The primary source of herbs used in the Ideal Health product line are organically grown by local farmers in the French Alps mountain region. During the peak-harvesting season, the herbs are picked each morning only if conditions are ideal and then quickly brought down from the mountains to the local processing facility in the village. Upon reaching the processing plant, they are immediately cleaned and dried. Since herbs will lose 50% of their potency if not processed and dried within 48 hours, this step alone insures the highest potency possible and differentiates the Ideal Health herbal ingredients from other herbal preparations.
In addition, our farmers are undergoing a rigid certification process for organic herb production which requires sophisticated soil analyzes over a set period of several years, screening for the presence of herbicides and pesticides. They have successfully passed all initial requirements and are now within just a few years of official certification.
After the herbs are received stateside, each batch is meticulously analyzed for a Total Bacterial Count in our formulator�s in-house microbiological laboratory. A thorough screen is performed for yeast, molds, Salmonella, E. Coli and other potential contaminants. This step is not required by law and is a voluntary process that our formulator insists on as yet another checkpoint for quality and purity, a step that many of our competitors omit. Additionally, our laboratory grows cultures for a full 5 days (not the 48 hours that some suppliers use), allowing ample time to reveal contaminants. This insures that all herbs used in our product line meet the stringent microbial limits set for nutritional supplements as defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia XXIII Standards.
Incidentally, all potential product ingredients, not just our herbs, must pass this rigorous testing procedure before being accepted for use in the Ideal Health product line.