then we quickly ventured into red light therapy products, which we also have. That's a topic for another podcast. And then the past couple years, We've branched into supplements and it's really, we always intended at Fringe to kind of be a wellness marketplace. Like we will have high quality products to offer people in many different categories, you know, based on what people need. And supplements was just kind of a natural transition between our medical team, the 3 of us, like Allison is very versed in developing products. I'm very versed on the clinical side, using supplements for a really long time and seeing what works and what doesn't work with people and what people need. And then our scientific director, Dr. Genevieve Newton, is like a crazy researcher. So we kind of just like have the perfect people to really be able to come up with high-quality products and be able to like back up what we're saying as well. And it's been quite the journey. As much as I thought I knew about supplements, I've discovered I basically knew nothing. And we're starting from ground zero.

Yeah. Right. And I think that is the reality that similar to the makeup industry, similar to the house cleaning supply industry, there is this sometimes this illusion of transparency, this illusion that, well, of course it's gotta be natural. Why wouldn't it be? But—

Yeah.

Not so the case. Now, I think something that's really fascinating about the fringe supplements that you sent me There's no flavor. That's like taboo, right? I mean, like every industry out there is trying to figure out what's the flavor I should put in there, adding all these natural or artificial flavors. What was your decision to not do that? And clearly there's a reason why.

Yes. Well, part of it was like completely accidental. Part of it was our, the CBD products we make, we make water-soluble CBD. So it's a powder. And we make it flavorless. So the first products we ever made were flavorless powders. And with CBD, that really helps people because a lot of people do not like the taste of CBD. So that's super beneficial. However, we 100% planned on making a flavored electrolyte. What we didn't anticipate is that it's very, very, very hard to do in a way that meets our standards for being clean. And so it was actually this big kind of come-to-Jesus moment of like, we actually can't do this right now, but we need to get a good electrolyte powder out on the market because one doesn't really exist. And why don't we just make it flavorless? And it was like a— like it wasn't really what we planned to do. We were actually like to the second of about to like push go on an order for an orange-flavored electrolyte. Tasted amazing. But then we found out there were like 4 extra ingredients that we were not told about that you don't have to have on the label.

That opens up a few questions right there, because first of all, how did you find out about them? Because a lot of times they're not disclosed. That's one. And then 2, why aren't they on the label?

So the first part of that is I think a lot of people actually just don't ask. So the way it works is if certain ingredients are in small enough amounts, legally they do not have to be on the label. So that's the case in a lot of products, especially supplements, especially powders. And we are like crazy about knowing every single detail from the ground up of what's in our product and what had been disclosed to us. In this process, this is from like the flavor company, okay? This isn't from like our people, was that, okay, the ingredients are gonna look like orange peel extract, orange juice, orange oil, right? Something like that.

Labeled as a natural flavor or?

No.

Okay.

Could actually be labeled orange juice, orange oil. And we were like, great, no one has a label like that. Everyone else just says natural flavors. And that's what we were going for. We made it very clear with our factory from day one, we will not have natural flavors on any of our labels. So like Don't even bother sending us samples where that would be the case, because so much of that's proprietary, right? And we can get into that as well. And so we were like all the way to the finish line. It met our quality standards, like how we want the label to look, all of that testing standards. And then we were like, okay, we need to triple check and we need to actually see the like C of A, the like certificate from the flavor people of everything that is in this. We want to like triple check it before we Push go. And it came back and it had like 4 extra things in it.

What are examples of extra ones?

I can't remember, I think all of them, but it was maltodextrin, which is one of the ones we said that will never be in our products. Another one was silicon dioxide, which is in a lot of stuff and almost never labeled.

Probably citric acid as well, right?

Citric acid for sure, but we knew that one. I can't remember the other one, but silicon dioxide and maltodextrin were the big 2 because we were like, We don't want those. But the flavor company came back and was like, don't worry, because legally you don't have to put them on the label. You can keep them off. And we're like, that's why this isn't going to work. That's exactly what you just said is why we will not be partnering together. And so that whole experience, first of all, is mind-blowing to all of us. And second of all, really made us, you know, the benefit of this whole process and it taking so long and it just being so hard to do the right way was it's really made us hone in on our values. Yeah. As a company of like, these are our lines in the sand. And then it actually becomes a lot easier because you're like, these, you know, it filters out all the other stuff. But I was not aware of how many things do not even have to be on the label. And so the worst part about all of this is that labels aren't enough anymore. And I always thought, great, you scrutinize the label. Most things have natural flavors in them or citric maltodextrin or whatever stuff you don't want, but you look at the label, you know what's in there, you can make an informed choice. Now it's like we can't even say that. So fundamentally, you just have to like really trust a company and research what they're doing and email their customer service. You know, most of them will tell you if you reach out to them in a social DM to their customer service, like, hey, what actually is this natural flavor? Many of them will tell you, or at least give you a lot more information, and you can make a better choice. But it's wild, the stuff you don't have to disclose.

