Do I Need Multivitamins

Why Multivitamins Are A Good Idea

There are many reasons why a good multivitamin supplement may fit your life like a glove:

Covering your bases

If you're like most modern people, there's just no time in the day to cook wholesome meals from scratch the way our grandparents did. Instead, we tend to rely on prepackaged and/or highly processed foods for our sustenance to some degree. As a rule, the more processed the food, the more the nutrients are compromised in the process (heating, preservatives, filler etc). As a result, those who rely on this kind of food for a large percentage of the daily nutrition may not get everything they need, especially if the food is fairly similar from one day to the next.

Convenience

Continuing on the point made above, let's not beat around the bush here; it takes a lot of time to cook, and not everyone dreams of being the next Emeril. Popping a multivitamin will of course never take the place of a wholesome, home-cooked meal, but if the option is to live off McNuggets and Hot Pockets exclusively anyway, a supplement is better than nothing.

Low cost

Food prices are going crazy these days, and ingredients for those healthy meals may simply add up to the point where Burger King is the only affordable option. Insane as the trend is, facts remain: You may be forced to settle for less than ideal food for cost reasons. In that scenario, spending a few cents per day to cover the nutritional gap is a good idea.

Absorption problems

In some cases, you may have a medical condition that prevents you from absorbing certain nutrients properly. This is something you'd discuss with your doctor to determine, obviously, but doubling down on your efforts to get your daily intake certainly won't hurt.

Why You May Choose Not To Supplement

Of course, not everybody is a fan of slamming down pills. Here are some valid reasons you may opt to pass on the vast arrays of colorful jars.

Redundancy

If you're a master chef or happen to be married to one, and enjoy a rich variety of foods featuring quality ingredients, you probably get what you need anyway. Then there's no upside, only potential downsides, which brings us to…

Potential overdosing

Some vitamins are water-soluble, meaning any excess intake is flushed out next time you go to the bathroom. Others are more troublesome, as they are fat-soluble and has potential to build up in your system and become harmful over time. For example, if you eat a ton of tomatoes, almonds and sunflower seeds on a daily basis, you're pushing it with the vitamin E intake already. Adding 100 percent of the RDA of vitamin E on top of that might be the straw that broke the camel's back and my make you sick.

Impurities

In today's global economy, businesses get the ingredients they need from wherever it is cheap. That often means China and third-world countries where governmental oversight is poor and quality can be haphazard at best. Your vitamin capsule may have dozens of suppliers chipping in, and by the time it's on your kitchen shelf you have no way to know just what's in there. Unless you pay extra for certified, top-notch quality, it's a crapshoot. The stuff is probably okay, but with virtually no regulation you can only hope for the best.

So, Do I Need Multivitamins Or Not?

If you're concerned about vitamin deficiency, don't take matters into your own hands and fumble blindly -- talk to your doctor and get a blood test. If you're not experiencing any problems and eat a basically healthy diet, you're probably doing okay. However, if you want to play it safe and don't have the kind of extreme diet that may put you in danger of overdosing, the simple act of popping a quality pill with breakfast each morning is probably wise. Ultimately, the question of "Do I need multivitamins" is answered by your honest assessment of your current diet coupled with your general health.