Concerns about Multivitamins and how do I know whats for me?

Dara Robinson

As more time goes by I'm getting more and more concerned about what goes into my body. I'm by no means the best around when it comes to healthy food but I am happy to say that I am far far from being the worst.
Currently I am over weight and its through a combination of things. Physical illness, bad food choices and no exercise (a combo of illness and laziness).
I am however making changes, no diets how ever (I don't believe in them), changes that I feel are going to become part of my daily life more than just a fad or a temporary thing.
I have started cycling into work, cooking for myself and taking multivitamins.

The reason for my post is this, multivitamins.
I started taking Centrum. and for a while I was fine with that. But with most things I have a natural skepticism for large corporations and their claims. For the most part they tend to do things on the cheap and there is always hidden information, things they omit or simply they use cheap alternatives and label them to you have no real idea of what you are taking in (for example sugar free products tend to contain artificial sweeteners, some which are known to be carcinogenic).
For that reason I decided to go for a more healthy and naturist product. I chose Solgar (a health food company I have known to be around for years).
The tablet is huge and the coating has an after taste that I really do not find appealing so after some time I decided to look again.

This time, I did some research on the internet. I started to read about more and more. Seems the consensus is that one of the mayor problems with multivitamins is that people are not getting the right amounts of what they need. Now I know that this is all very complicated and subjective because its all based around what you take in nutritionally on a daily basis. This has to include your all of your meals, snacks and any multivitamins (etc) that you take.

I have a few questions that have remained unanswered.
How do I tell how much nutrition, minerals and vitamins am I getting from my food?
How do I tell what I need to take to top all that up?
Which of the minerals and vitamins can I overdose on and can become harmful?
How do I know that my body is actually able to absorb properly the minerals and vitamins I am supplementing it with?
How can I tell if the product I am buying is of a better quality than the rest?
How can I tell if its actually making a difference?


Any thoughts?

sobriquet

Well done for getting on top of your health and diet and going for a long term adjustment in your habits.

I'm by no means the most knowledgeable person to be answering but I'll throw it out there: why do you need multivitamins? Eating a broad combination of whole foods - vegetables, fruit, meats, fish, seeds, grains etc - in sensible portions will surely give you the nutrition you need. You don't state why you think you need to supplement.

Dara Robinson

sobriquet wrote: »

Well done for getting on top of your health and diet and going for a long term adjustment in your habits.

I'm by no means the most knowledgeable person to be answering but I'll throw it out there: why do you need multivitamins? Eating a broad combination of whole foods - vegetables, fruit, meats, fish, seeds, grains etc - in sensible portions will surely give you the nutrition you need. You don't state why you think you need to supplement.

Why do I feel I need supplements? Mainly because I'm pretty picky and I don’t eat as much vegetables as I should. Or fish for that matter. My veg mainly consists of peppers, onions, mushrooms and potatoes. I do make leek and potato soup (home made from scratch btw) from time to time and I have porridge for breakfast and a lentil soup for lunch most days but I still feel that I could be doing a lot better.
I am aware that my diet has been horrific in the past so I suppose I'm trying to make up for lost time Also seeing as I am no longer on crutches and I am now doing exercise I thought it a good idea to give my body as many nutrients, minerals and vitamins as possible

I understand that my post is long winded (sorry about that ) but the main thing is that I really don’t know enough and I was hoping that I could gain more information

I have been reading some websites about some of these topics and although some of them recommend different products for different reasons most of these are all American based.

Also, as per my original post there is a huge amount of questions I have unanswered.

I have been tracking my nutrition with sparkpeople.com.
It has a tracker that keeps a record of your diet, you can set it up to track 75 different nutrients.
It then graphs your intake of these nutrients, and weather or not they are in recommended range.

I have always eaten a broad range of foods, but it did make me aware that I was lacking in some minerals.
I make as many changes to diet as I could to rectify the situation, I've been getting more sun to get more vit D.
The few that I didn't manage to get on top of I am now supplementing...to see if it makes a difference.

sobriquet

Fair enough; can't say I know any of the answers you're looking for. I'd only say that before getting hung up on vitamin and mineral supplements you'd probably do well to make an effort to try as broad a variety of fruit and vegetables as possible, try to overcome your pickiness.

I've read a few sources (most notably Michael Pollan) that advocates the view that taking the nutrient out of a food reduces its' effectiveness. Not the beta-carotene so much as the carrot, as it were.

The only supplement I take is glucosamine because of the running I'm doing. It's given to osteoporosis sufferers because it's supposed to be good for the joints, but even it's efficacy is disputed.