Well, but even in the case of people disclosing, I feel like there's still sometimes ingredients that they don't disclose. Like, correct, most people don't talk about carriers, which is really ultimately what maltodextrin is a lot of times, particularly if it's in a flavor.

Right.

It's a carrier. I'm thinking of like even—

And it's a bulk filler like citric acid, right? It makes it appear like you're getting more for your money. So there's more powder in your packet, but a lot of times it's not necessary. The amount of it is not necessary.

Right. I mean, and I know, for example, I don't want to disparage another company in this podcast, but there is a coconut powdered company out there. And I know for a fact that it is impossible to have coconut powder not have a carrier. It's not like the water.

There's no way.

There's no way.

Right.

It's impossible. So that means that if you're eating anything or have any blends that have coconut water in them, that is coming from a coconut powder, there's probably more carrier in it than there is the coconut water.

Yep. And the truth is, unless a company is posting publicly a certificate of analysis that shows you what is in their product, that they're testing the batch you consume— this is what's in it, this is what's not in it, this is what we test for— you just really don't know. And you're kind of just trusting what they say. And a lot of like the natural flavor stuff, you just have no idea what that means. And it usually means it's proprietary, so they technically can't disclose. So they'll say things like, everything in there is extracted from, like, natural oils, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But you still don't really know. It still could be an ingredient list 10 things long.

Even in the spice industry, they'll list certain things, and then they'll just say spices. And you see this actually in grocery stores as well.

Yes, yes.

And that's their proprietary blend, right? But it's so deceptive because it's not just spices. It could be flow agents. It could be Other things that, to your point, maybe there's only 2% or a small percentage, so they don't have to list it. But what I find fascinating as well is people's reactions. Like, so some people, they think, well, this is a blood sugar thing, right? So it's like, if there's maltodextrin, if it's not a lot, then who cares? It's not making me, you know, shoot out insulin or something. It's not, it's not doing that. So what's the big issue? I think it's such a narrow perspective because what we're really talking about is not only just the transparency, but what comes with these hidden ingredients is sometimes, let's just say if you're sensitive to corn, where is maltodextrin coming from? It's usually coming from corn, right?

Correct.

It's like, what is the source of these ingredients? That sometimes it's that source. And then the other piece is that we don't live in a bubble. Like you might have one electrolyte that has tons of maltodextrin in the natural flavor, but you're not only getting it there.

Correct.

You're getting it in 50 other products you're eating. And so it's like this cumulative effect and hardly anyone is ever talking about that. They're just focusing on like, well, yeah, if when I had this electrolyte, like you're, you're acting like it raised my blood sugar levels. It's like it didn't. I have a CGM. It's like, dude, that's not at all what I'm talking about.

Yes. That's the stuff that it's like impossible for us to ever have hard data on. Like, What's happening from people that are consuming electrolytes like that multiple times a day on a daily basis over the course of 20 years? That's like what we're talking about, right?

And we'll never have that data. We'll never have that data.

No, you'll never know. And it's like correlation versus causation, whatever. The bottom line is we just want to like limit exposures to those things as much as possible and just kind of cut the BS on like, the truth is you can make an electrolyte without that stuff. But it's a lot harder and it's more expensive. That's the truth.

I had to laugh. There was this one person who in that electrolyte conversation said, just have unflavored. It's time to be an adult. And I thought that was so funny.

So brilliant. Yeah.

Because this idea that we do need all these flavored drinks is really, it is kind of a very kidlike mentality. Let's dive into some of these nefarious ingredients. If you could even share some of the learnings you've had around them, like, and really like, what is the sourcing? Like we mentioned, like maltodextrins, it's typically sourced from corn. Why is maltodextrin an issue? Citric acid, where is that usually? It's not usually coming from a citrus fruit, right? It's, it's actually laboratory made. Right. So can you kind of dive into the actual nefarious ingredients?

