Whois & Analysis for natures-source.com

A health food store or health food shop is a type of grocery store that primarily sells health foods, organic foods, local produce, and often nutritional supplements.

Health food stores typically offer a wider or more specialized selection of foods than conventional grocery stores for their customers, for example athletes and bodybuilders, people with special dietary needs, such as people who are allergic to the gluten in wheat or some other substance, or have diabetes mellitus, and for people who observe vegetarian, vegan, raw food, organic, or other alternative diets.

Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals.

A follower of either the diet or the philosophy is known as a vegan.

Distinctions are sometimes made between several categories of veganism.

Dietary vegans (or strict vegetarians) refrain from consuming animal products, not only meat but also eggs, dairy products and other animal-derived substances.

The term ethical vegan is often applied to those who not only follow a vegan diet but extend the philosophy into other areas of their lives, and oppose the use of animals for any purpose.

Another term is environmental veganism, which refers to the avoidance of animal products on the premise that the industrial farming of animals is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.

Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, and the flesh of any other animal), and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter.

A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a diet that strictly excludes gluten, a mixture of proteins found in wheat and related grains, including barley, rye, oat, and all their species and hybrids (such as spelt, kamut, and triticale).

The inclusion of oats in a gluten-free diet remains controversial, and may depend on the oat cultivar and the frequent cross-contamination with other gluten-containing cereals.

A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement the diet when taken by mouth as a pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid.

A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or synthetic, individually or in combination, in order to increase the quantity of their consumption.

The class of nutrient compounds includes vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids and amino acids.

Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols.

Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, as for example collagen from chickens or fish.

These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients.

In the United States and Canada, dietary supplements are considered a subset of foods, and are regulated accordingly.

The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and properly labeled.

Among other countries, the definition of dietary supplements may vary as drugs or other classes of ingredients used in supplement products.