Are ND Fish oil products IFOS certified?

So I can tell you how all this works from inside the industry. There are many of these companies/organizations that create a trademarked name for a certification, and a logo to go with that. They then publicize it and advertise all over to try and get consumers to start trusting in that certification. Then they use that to pressure other retail brands to pay to use them, and they license the use of their trademark and logo on product labels as a marketing tool. When they first start out, they try and get a big brand onboard for free or very discounted rates. They offer to let that brand participate in the program for much less than everyone else to piggyback off the reputation of that retail brand. It works, too. Hey, if Thorne is using this IFOS thing it much be legit! So they leverage the reputation of existing brands to slingshot the recognition of their own. These organizations work like businesses, not nonprofit consumer advocate organizations. The goal is to get consumers to trust them, then use that reputation to strong-arm brands into paying to be in their program. It's how Carfax first got started. It's what LabDoor does. It's how Friend Of The Sea does it.

I say strong-arm, but many times they are very diplomatic and strategic about it. They don't' overtly try and force you. However, the moves they make in the industry kind of force your hand. It's a form of soft strong-arming. "Hey, all these other brands have the IFOS logo! Why don't you? Is your product not pure?" It's a very effective strategy. Remember the USP commercials a long time ago? They ran commercials telling consumers to look for the USP Verified logo on products you buy. That forced brands to then pay to get that certification to not look like they were lower quality. The big difference is that USP has been around for a long time. They have a reputation already, and they produce a lot of reference standards for the industry. They have been around for 200 years! So having a USP Verified logo on your product might be worth the cost.

The issue I have is that every time I look deeper into these programs, I find a lot wrong with their methodologies. Many people think that ISO, NSF, and USP look deep into the scientific validity of the numbers, but they actually don't. Many USP methods are VERY outdated. Trust me, they were the gold standard way back in the day. They are a good base level for methods, but the world has advanced a lot since then. I'll give an example. The USP methods for testing ashwagandha only look at 8 of the almost 40 withanolides in ashwagandha. In fact, they only use TWO of the withanolides as reference standards. They calculate the other 6 based off the response factor from those two, and assume the response factors for the others. That's not good chemistry. Sure, USP ran validations showing the response factors lined up properly in normal ashwagandha, and their method is MUCH CHEAPER to run. You need way less expensive withanolide reference standards. However, the issue becomes when you start deviating from the normal methods for making ashwagandha. I went into detail about it on a post I made about the Consumerlab testing they did.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NootropicsDepot/comments/dmlck9/consumerlabs_ashwagandha_testing_results/

So what did we do? We spent almost $4,000 buying all 8 of the reference standards and doing our own methods. That's the only way you can be 100% sure the concentrations you are getting are accurate, as different processing methods affect the response factors. However, that was not good enough, either. There are more withanolides than just those 8. In fact, we discovered a novel withanolide in an extract sample we got from India that feels TOTALLY different than all the others. We are currently in the process of trying to make our own extract standardized to that withanolide that nobody else is even looking at, much less knows exist. We then worked with the guys from Shoden to make some really advanced new methods for testing ashwagandha that get a much better view of the entire picture with ashwagandha. I spoke about it here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NootropicsDepot/comments/i1w47y/shoden_ashwagandha/g00bfzp/

So you can see that if you just use USP methods, you are going to be missing a lot these days. Ashwagandha is not the only thing this applies to, either. Far from it. This is a thing we are running into a lot. The USP methods were the gold standard back in the day when the market was a lot younger. However, now I am pushing for taking the science to the next level. So if you see a product that has a USP Verified logo on it, can you really trust it is what you expect? I guess that depends on your expectations. If you just don't want to be scammed, it is likely fine. The USP methods are a good base level to start with. However, there are better and more scientifically valid ways to go about measuring things. That's what we are pushing for. So perhaps someday you will see me spearheading a certification organization myself. I am not against them in theory. I think the industry needs watchdogs and consumer advocacy organizations, so that we can show the FDA we can self-regulate. However, the devil is always in the details.

Which brands do you personally recommend for non-nootropic supplements? I was looking into B-complex and Vitamin D supplements and looked at Thorne (since I think I saw you mentioning them as trustworthy). Which other brands do you recommend and trust?

Ohh god, I guess nobody. I used to trust NOW, Jarrow, and Life Extension. However, we have recently tested multiple things from them that have failed. These were the main brand I was using, on top of Thorne and Source Naturals. However, I guess I too fell prey to just blindly trusting without evidence. Now I am going to stop trusting things unless I have verified them in our lab. I have not tested Thorne yet. So I cannot objectively say they are good. They talk a good game, and I do believe they started out on a similar mission to me. However, they are backed by investment companies now. I know how undue financial influence can steer policy sometimes. So I will have to test a handful of their stuff to really be confident saying I trust them. The same goes for Source Naturals. We have tested one of their products, which was LJ100 tongkat ali. I expected it to come in around 0.5% eurycomanone, and it came in at 0.52%. They don't make a label claim on it, though. So while that is what I expected for LJ100, their old bottles used to say 1%. So at some point LJ100 lowered their spec and removed it from their advertising. I don't have any left from that batch to test, though. So I can't say if it was actually 1%, and they just lowered it later, or if it actually was not meeting label claims the whole time, and they quietly removed the spec to prevent issues. So I guess you can say I don't really trust anyone at the moment. I am very disappointed by some of the results we have recently gotten from brands that I did trust, so now I am going to be doing a lot more work in the lab before I suggest anyone.