The biggest problem with most of those ingredients Is that, A, we don't know cumulative effect. So we really just have no idea, right? And like you're saying, someone has an autoimmune thyroid condition and they don't respond well to corn. Them having one of those drinks here and there, is that ruining their health? No. But again, daily for decades, potentially. It's like the dose creates the poison with a lot of this stuff, like you're saying. This stuff is even in, like, cosmetics and stuff like that. Anything that's like a powder, it can show up. Maltodextrin, almost always sourced from corn. Corn can be problematic to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. It's a grain. It's very, very commonly highly contaminated with pesticides. So that's another issue. And The deeper question is what corn is it sourced from? Usually from China. And that's another shocking thing is that so many ingredients in our supplements, the majority are sourced from China. And some of them, that's fine. If you're looking at making like a mushroom supplement, that's literally the climate where those mushrooms grow the best. And you can get organically sourced and like all the right things, but a lot of stuff is synthetic. And made in China, so we have even less control over quality. We know even less details, and then what is the body doing with that? So a lot of people don't like maltodextrin because of the corn base, and it's a starch. It can spike blood glucose in some people. For some people, everyone's blood glucose and insulin response is different, right? Some people have a more healthy, adaptable insulin response and are going to do just fine with that. I've seen other people, they have one of those drinks and it spikes it. So you don't really know unless you're testing your own body, but there's a lot more going on in the body than just your insulin levels. And so to me, it's like when we know better, we do better. If there's a product out there without kind of the junky stuff we don't need, that's a better choice. And the other biggie, so there's maltodextrin and citric acid.

Where's citric acid you'd normally source from?

It's like grown on mold. So a lot of people don't like that. There are certain companies out there, you can source it from citrus fruit, or you can also source it grown on like tapioca, like in different mediums. And this is one thing I learned that I didn't know. Citric acid or malic acid in certain flavors like citrus-flavored products, it actually is necessary for the taste. So that is one where I think the quality is super important, that the company is doing third-party testing should be the standard. To make sure there's no mycotoxins or toxins from mold in your product.

But most people aren't doing that testing. They're testing for heavy metals and then they're testing for contaminants, but not necessarily mold.

Correct. Most people don't test for pesticides and don't test for mold. Some tests for heavy metals, or they test for like 1 or 2 pesticides, not like 200, right? Because there's a scale. Everything's more expensive the more you test for. So a lot of people do the bare minimum. We've jumped into a whole new rabbit hole now, but testing, many of the big professional-grade supplement companies. So think people have heard of these, Pure Encapsulations, Thorne, Integrative Therapeutics, right? Generally have much higher standards, which is great. Generally they're products that like people like myself are selling in their offices, but most of these big companies, they do all of their testing in-house. I don't like that. I don't fully trust that. You should be sending your product to a third-party lab to have your stuff tested. Like, it's just, to me, I don't know why that's not the gold standard. It's wild. And most of these companies, they don't disclose their results at all. They just say, like, tested and pass, you know, whatever regulations, right? But as we know, a lot of those regulations are, like, bare minimums. They don't really mean a whole lot. It means it's, like, safe for consumption. But does it meet the standards of what you actually want to be consuming? And so that's what we decided. And it's a huge gamble to take, I'm not gonna lie. We decided to third-party test every single batch that we make, and we test stuff before and after production, and we publish the results on our website. So it's like, you can go look it up. You can go see the results that, you know, we test for every pesticide you can possibly test for. Like, we do it all. I think we're like at the forefront of this. I think now the consumer is getting very, very smart. They're way more educated than before. They're demanding cleaner products. They're demanding transparency. Like, companies aren't going to be able to get away with this for much longer, for just saying like, our products are clean. Like, people are going to want to see the proof.

I don't know if you know this kind of granular information, but do you know how much the testing that you guys do, how much it costs, like total that you're spending just on testing? Because I know for us, example, doing heavy metals and contaminants, the heavy metals is $150 a SKU.

And then it's a few hundred.

Yeah, right. So you're probably—

In the grand scheme of things is nothing. So I think it's like gross that everyone isn't doing this. Like, you're not losing that much money. I just think everyone should have full transparency and informed consent, basically, when you're consuming a product. And especially so many of our customers are mothers, they should feel good about giving their children like these products and know what's in them. And the reality is most people have no idea what's in like all of the products they're consuming, which is crazy.

I think though, you bring up a good point though, around Well, what's the lens we're looking at it though? Because when you do these tests, they come back and they will say, oh, it's under the norm or whatever, or what it's supposed to be. But to your point, sometimes that measurement is, is not as sharp as you want it to be as a practitioner. Right. So there's the standard, but then as a practitioner, you might go like, actually, we want that to be lower.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so the person purchasing this, What lens should they be looking at it and how would they even know to look at it through that lens? Because that's what I get nervous about sometimes. I'm all for transparency, but I just get nervous of like, well, is this going to get misinterpreted? I can't control if it gets misinterpreted.

