The Truth About Vitamins and Minerals

A multivitamin is not a cure-all

Fake Vitamins

Multivitamins can be redundant or even detrimental.

1. If you follow a balanced diet and exercise they are entirely unnecessary.
2. All but a few brands of multivitamins are synthetic and cannot prevent deficiency.
3. If you eat cereal and take a multivitamin you can overdose on iron or fat soluble vitamins that are present in high quantities in both multivitamins and cereal.

Picture borrowed from http://www.healthsachoice.com/

This picture sums up why you shouldn't buy orange juice for the "vitamin C" it provides.  Orange juice, as shown, no longer contains functional Vitamin C.  Exposure to air and hot/cold temperatures, as found during processing, denature the Vitamin C and make it unable to be fully utilized by your body.  Any drink that is heat pasteurized has all of the actual Vitamin C denatured because of the high temperature.  Companies sometimes add ascorbic acid to enable themselves to put "vitamin c" on the label.

Picture borrowed from http://alternativehealthatlanta.com/

Same thing goes for vitamin E.  Alpha tocopherol is actually just a small part of vitamin E.

Food is the best way to get vitamins and minerals.