Dietary Supplements

What dietary supplements are and how they are classified

Dietary supplements are products intended to supply vitamins or minerals, in high concentrations, to integrate our everyday diet. Products containing every kind of ingredient, for all needs. European Directive 2002/46/EC regulates this sector, introducing dietary supplements (also known as food supplements) as follows: “foodstuffs the purpose of which is to supplement the normal diet and which are concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological effect (including, but not limited to, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, fibre and various plants and herbal extracts), alone or in combination, marketed in dose form”. Dietary supplements can be differentiated according to the body’s needs (lack of vitamins or mineral salts, need for antioxidants, anti-ageing or anti-inflammatory compounds, etc) or to the ingredients. The latter classification can further divide supplements into substances in their natural state – that’s to say as they’re found in nature – and substances resulting from physical biochemical processes, carried out in laboratories.

Fattoria La Vialla’s dietary supplements

Some of the fruits of the earth are genuinely “health-promoting” in their own right (for example turmeric, tea, cranberries, red grapes/wine, cocoa, aloe, olives…), and can themselves act as supplements. Rigorous organic-biodynamic cultivation methods, such as those used at Fattoria La Vialla, are an essential prerequisite in order for the effects of the food and substances produced to be truly positive.
Generally speaking, however, dietary supplements are products aimed not so much at curing as at balancing certain components of the diet, in particular vitamins, mineral salts and polyphenols, especially when you want to support the correct functioning of your organs and body’s systems due to increased stress, or when you want to help you body cope with expected or unforeseen changes (seasonal, physiological, pathological…).
We recall the famous phrase of the renowned Greek physician Hippocrates (5^th century B.C.): “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.
Currently, Fattoria La Vialla produces dietary supplements containing OliPhenolia, a concentrate of polyphenols extracted from the vegetation water of our olives (also known as olive fruit water or olive mill wastewater).

Polyphenols, olives and circular economy

Polyphenols are found in fruit and vegetables, and play a key role in defending the human body against harmful reactive oxygen species, also known as free radicals. The fruit and leaves of the olive tree contain a great number of polyphenols, and this is what gave the Fattoria the idea of using them to create a dietary supplement. However, in order to obtain polyphenols free from harmful chemical residues (typical, unfortunately, of conventional agriculture), during the cultivation, harvesting and milling of the olives, it is necessary to follow a number of imperative rules that closely affect our work.
To obtain good extra virgin olive oil and, consequently, olive fruit water that does not contain harmful substances, the soil must be absolutely uncontaminated. The use of pesticides is forbidden, because such products would ultimately make the flesh of the olives a waste product, contaminated with chemicals.
Other essential factors are: early harvesting (so that the olives are less ripe but contain more polyphenols), correct storage of the olives, in small crates, during transportation; pressing carried out straight after harvesting (which is possible at the Fattoria thanks to our own – carbon neutral! – mill, built on purpose a stone’s throw from the olive groves...) and in a controlled atmosphere to reduce oxidation of the olives to a minimum. As always at La Vialla, technology only counts for a part of the product.... which is obtained, every time, thanks to simple, self-contained processes. In this case, as elsewhere at La Vialla, every part of the olive is used: the extra virgin olive oil, the olive fruit water used to make OliPhenolia and recover the valuable polyphenols, and lastly the pomace, which, after composting slowly with all the Fattoria’s other waste products, returns to the ground to bring new fertility to the soil.

The dietary supplements made with OliPhenolia

• OliPhenolia è is a 100% natural liquid dietary supplement, derived from olives and olive leaves from biodynamic agriculture (Demeter certified); a natural source of bioavailable polyphenols (amongst which hydroxytyrosol, which belongs to the large family of natural polyphenols, and whose properties have been the subject of many scientific studies in recent years).
• Produced in two versions – bitter and sweetened with grape must – all you have to do is drink it and it’s easily assimilated. It is made with the fruit water produced when olives are pressed (without the use of heat or chemical solvents), in its original state: a dense, dark brownish liquid with purple highlights. It originates in the olive mill, during the olive picking season, when the extra virgin olive oil is separated from the pulp and water contained in the fruit. This water is then cold-filtered in order to further concentrate the polyphenols contained in it. OliPhenolia is an incredibly rich source of fresh olive polyphenols, with a high nutritional value. The olives are cultivated by Fattoria La Vialla using biodynamic methods.
• Recommended use:
  Take 2 jars - containing 25 ml each – daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, between meals. It is recommended to repeat a 16 day cycle at least 3 or 4 times a year. Alternatively, it is possible to take 1 jar per day for long periods as a maintenance therapy.
• Warnings:
  - Do not exceed the recommended daily dose.
  - Dietary supplements are not intended as replacements for a varied, well-balanced diet.
  - Keep out of reach of young children.
• Precautions for use and storage:
  - Do not take during pregnancy and whilst breast feeding.
  - If you are undergoing medical treatment, consult your doctor before taking OliPhenolia.
  - Not recommended for those under 21 years of age.
  - Not recommended for those allergic or intolerant to olives (or to grapes in the case of OliPhenolia with grape juice).
  - Store at room temperature and keep away from light and heat sources.
  - The best-before date refers to the product correctly stored.
  - It does not contain traces of histamine.
  - Gluten free, Lactose free. Soy free.
• Single dose packaging:
  The choice of using a pack of 32 single doses for OliPhenolia, instead of one larger bottle, was made bearing in mind several important requirements:
  
  1. preserving the delicate polyphenolic macromolecules (oleuropein aglycone, verbascoside…) from oxidation caused by contact with air and exposure to light
  2. reducing the time required for pasteurization to a minimum
  3. safeguarding the content from possible contamination due to the repeated use of a large bottle

• The 2025 harvest
  We have already said that besides hydroxytyrosol (which in nature is found solely in olives and their leaves) olives also contain many other polyphenols, all found in OliPhenolia.
  In the table below it is possible to see which, and how many* are found in each jar (2024 harvest).
  
  Choosing between the 3 different OliPhenolia dietary supplements is a question of personal taste, since the polyphenol concentration is the same. Bitter, sweetened with grape juice, or with orange. In the latter version, the polyphenols are combined with the beneficial effect of vitamin C from whole oranges, in a quantity equivalent to half the daily recommended intake per jar.