Totally. We haven't actually run into this. Honestly, I kind of doubt a lot of people are downloading our like CFAs and reading them and trying to digest them. But that's where a lot of this falls on our scientific director, Dr. Genevieve. We try and model like the levels we want to see based off of what is naturally occurring in the soil. Because I mean, what else are you going to go off of? Right? So when you're making a product like a mineral product or a magnesium, this is important for people to understand. There most likely will be low levels of some of those metals. Metals are naturally occurring in our environment. So you're talking about a salt, a mineral salt, magnesium that literally comes from rocks in the earth. Don't freak out if there's like really low levels of like arsenic and cadmium. We are designed to live with these things in our world. It's more concerning if like lead is off the charts in a crazy way. But what I will say is I don't think many companies would actually give you their testing results, honestly, because if you have nothing to hide, what do you care?

Right.

Someone reaches out to your customer service and you're like, yeah, Check this out. Or are they using just, like, super, super generous scales and just saying— a lot of them will just say they won't give you the actual number. They'll just say, like, below acceptable limit.

Right.

But you don't know what that actually means. You know, our hope is to kind of more set the standard of, like, this is the type of stuff most people should be doing. And if our stuff came in before testing and was super contaminated, we'd be firing off a new batch. You know, like we're not going to sell products to our customers that could be like harming their health. That's just like, then what are we doing?

How is this showing up in your practice? Like, are you seeing people that have toxic burden? Are you, you know, are you seeing the outcomes of some of these heavy metals or some of these ingredients showing up in people's chronic health issues?

Yeah. The hard thing is, again, it's like the Which is it? It's that toxin bucket analogy, right? We're all kind of born with a certain size bucket. A lot of that might be genetic, and every little additional thing is like a drop of water in your bucket. Toxic air from pollution, processed, ultra-processed food, like stress, right? Medication side effects, like every extra thing, and eventually you're overflowing. Was it that electrolyte that has a ton of maltodextrin? what threw you over the edge.

Right.

Possibly. I have definitely seen people reacting to stuff like maltodextrin, or I've seen people that are really, really sensitive to mold feel better, for example, when they take out like powdered products with a bunch of citric acid in them that they're like, oh, like my congestion cleared up. Or I've seen problems with stevia actually a lot in practice. It can really like bloat people.

Do you think it's because they're adding filler or flow agents to it, or what? Why?

Right. Is it the stevia?

That's what's so fascinating about stevia. Like, stevia is a leaf. Like, you grow it just like anything else. I have friends that have it in their backyard. They take the leaves, they pick them, they steep them in hot warm water, and it's a sweet tea.

Correct. But that is not what's in your white powder scoop of electrolytes, right? Like, how are they— what are they doing to said organic stevia leaf to make it a powder in your electrolyte, right? And so, like, that's the process we go through, which I had never thought of previously as a clinician. Like, how does, for example, a vitamin D product— how do we go from sheep's wool To a yellow liquid in a capsule. What is the actual process? You don't, like, wave a magic wand and it's in a bottle, right? And it's usually quite chemical. So just because something says it's stevia, what chemical processing is happening to super concentrate it into, like, one tiny drop is making your 30 ounces of water taste like raspberry? You know, like, it's not natural. They're not, like, chopping up dried stevia and throwing it in the— pack it. So that's the type of like rabbit holes we've been down over 2 years trying to understand the process from like ground to bottle and trying to keep that as close to possible as like nature.

To use it as an example, let's look at your electrolyte powder, for example. Okay. So yours has no added flavors, no flavoring, and most of them out there Do have that. They usually show up in natural flavors, which we already articulated, usually have carriers like maltodextrin and potentially other things as well. Other than the flavoring, cuz you mentioned, well, we have a superior product. What makes the rest of your ingredients superior and what are other people doing that you aren't?

So the base of our electrolytes on paper probably looks similar to what other people are doing. Sodium, potassium, magnesium. But we do our sodium from sea salt instead of just like table salt. And we add calcium. And this is what we always look at, like sourcing for things. And so a lot of calcium in electrolytes and calcium supplements and anything with calcium is synthetic calcium. It's like calcium ascorbate. That means it's made in a lab. Okay. We source our calcium from algae. So like, those are the different things we do. We always want to source stuff from like nature or from food wherever possible. Here's something people need to understand. Sometimes in the market, like you cannot literally get something from the US. Sourcing is, can be limiting. So our commitment is to always get stuff in the most natural, like cleanest form possible and always evolving. So like our first round of electrolytes, we did not have calcium in there. But as the months went on and we researched more and studied more and studied the content of like mineral-rich water, Dr. Genevieve was like, we need to put a little bit of calcium in this. Like calcium's super important. And in all, you look up the content of like San Pellegrino, for example, and mineral waters, they all have calcium.

