Opinion: I Don't Need a Certificate of Analysis. I Can Feel It Working.

Every few weeks, someone at a conference grabs my arm and asks, with real concern in their voice, whether I have seen the Certificate of Analysis for the product I am currently drinking out of a gallon jug. And every time, I give the same answer: I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me what I can feel with my own body.

I can feel the energy. I can feel the focus. I can feel a slight tingling in my left hand, which I am choosing to interpret as results.

People say, “Trevor, what if it contains heavy metals?” And I say, “Then I guess I’ll be heavier, and metal.” That usually ends the conversation.

The truth is, a Certificate of Analysis is just one lab’s opinion. Who tested the lab? Who tested the people who tested the lab? Until someone can answer that, I will continue to rely on the most trusted testing method there is: whether the guy who sold it to me seemed nice.

And he did. He had very white teeth and a booth with a fog machine. You can’t fake a fog machine.

I am not anti-science. I love science. I have a T-shirt with a beaker on it. I simply believe science should be felt, not read. If a supplement were truly not working, I would know, because I would feel nothing, which is what I felt before I started taking it, and I am not going back to that.

Trevor Banning is an opinion columnist, third-party certified. His views are his own, and also nobody else’s.