Can you substitute a good multi-vitamin for fruits/vegetables?
I really don’t eat many fruits or vegetables…at all. It’s not that I don’t like them as much as it is that I just never really feel like eating them. I love strawberries and I used to make smoothies a lot (strawberry banana mmm), but they go bad fast and are expensive. The only thing I really take in regularly is the diet V8 Splash/Fusion and low carb Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice.
I have been taking a good multi vitamin for years though - it contains well over 100% RDA of lots of things. It’s Ultra Vita-Man from Vitamin World. So if I’m taking that every day, should I not feel guilty about eating maybe…1 serving of fruits/veggies a week (not counting the juice)?
Can anyone tell me WHY I should eat fruits/veggies in addition to taking my multi vitamin? Or WHY the vitamins in fruits/veggies are better than the ones in my multi?
For those who don’t think my multi contains "enough" vitamins, I’ll break each down by the % Daily Values:
200% Vitamin A
500% Vitamin C
50% Vitamin D
333% Vitamin E
95% Vitamin K
2,000% Thiamin (B-1)
1,765% Riboflavin (B-2)
150% Niacin
1,500% B-6
100% Folic Acid
5,000% B-12
167% Biotin
300% Pantothenic Acid
20% Calcium
100% Iodine
25% Magnesium
100% Zinc
286% Selenium
100% Copper
100% Manganese
167% Chromium
Along with lots of other supplements, such as flax, garlic, saw palmetto, alpha lipoic acid, pumpkin seed, billberry, glucosamine hydrochloride, grapeseed extract, pygeum, choline, isositol, oyster extract, PABA, cayenne pepper, alfalfa, soy lechthin, parsley extract, sarsaparilla, watercress, spirulina, Q-10, lutein, lycopene, and pycnogenol.
I think that pretty much covers my bases.
For fiber, I eat lots of whole grains - I bake my own whole grain bread, eat whole grain cereal for breakfast, and use whole grain pasta (I forgot - I eat lots of pasta sauce - homemade from a local italian restaurant). I also eat this healthy popcorn that has 30g of fiber in it. So I think I’m good with fiber, too.
I also take a Salmon Oil softgel supplement with my multi vitamin every morning.
Vitamins C and E are good anti-oxidants, so my multi is full of those, too.
I would love to start my own garden but I’m a college student living in a small apartment with no balcony…and little daylight…I wouldn’t have the room (or the necessary light) for one. I used to have a garden at my home when I was younger…I grew tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots and potatoes. But the deer always came at night and ate them.
I’m also not a vegan/vegetarian. Sorry, but I love meat (lean meat). Could never live without it. But I thought this would be a good place to post this question because I assume that those here are more well informed about vitamin forms that are good for the body.
It goes like this:
Pure Vitamins cannot be put in a bottle. Vitamins are an intrinsic part of a living thing and cannot be separated. Why, because vitamins are a complex, not just one element. What you see in a bottle of, say, Vitamin C is only one part of Vitamin C, usually the acid, with is only the preservative part of Vitamin C. Vitamin pills are a total scam. Perhaps a supplement made form whole foods would be better, but it would still be highly processed. I’m thinking that spirulina and blue green algae and such products would be the best alternative.
Vitamins within a plant are naturally balanced with all of the other elements that make up the plant, thus, if you eat it, you will be eating a balanced food, and thus be balanced yourself. If you take a pill, even if it’s packed with nutrition, it’s totally unbalanced and thus you will be unbalanced. Being out of balance will put a lot of stress on your body because it will have to fight to keep in balance and do some drastic things such as break this down and get rid of it, take some of that from there and put it here, etc.
Think of osteoporosis. Why does that exist? Because someone eats too much protein over many years. The body only needs and is only capable of using a very small amount of protein and any excess protein needs to be broken down and gotten rid of, and to do this it takes energy, vitamins, minerals, including a lot of calcium. The body takes emergency calcium from the bones to get rid of this excess protein.
So, balance is the key to good health.
So, start a garden. It’s easy; it can even be done in thick plastic bags or pots on the apartment balcony. There are whole sections of books in your local library dedicated to such topics as growing your own food. And it’s cheap cheap cheap!! We have a garden, and it’s an all-year-round garden in Canada. We literally go to the garden and pull out $20 retail worth of stuff and it doesn’t even look like we touched a thing. Living like kings, especially in the spring, summer, fall. It’s one of those things that seems daunting, but once you start growing your own food, it’s super easy. It’s like learning to bake bread; you only get better as time goes on.
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Not really…try and eat as many as you can…only buy fruit every 3 days…
1References :
you could but veggies are better
2References :
Vegetables doesn’t only give you vitamin, it also gives you fiber. I don’t think you should take pills as a substitute for vegetables. Fruits though, I don’t know. But I rarely eat fruit myself so I guess it’s okay.
3References :
No.You need a minimum of 5 servings of vege’s and fruit, because there are some components that the body cannot take up from an artificial form.