Right.

And it's super important for absorption and mineral content. So we set out to find a calcium we could add and we sourced it from algae. Right. So we try and not do like super synthetic things. And then the other big differentiator for us is we add 50 milligrams of additional trace minerals to each scoop. So most electrolytes are just sodium, potassium, magnesium. Most of them don't have calcium. And then we add extra trace minerals, which trace minerals are also super important for a lot of body processes and just how we're mineral depleted of like the big guys. Because our soil's mineral depleted, therefore our food is mineral depleted. If you filter your water, your water is mineral depleted, right? So the trace minerals are just as, if not more important. I feel like that is one of the biggest differentiators. And then the only, you know, extra powder we add to our electrolytes is organic inulin from agave. And that is necessary in any powdered supplement, you have to have, like you're saying, a flow agent that helps everything stay evenly mixed and helps with dosing. But we always want to add something that is like sourced from food, that's like real, and that also has additional potential positive health benefits. So we decided on inulin because it's also a prebiotic starch. So it also supports gut health a bit. And that's it.

And that's your flow agent for your product, basically.

Which if we were other people, it would have been citric acid.

And how much of the flow agent is the percentage of what you make? Like for most products, is it like 50% or are we talking, is it 10%? You know, is it—

Oh, most products are over 50%. And it usually, in my opinion, it's just to bulk it up. And this is another big, like kind of come to Jesus moment we had as a team is we were like, Our factory was like, I don't think you guys understand how small these tubs and scoops are going to be. Like, they're tiny. You know, you've had our stuff. In comparison, it's like a tiny little scoop for our electrolyte. Or if they were stick packs, they'd be miniature.

Because people don't need that much.

Correct. And they're like, people might be like, you know, their kind of comeback to us was like, people might get this and be like, I paid this amount of money for this and this is all I'm getting. And so we kind of wrestled with that because their advice was you might want to bulk this up a bit more, right? So we went back and forth on it and we're like, no, actually that's our entire message. And now our tagline is small scoop, big good. It's like the minimal amount, the absolute lowest amount necessary to maintain accurate dosing, to make sure everything's mixed, right? You don't want the whole bottom of your electrolyte tub to be salt and it tastes terrible. And, you know, different things have different weights and they need to stay mixed properly. So you do need that. So that is one thing some people in like the super clean movement are like, none of that should be in there. It's like, oh, that's not possible. You do need something, but we can use very clean ingredients that also have added benefit.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, that is so interesting because I've always heard with supplements at, you know, on the practitioner level versus like Trader Joe's, that one of the reasons why Trader Joe's are so cheap is not because You know, they're getting a deal on their supplements. It's because there's less active ingredient in their supplements. So it's filler. It's more, you're paying for more filler.

It's more filler. And every ingredient is for sure synthetic from China. 'Cause that's a very true—

So the quality as well, of course. Right. It's interesting. 'Cause a lot of people don't really get that. They think, oh, I'm getting such a deal. It's like, no, you're getting maybe a quarter of the product you would be getting. If you just got a practitioner quality.

And that, yeah, that's the whole dosing conversation, right? Vitamin D is a perfect example of this. I'll see patients when I see new patients, I always have them bring all of their current supplements into their first visit. And it's very eye-opening, right, to what people that think have all the best intentions in the world are going out and buying. So for example, they'll come in with a vitamin D. Most people know you should be taking a vitamin D, especially in the winter months, right? Especially during COVID a lot of people got on the vitamin D train, which is great. We all need it. But like you buy vitamin D even from Whole Foods, for example, right? More premium quality. That's like better than what you'll find at CVS or Walgreens. But most of those products are like 1,500 IUs. That's how vitamin D is dosed, individual units. And it's like, take one a day. Great. I've been taking this for 6 months. I supplement vitamin D. I'm doing the right things. The truth is most people need 4,000 IUs per day just to maintain Right. Let alone more than that to raise your levels. Right. And the vast majority of us are very depleted in vitamin D. You know, people will be like, oh, like prescription-grade or higher-quality supplements are so expensive. It's like, actually not really. A lot of times you end up saving money because a high-quality vitamin D product will be like 5,000 IUs in one pill versus the one from Whole Foods, you know, is maybe $25 instead of $48, but you have to take 5 of them a day. To get an effective dose.

I feel the same way about self-diagnosis. Like, I feel like people think they're saving money, but what they end up doing is they follow whatever they self-diagnose. They follow that protocol that they found on, you know, the internet, and they're just spinning their wheels for years. And had they just gone to a practitioner who knew their stuff, they could have been done in 3 to 6 months.

