In my 36 years in the supplement industry, including more than a decade as Technical Director of Europe’s market-leading supplement company, I was extremely fortunate to experience first-hand the best that supplementation could offer. So, four years ago, when I decided to develop my own range of supplements, I saw no point in merely providing another choice of standard high-potency supplements. There were plenty of excellent companies already doing that. Instead, my interest was to look in great depth into the limitations of nutritional and botanical supplements and somehow find a way to overcome those limitations. As it happens, there was one enormous limitation that had been bothering me for quite some time, and which the supplement industry rarely seemed to acknowledge, let alone address. That limitation is actually the human body itself.

The Challenge

The biggest challenge supplement companies always face in trying to make an effective product is that a supplement is only as effective as the body allows it to be. In fact, every single vitamin, mineral and other nutrient needs a particular environment in the body in order to fully carry out its numerous functions. The problem is that there is not one single person who possesses the perfect environment for ANY nutritional supplement to fulfil its maximum potential. It’s not that they don’t work at all – it’s that their effectiveness is limited by various factors within a person’s biochemistry.

How close one comes to the ideal environment depends, to a great extent, on issues such as the person’s genetics, diet, lifestyle, gender, age, stress levels. But the bottom line is that even in the healthiest of people, there is room for improvement. The variations in the environment in each of us is what accounts for the variation in how effective a particular supplement is from one person to the next (or even in the same person from time to time). This dilemma was actually the primary catalyst in the development of Terranova.

The Solution

Because one of my two main professional passions is nutritional metabolism, I knew that in order to get the most out of supplementation it’s necessary to achieve an intense state of nutritional synergy in the body. Synergy occurs when an interaction between compounds produces effects that are greater than the combined individual effects of each one. To provide its optimum effect, a vitamin, mineral or any other nutrient must be efficiently absorbed, distributed, metabolised and utilised, and must participate in a wide array of synergistic interactions with enzymes, co-factors, other nutrients, etc.

Since it’s the synergistic environment in the body that allows nutrients to work to their full potential, I knew that enhancing nutritional synergy had to be the driving force in the development of every Terranova product. It was evident to me that if the biological environment could be adjusted in a manner that enabled a particular nutrient to function more efficiently and completely, then this should make a supplement containing that nutrient more effective.

Magnifood Synergy

And to this end, I developed a concept for formulating nutritional supplements known as ‘Magnifood’. In essence, Magnifood refers to combining vitamins, minerals or other nutrients with an intensely synergistic complex of ingredients designed to significantly improve the biological environment for those nutrients. Because my other main professional passion is phytochemistry, I knew that plants possessed the tools to fulfil my biological objective. This means that the key ingredients in Terranova’s supplements are not just the nutrients. Each of these products also contains its own unique complex of botanical and superfood ingredients that is designed to:

• Enhance absorption, bioavailability, utilisation, activity, stability, function and effects of the product’s vitamins, minerals or other nutrients
• Provide synergistic enzymes and co-factors crucial to the utilisation and functions of the product’s vitamins, minerals or other nutrients
• Provide a vast array of phytonutrients that enhance the potential functions and/or applications of the product
• Provide ingredients which enhance the overall content of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in the product
• Protect ingredients from oxidative damage, helping to support the stability and activity of the product’s nutrients

While Magnifood is a scientifically advanced innovation, its origins are deeply rooted in holistic principles. Within each Magnifood complex, the marriage between science and holism produces remarkable effects . . . effects which are powerfully active, delicately balanced and intensely, profoundly synergistic.

Unsurpassed Purity

Having gone through all the work to achieve intense nutritional synergy within the formulations, it was imperative that I protect this delicate balance by completely avoiding the use of any non-active ingredients such as fillers, binders, disintegrants, flowing agents, or any other manufacturing additives. Not only would such additives have generally compromised the overall synergy, but some may also adversely affect nutrient dissolution and bioavailability due to the way they react in the digestive tract. In addition, on a point of principle I just felt that consumers would prefer to have (and would certainly deserve to have) pure, additive-free products – especially with products in which they are investing for the betterment of their health. And taking this principle to its logical conclusion, I also decided to ensure that every product would be suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.

Remarkable Efficacy

When I developed the Terranova formulations, I had no idea how the application of Magnifood synergy would translate into a person’s experience when they would use a Terranova product. After all, as far as I was aware no concept like this had ever been utilised before in the supplement industry – so I couldn’t draw upon the past experiences of people using similar kinds of formulation. Before the products went on the market, my assumption was that Magnifood formulations would have a subtle advantage in effectiveness over standard high potency supplements. In fact, considering how conservative my expectations were, I would have been very satisfied with a subtle advantage.
However, once the products went onto the market, health food retailers, natural medicine practitioners and consumers began to shower me with feedback suggesting that the advantage of Magnifood synergy was far more significant than I ever dared to imagine. Thankfully, this remarkably positive feedback continues in great abundance to this day. But don’t take my word for it . . . feel the synergy for yourself!

About the author. . .

Stephen Terrass MRNT, founder and CEO of Terranova Nutrition, is one of Europe’s leading authorities in natural medicine, with a particular focus on nutritional and botanical science. During his 36-year career in the natural healthcare field, including more than a decade as the Technical Director of one of Europe’s largest supplement brands, Stephen has presented more than 500 lectures in 20 countries and is the author of eight books, an award-winning series of audio tapes and several magazine articles, as well as participating in many interviews in the press, radio and television.