Alright, I’m going to try to walk a fine line here so I don't get myself into legal trouble, but I want to lay out some facts for you guys.

Imagine you just bought a massive 500-pound drum of bottom-of-the-barrel whey protein straight from China. Here is how the "Made in USA" magic works:

If you bring that bulk powder into the States, dump it into a flashy red plastic tub, slap on a "BS-Whatever" brand label, and seal it up, you can legally claim it's "Made in the USA." In both the US and Canada, as long as you perform at least two processing steps on the product, you’re allowed to use that label. The logic behind the law is that since a local worker was paid to package or process it, the product contributed to the local economy.

You see this with "Italian" shoes all the time. Most of them are actually manufactured in China. They ship the nearly-finished shoes to Italy just to have someone glue the sole to the top and spray on some leather protector. Boom - now they’re authentic Italian shoes.

The problem? I don't really care if my shoes were made that way, but supplements actually go into my body.

Recent data shows that roughly 85% of the supplements we’re all buying are sourced from China. We all know China is the king of cheap manufacturing, and when they do actually produce high-quality ingredients, they usually keep the good stuff for their own market. It’s pretty clear these laws were written to protect the profit margins of big corporations rather than the health of the person buying the product.