Yeah. And done the right testing and, like, gotten to the bottom of it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. I want to just go right back to the electrolytes real quick, because I always want to make sure we kind of like cover as much of a topic as we can. Can you share, even though we're, you know, this episode is really about the truth behind the supplement industry and in behind the supplements most of us are ingesting, but I also want to make sure people understand, like, why, why should someone be taking electrolytes? Why is, why are electrolytes important?

It's a great question. Electrolytes are important because a huge part of this story is just that we are so depleted in our modern world. I used to think, okay, we've all learned this growing up with like Gatorade. Electrolytes are important for athletes, right? Or you're sweating a lot, you do a sauna session, you're on vacation in Mexico, you need to like replenish your fluids because you're losing them. Yes, that's true. And we are so mineral depleted. Minerals are involved in virtually every single process of our physiology, and it's such a foundational support that, you know, there was a study done on vegetables. The magnesium content in vegetables over the past 100 years has decreased by 90%.

I know, I know that figure is so embarrassing and so absurd.

Depressing AF. Yeah. And you know, this is why everyone support regenerative farmers, please, because they are focused on restoring that mineral balance and like health back to the soil. Like it's such a fundamental thing.

Don't forget the other piece too is like, okay, so yes, regenerative farming is helpful, but once you pull that vegetable, it immediately starts to lose its nutritional value. So correct. If you, who knows how long it's been in the grocery store and then how long has it been in your refrigerator? A lot of people don't realize it. They're getting zero micronutrients from it. They're just getting fiber.

Yes. And then you're cooking it and it loses more.

Yes. It's basically— I mean, yeah, limp fiber.

You're getting nothing, guys.

Instead of limp, you need a mineral supplement.

Yeah. I mean, that's why we started out, like, our flagship couple supplements are minerals and magnesium. Magnesium is also a mineral that is super important for over 800 biological processes in the body, and we literally just are not getting it. It's impossible, right? And so that's why we're calling our first few supplements our Essentials Supplements, because it's just— it is what it is. This is the modern world we live in. These are supplements everyone should be taking every day to round out their nutrition. And, you know, I work with a lot of people, and in the wellness world, you might be like detoxing mold or healing your gut or working on parasites or optimizing your hormone function. All of that is wonderful, but I feel like everyone is looking for The special new shiny supplement or protocol to heal them. And it's like, if you aren't getting the minerals your body needs, right, and the hydration, like, you have to start there. You can't, you know, like, out-supplement from the basics, right? Things like water, hydration, mineral content, nutrients from food, good sleep, healthy light exposure, getting out in the sun. Like, All of those things are your foundation. And then sure, go try the fancy biohacking and protocols and other fun stuff. But, you know, it's not as sexy, but it's the stuff we really, really need. And just, I don't care if you eat all organic, grass-fed, pasture, everything, we are not getting the minerals we need.

So I'm historically, when I get blood tests, dehydrated, like pretty much. I think I've recently improved. And I'll just straight up say it. How I've improved is because I started doing more electrolytes. It's like, so it supported my water absorption.

Yes.

However, if I were to backtrack, I feel like the checklist most people should be providing themselves, if they do a blood draw and they are, it comes back that they're dehydrated, that they should probably first look at and, you know, tell me if I'm wrong or if you want to add to this, but They should first look at is, am I eating real food? Because obviously real food has water in it, right? So first look at the food you're eating. Then how much water am I drinking in my day versus sodas and juices and all the non-water products? And then it becomes, if you're doing those 2 things, then it becomes, okay, I'm drinking lots of water. I'm eating lots of real food, but I'm now, I'm not absorbing it. So something else is going on. So that's the, that's the 3rd layer of the onion that we have to peel, right?

Yeah. I mean, the truth is minerals hydrate us, water doesn't. And most of us are drinking dead water. Living water is flowing over a stream of rocks and mineral rocks.

Which is remineralizing it, right? Or mineralizing it, right?

In a perfect world, we are drinking mineral water from a freaking stream, but that's not the world we live in. And many of us, as we all should be, should be filtering our water. Because to me, it's much more important that we're getting the forever chemicals out of water, the prescription medications, the glyphosate, the pesticides, right? There's so much toxicity, chlorine, in our tap water, like your municipal water. So we should definitely be filtering our water. But if you have a good filter, this all comes down to particle size, it's absolutely stripping all the minerals out.

