Poisoned by Vitamins!

Being vegetarian I sometimes take a multi-vitamin to supplement my diet. But not all vitamins are good for you.

A lot of multivitamins have super-high dosage, which may be bad for us. Maximum does not mean optimum.

Also, our bodies cannot process synthetically-made vitamins as well as the vitamins naturally found in food. Not a surprise! Unfortunately, vitamin makers do not have to specify how vitamins are made.

This article explains the science behind this and advises you to detect the difference between natural and synthetic vitamin supplements by reading in between the lines on their labels:

The most notable difference between natural and synthetic vitamin supplements is in their claimed potencies. Natural vitamins as in plant foods are never highly concentrated. Nature provides us with balance, complexity and bioavailability but not with a high potency. Conversely, synthetic and crystalline (chemical isolated from natural source) vitamins do appear in high unnatural potencies.

When examining products labeled as natural vitamins, note that labels of truly natural food based vitamins, should indicate the exact natural source from which each of the vitamins is obtained. Simply put, if the vitamin concentrations are high and/or their natural sources aren't listed, most likely these vitamins are synthetic. Chemical sources for synthetic vitamin supplements include petrochemicals, coal tar, chemically manipulated sugar and inorganic minerals.

The take-away:

Get your vitamins from food, not supplements. They are meant to just be supplementary.

For vitamins, more does not mean better--get the vitamins that are less concentrated and more likely thus to be from natural sources.


Photo by takomabibelot