Secondly, your system needs the fibre to clean the intestinal tract and colon. There is a direct relationship between cancers in this region and intake of fibre from fruit and vege’s.
Thirdly, the RDA is assuming an already adequate diet, and even then barely covers the amount required by the body for maintenance. You actually need a lot more if you are exposed to any toxins, virus’s, bacteria, etc, which we all are every day.
And lastly, if you think you have a good quality multi-vitmin, then look for a booklet called "The Comparitive Guide to Suppliments". This is an independant analysis of some 500 suppliments on the US market. Prepare for a shock.
4References :
Vitamins are supplements. They’re supposed to fill in the gaps just in case you don’t get quite enough of the stuff you need each and every day. You will not get enough vitamins and the other things you need with just taking a vitamin. You definitely need to make an effort to try to eat more fruits and vegetables.
Apples and oranges don’t go bad quickly. Keep them in the crisper drawer of your fridge. Frozen vegetables are great, they can even be fresher than the ones you buy in the produce section (because they freeze them as soon as they’re harvested, instead of being shipped on trucks all over). They’re not expensive and best of all, they never go bad!
Carrots also take a long time to go bad. Soon after you get home from the store, you should peel them and cut them up into sticks (or buy the baby carrots, but they are too bitter, the regular kind are much sweeter!). You can do the same with celery if you like it. Cauliflower and broccoli are good too, and you can dip all of the above in dip if you want. Salsa is also a great way to get more veggies.
The jar of pasta sauce I just opened tonight says that it has more than a full serving of vegetables in a 1/2 cup serving, that’s pretty good.
You should try to eat a variety of colors of fruits and vegetables a day. One serving a day isn’t very good, and one serving a week is pretty terrible!
Good luck!
5References :
Fiber is good for the colon and veggies are always preferable to a multivitamin, but to be safe, always use each.
We buy all organic veggies when possible, they taste better, it’s better for the environment.
Try some websites on nutrition/dietician’s.
6References :
go to gnc they actual have veggie pills
7References :
Read the China Study, Dr. Campbell explains very well as to why taking a supplment is not enough.
8References :
Vegan
No your bases are not covered. Fruits and vegetables are sources of many phytochemicals and antioxidants, only a fraction of which have been discovered. You can pop ALL the different types of pills in the world and you’ll only be getting 10 or 20% of the beneficial nutrients because scientists don’t know everything.
9References :
Vitamins and minerals are only the tip of the iceberg
It goes like this:
Pure Vitamins cannot be put in a bottle. Vitamins are an intrinsic part of a living thing and cannot be separated. Why, because vitamins are a complex, not just one element. What you see in a bottle of, say, Vitamin C is only one part of Vitamin C, usually the acid, with is only the preservative part of Vitamin C. Vitamin pills are a total scam. Perhaps a supplement made form whole foods would be better, but it would still be highly processed. I’m thinking that spirulina and blue green algae and such products would be the best alternative.
Vitamins within a plant are naturally balanced with all of the other elements that make up the plant, thus, if you eat it, you will be eating a balanced food, and thus be balanced yourself. If you take a pill, even if it’s packed with nutrition, it’s totally unbalanced and thus you will be unbalanced. Being out of balance will put a lot of stress on your body because it will have to fight to keep in balance and do some drastic things such as break this down and get rid of it, take some of that from there and put it here, etc.
Think of osteoporosis. Why does that exist? Because someone eats too much protein over many years. The body only needs and is only capable of using a very small amount of protein and any excess protein needs to be broken down and gotten rid of, and to do this it takes energy, vitamins, minerals, including a lot of calcium. The body takes emergency calcium from the bones to get rid of this excess protein.
So, balance is the key to good health.
10So, start a garden. It’s easy; it can even be done in thick plastic bags or pots on the apartment balcony. There are whole sections of books in your local library dedicated to such topics as growing your own food. And it’s cheap cheap cheap!! We have a garden, and it’s an all-year-round garden in Canada. We literally go to the garden and pull out $20 retail worth of stuff and it doesn’t even look like we touched a thing. Living like kings, especially in the spring, summer, fall. It’s one of those things that seems daunting, but once you start growing your own food, it’s super easy. It’s like learning to bake bread; you only get better as time goes on.
References :
Many studies have shown that vitamin tablets do not always disolve properly and provide the nutrients they are meant to. Also, MOST vitamins are derived from animal sources, unless clearly marked as vegan. Fresh fruits and veggies are your best option-try juicing carrots, celery, parsley, swiss chard and apples together-the apple makes it sweet and yummy. If you insist on getting the nutrition from a supplement, I suggest a green veggie powder like green magma from a health food store, or at least a liquid vitamin, such as Buried Treasure. The diet V8 is NOT good choice-its loaded with preservatives, chemical sweetners, and "natural" flavors-which are most often derived from animal sources. Its so highly processed that all nutritional value is void.
11References :
no
12References :
No. Supplements can’t replace the real thing, they are only for supplementing.
13References :