I remember, gosh, this was so long ago, but I used to go to a water place when I lived in LA. It was in Culver City. We were getting bottled water and about, I think I was doing it for 2, 2 or 4 years and about halfway in. So about 2 years in or whatever it was, I realized it was all reverse osmosis water. You know, reverse osmosis removes the minerals. So are you remineralizing this water? And they were like, oh no, that's why we sell these little bottles of minerals. I'm like, you did not disclose. I was so pissed. I was like, yes. You guys are selling dead water.

Yeah. And look, I think reverse osmosis is the way most people should go because it goes down to the smallest particle size. It's going to get the most of the bad stuff out. And that's what I have in my home. I have a reverse osmosis system, but every time I fill up my water, I'm putting minerals in it. You have to. What happens if you're drinking this ultra-filtered water Your body is going to pull the minerals from your bones.

When you drink your reverse osmosis water, what are you personally adding to your water?

I add the Fringe electrolytes. Is that because we have all those minerals and we have the trace minerals as well?

Right.

If I've done several scoops of those a day, I also have like liquid trace mineral drops that you can add back in, but there's no reason you can't do that several times a day. And that's why we designed Our electrolytes, if you look at like the sodium content, it's a lot lower than a lot of competitors for that reason. So you don't have to be scared of like, let's say I fill this up 3 times in a day, I can put a scoop in it every time and I'm not going to start retaining fluids and like have problems from too much sodium. It's an electrolyte, but also have an effect of like remineralizing. It's like making your water Living again, basically.

Is bloat the only way to really know if you're getting too much salt in the diet through electrolytes or your food?

I would say bloat and fluid retention, like swelling in the legs.

And you're not going to the bathroom regularly. You're not peeing regularly. That's retention as well, right?

Correct. Or some people, then they pee like crazy because their body's trying to get rid of it. So a lot of people are like, all I do is drink water. I'm drinking like 150 ounces a day. I'm trying to be so hydrated and I can't stop going to the bathroom. It's like, then your body doesn't like the water you're drinking. Whatever that is, whether it's electrolytes or from your tap, your body is like, nope, no thank you. That's not good for my cells. And it's excreting it and you're not absorbing it. Like, if you look at other cultures, like Asian cultures, They think we're like idiots carrying around our giant water bottles all day. They don't do that. But what do they have? They have mineral-rich, like broth and soup with every meal.

Every meal, right?

And herbal teas. And like teas can be super high in minerals, right? It's minerals that hydrate them. They're not true. We shouldn't have to drink our body weight in ounces to be hydrated. That's like just kind of how unhealthy we are. Honestly.

You know what's so funny is I, have not looked at it from that lens. And I've been in the industry so long. So I got a kidney stone when I was in my early 20s. And that's what propelled me on this path of like, you know, oh, I got to— food affects your health. I've got to take better care of my— I have to be more mindful. And so I started carrying water with me from that day on. And yet you're right. Other cultures that have more kind of like mineral-rich foods, that's part of the cultural food, they're not carrying around water.

My parents' generation, no one had water bottles. Even when I was growing up, I'm like, I don't think I drank water till I was in college, to be honest. You know, we had other problems, but like, I wasn't carrying around a giant— this is ridiculous. You know? So I think it's a deeper question of like, why are we so thirsty all the time? Why are we so depleted? Like our bodies are searching for those extra nutrients because we're not getting them from our food and it should be in our food and in our water.

So just to complete this, and I, and I love that we went from, you know, uncovering some of the supplements, the ingredients, nefarious ingredients that are in supplements that are hidden that you don't know to now how these things affect our health. Because that's the reality. That's why we're doing these things, right? We're trying to heal, we're trying to fix chronic issues, but I think ultimately what we're landing on is like, well, let's see if we can get this just through our food in our actual diet.

Yeah.

And I think for people to sometimes know that there's something wrong, they have to know what to look for. So we talked about electrolytes, talked about fluid retention, and sometimes where you have to pee a lot. What should someone's urine Look like, in your opinion?

It should be like slightly yellow, but not very dark.

Yeah. Not brown.

If I feel like if it's completely clear, you're the type of person that's drinking a ton of water and just peeing it all out. Like you're not absorbing it. So it's good for urine to have like somewhat of a yellow color, but it shouldn't be super, super dark. It shouldn't smell super, super bad. It shouldn't be like foamy and like really dark.

If they don't notice the smell during the day, if the fact that when they go to wake up and they pee and the smell is stronger, do you think that's a sign of like, oh, there's something else going on? Or do you think that, is that normal after you've slept through the whole night?

I think that's pretty normal, especially if you've slept through the whole night and you haven't used the restroom in 7 to 9 hours. Your urine is obviously going to be more concentrated and you also weren't drinking fluids all night long either. Right. The more concentrated urine is, the more it's going to smell.

