Well, ultimately, you have to go by test results, and not by ANY claims by the brand (including: “independently tested” - says who?). And you can’t just accept that a “good” brand remains good forever - brands get bought out and you never know how the new owner treats qc.
And a lot comes down to personal anecdotes. For example, I avoid Nutricost like the plague, because a personality who is well known and respected in the longevity space used to work at a very high end Canadian supp company (AOR), where he maintained very high standards; he since left them to work in a longevity lab, but he wrote a very extensive post about Nutricost, saying that it is one of the worst companies when it comes to sourcing quality ingredients, testing and QC. Sure, anecdotal, but the guy is very reliable and knowledgeable in the field, so I made a personal decision to avoid Nutricost.
But really, it comes down to even good companies only being suitable for a given supplement. They might not have the formulation you are looking for, or you want to avoid the additives. For example, I take a bunch of supps, and many of them are stabilized with the help of vitamin E - sure, maybe it’s only 10% RDA for vit. E, but you take several different ones a day, and many contain vit. E stabilizers, and it all adds up, so you’re over 100% RDA for vitamin E - AND I DON’T WANT TO TAKE SUPPLEMENTAL VITAMIN E AT ALL!! Or vit. C as stabilizer, with the same issues.
Also, sometimes you see a brand given high marks, because it contains MORE of the active ingredient than listed on the label. BUT I DON’T WANT MORE, I want the exact amount, because I’m carefully monitoring my intake, or am just topping off a certain vit/mineral or whatnot and don’t want too much. Too much is also a sign of production QC problems or general sloppiness and not high standards.
So I mix and match brands depending on which supp I want. FWIW, my go to brands, are NOW, Nature Made, Jarrow Formulas, AOR, Life Extension, Carlsen Labs, Solgar, KAL. If a given supp is not available from my go to brands, or not in the right form, I reluctantly may buy from a second tier brand, after careful consideration if the supplement is likely to be complex to manufacture, or has generally tricky ingredient suppliers, and in that case my second tier brands are: Swanson’s Vitamins, Bulk Supplements, Carlyle, Solaray, Thorne, Trader Darwin (Trader Joe’s brand, lol!).
As to avoiding Chinese companies - sure, the level of fraud is just epic, and almost zero controls, so yeah, avoid at all costs, not just meds, supps, but all food and food items; most manufactured goods too, but at least a poor quality tool won’t kill you (hopefully!). However I’m afraid it’s impossible to avoid on some level, as certain ingredients are only made in China, or pharma companies source their ingredients in China (even if they test them, bad contaminants get through, like the recent scandal with cancer causing impurities in blood pressure and stomach acid meds); supp companies notoriously source from China and often don’t disclose that, so good luck. Btw., people don’t realize how much fraud there is in “research” in China - so when I see a paper or study coming out of China, I immediately disregard it, as the chance that it’s a fraudulent result is sky high. I’m afraid that until Chinese standards change and they crack down on regulations and enforcement, or we move away from trading as much with China, we’re stuck. I’m not optimistic. YMMV.
