Mineral and Trace Element Supplements

A quick orientation before the grid: where each of these minerals comes from, which ones are vegan, and what the percentage on the back actually means.

What are mineral supplements

Minerals are inorganic elements the body cannot make, so they arrive through food, water or a supplement. They split into two groups. Macrominerals, needed in larger amounts, are calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium and phosphorus. Trace minerals, needed in tiny amounts but no less essential, are iron, zinc, selenium, copper, iodine, manganese and chromium. Everything on this page belongs to one group or the other, or is a formula built around several of them.

Plant-based vs synthetic minerals

Why bioavailability matters

The word after the mineral is not decoration. Magnesium citrate, zinc citrate, magnesium bisglycinate and chromium picolinate are all chosen because the body takes them up more readily than the cheaper oxide and sulphate forms, and our Chromium Picolinate page says as much: chromium exists in several forms and not all of them are equally available to you. It is the one specification worth comparing when two products look identical on dose.

Plant-derived and food-sourced minerals

Three routes lead to the same element. Mineral salts are the workhorses: magnesium citrate, zinc citrate, chromium picolinate, sodium selenite. Marine sources are next, and Mineral Concentrate is built on Atoligomer seawater concentrate while Green-Lipped Mussel Extract comes from New Zealand shellfish. Genuinely plant-derived minerals are rarer than the marketing suggests, though the silicon in that mussel formula is drawn from bamboo, and the L-arginine in our capsules is extracted from sugar beet molasses. Shilajit is the outlier: a resin from rock crevices at 20 percent fulvic acid, enhanced with selenium.

Which mineral supplement do you need

Calcium, magnesium and zinc

Calcium contributes to the maintenance of normal bones and teeth. Magnesium contributes to a reduction of tiredness and fatigue and to normal muscle function. Zinc contributes to the normal function of the immune system and to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. Our three-in-one tablets bring 684 mg of calcium at 86 percent, 304 mg of magnesium at 81 percent and 10 mg of zinc at 100 percent, in two tablets. Magnesium Citrate on its own is 200 mg at 53 percent.

Trace minerals

Selenium adds normal thyroid function to the immune and antioxidant wordings; Selenium Forte delivers it as sodium selenite in one daily capsule. Iron contributes to normal oxygen transport in the body and to normal formation of red blood cells, and Amino Complete carries 8.4 mg at 60 percent. Chromium contributes to normal macronutrient metabolism, with Chromium Picolinate at 200 micrograms, or 500 percent, per tablet. Manganese turns up at 150 percent in the mussel extract.

Our range of minerals, and which are vegan

This is the question the labels answer least clearly, so here it is in one place.

Reading the percentage on the panel

None of those authorised wordings may legally appear unless the portion carries at least 15 percent of the nutrient reference value. That threshold is the whole game. Chromium Picolinate clears it many times over at 500 percent in one tablet. Magnesium Citrate sits at 53 percent. Our Mineral Concentrate lists more than ten minerals and only two of them, magnesium at 54 percent and iodine at 80 percent, are present at a level that permits a claim; the other seven are at 1 percent or under. Read that column first and most marketing arguments settle themselves. One last thing: do not stack. Zinc at 250 percent in the Potency Pills plus 120 percent in Immune Support adds up quickly.