Last question. What's your opinion? Drink water when you're eating or no?

No.

And why?

When we drink water, when we eat, it really dilutes our stomach acid, hydrochloric acid. The stomach is meant to be a very, very harsh acidic environment. You guys know that because if you vomit, it's horrible. It's very acidic, right? It like Burns. But that's what we want because that stomach acid is what should, A, kill off any pathogens we're potentially exposed to. So when you get food poisoning, that's because it was a bad bug that your body couldn't kill off in your stomach. But most of us, there might be a little bug in that salad you ate. There might be a little microscopic parasite or a little bit of bacteria or virus. It gets into the harsh stomach acid, that super rough environment. Dead on contact is what should happen. The second thing is that really helps break down our food, right? So people that get acid reflux, they eat and they're immediately bloated, and they feel like stuff is just stuck in their stomach, like it's just a pit. Usually it's the opposite of what people think. They think they need to take antacids. Usually those people actually need more acidity. And drinking It dilutes that environment, right? You're putting 10 ounces of water into your stomach. What is that going to do to the acid concentration? It's going to make it less acidic.

At a time when you need it to be high acidic because you're— Correct.

And most other cultures, they also think it's crazy that we drink water with meals. They don't do that. They might have a glass of red wine, but they're certainly not drinking water. We should drink water outside of meals. One of the worst things you can do from digestion— I'm victim of this sometimes because I love it— is doing like a sparkling water with a meal. Because that's going to mess up that environment even more so, right? Especially if they're the type of person—

Why is it sparkling water specifically?

The carbonation. And it's just another way you're just like diluting that environment. You want your stomach to be very acidic to break down your food.

But yet when you go to fly, it's suggested that you do drink carbonated water, which is supposedly supposed to help you not get as dehydrated. Have you heard that before?

No.

Oh, you should try it.

Like on airplanes?

Yeah. When you, when they walk around with the cart to get a liquid, request soda water instead of flat water.

I've never heard that. Interesting.

I've noticed it helps. This has been awesome. I hope those watching or listening have gotten a nugget because I, I think this is such an important topic. Not only what is in the supplements we're taking, what the industry is technically hiding due to financial reasons and proprietary reasons? But then also, like, what is our body revealing about what we need?

Yeah.

And then lastly, and I would say maybe the most encouraging, is that there are companies like Fringe that are thinking and producing products with a different lens and with a different set of values. So thank you for doing that and for making transparency a priority. So can people work with you and please share where they can find you and tell us a little bit about your podcast?

Probably best way for people to find me and look at all the things is Instagram. My handle's Dr. Abby Kramer, and that links to Fringe. It links to like all the things. Finding my practice and all of that. And my podcast that I do with my co-host, Dr. Nicole Huffman, is called Coffee with the Docs that we just had you on.

Yeah, that was so much fun. Sadly, I didn't get to meet your co-host, but hopefully another time.

I know we'll have to do it again.

Well, thank you again for coming on here. I'm so grateful we got connected and I'm excited. Do you guys have any new products coming down the The pike here?

We sure do. Back to the vitamin D conversation, that will be the 3rd and last product in our Essentials line, because that's another one we feel very confident that the majority of us need to supplement because we don't get enough sunlight really. Therefore, we don't have enough vitamin D. And that was that whole rabbit hole of like, it comes from like processed sheep's wool and like What is going on? No one talks about this. No one knows about this. So we have a vitamin D and K flavorless powder that will be coming out in March, but you can preorder it now on the website, but same thing, same clean label testing, transparent, no extra added fillers, all of that, and super absorbable.

Well, if anyone wants to get Fringe products that we've mentioned here, just check out their line of goods. Fringe has been kind enough to give us a discount for you. It is going to be EA10. So E for everyday and A for ancestral. So EA10, you'll save 10%. I have tried the electrolytes and the magnesium. I got to say, y'all, like, it's so clean. I put the electrolytes in a nice-sized bottle of water. It still tastes like normal water, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

But in a, if anything, it tastes even more crisp, like better. But it doesn't taste salty, which is key. I think that's the fear people have when they see unflavored things is that it's going to taste like an element or, you know, a metal or something.

And that's because we don't put 1,000 milligrams in a serving like a lot of competitors.

Right.

Which that works great for some people, but not all. So we wanted to just be a nice, safe, lower dose. Kids, it's great for kids who also, by the way, need minerals. Probably more so than adults because their bones are growing. And so you can sneak it in their smoothies, sneak it in their water, and they're getting those super important nutrients.

Thank you all for joining us on Everyday Ancestral. I hope you're getting a lot out of these discussions. I know I am. Stay curious and please share. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.