Electrolyte sachets used to be something you bought at the chemist when a stomach bug went through the house. Now they sit next to the protein powders, come in a dozen flavours and get carried to the office in a drink bottle. Some of those people nee…
Low iron is one of the most common nutrient problems in Australia, and one of the easiest to miss. The tiredness creeps up so slowly that people put it down to work, kids or getting older. Women who menstruate, pregnant women, teenage girls, enduranc…
Omega 3 is one of the few supplements most dietitians will talk about without rolling their eyes, mainly because so few people eat oily fish often enough. The shelf has become a lot more crowded, though: fish oil, krill oil, cod liver oil, algae oil,…
If you had told me three years ago that the most asked about thing in the shop would be a sticky black tar that comes out of rock in the Himalayas, I would have laughed. But here we are. Shilajit went from a word only our Ayurvedic customers knew to…
For years the only people who bought creatine from us were young blokes training for something. Then, over about eighteen months, that changed completely. These days the person asking me about creatine is more likely to be a woman in her forties who…
After magnesium, this is the thing we get asked about most. And the question is almost never how do I get to sleep. It is why do I fall asleep fine at ten and then find myself wide awake at ten past three, doing sums about work. If that is you, here…
Every year around the middle of August the same conversation starts at our counter. Someone comes in rubbing their eyes, says they thought they had a cold for a week, and then admits they get like this every spring. Sydney hayfever season is long and…
Ashwagandha has gone from a herb nobody could pronounce to something people ask for by name every week. It usually comes with a version of the same sentence. I am not sleeping properly, I am wired at night, work is a lot at the moment. So here is wha…
This is one of the quieter conversations we have, usually in a low voice near the supplements wall, and it almost always starts with some version of I do not feel like myself and I do not know what is going on. So let us say the useful parts out loud…
A few years ago the only mushrooms we sold were the dried shiitake in the cooking aisle. Now people come in asking for lion's mane by name, usually because a podcast told them it would fix their focus. Functional mushrooms are having a real moment, a…
It is that stretch of winter where half of Maroubra seems to have the same cough, the school notes are going around, and everyone wants to know what to take. There is no magic pill that stops you ever getting sick, but there is a sensible kit that st…
Collagen is the supplement everyone seems to be taking and nobody can quite explain. It gets sold for skin, hair, nails, joints, gut and just about everything else, which is exactly the sort of cure all promise that should make you a little wary. So…
Magnesium is the supplement we get asked about more than any other, usually with the same opening line, which is that a friend or a naturopath told them to take it but nobody explained which one. Walk into the shop and there is a whole shelf of it, p…
Protein powder used to be a bodybuilder thing. Now it is busy parents, people in their sixties trying to hold onto muscle, and anyone who skips a proper breakfast. The tubs on our shelf say plant, whey, collagen and bone broth, and they are not inter…
Gut health is having a moment, and with it comes a lot of noise. Everything on the shelf seems to promise a happier gut, and it is hard to know what is worth your money and what is clever marketing. We sell a fair bit of this category, so we would ra…