Cutting out/reducing vitamin expense

[Radiance]

I do believe good nutrition makes vitamins and other supplements unnecesary. However I am on a personal transformation path and good meal planning is one of my weak points. I am unsure if I am eating enough fruits/veggies/others, same with my baby.
I need the vitamins as safety net for a few months until I figure things out.

Currently we are on Juice plus. I love the product (No, I don't sell it) but I know there are other cheaper yet good products out there. I am on $41 for baby and me.

I want all natural, food based, emphasis on veggies multivitamins.
I do not need it to be vegan but vegan is ok too.

I found gummyking, looks good at $10/month for baby. Any others?
For adults seems to be around $20/month. I like rainbow.

So it seems I would be reducing the budget from 41 to 30.

Any other suggestions while I get my meal planning in decent shape?
Thanks!

[Scanner]

I am a firm beleiver in "taking a rest" from any supplementation program for at least 90 days per year.

The truth is you may getting too much of something with a formula (esp. with fat soluble vitamins) and not enough of what you are taking for. That's the nature of any "multi-vitamin."

There is no harm and to me, actually some benefit, in allowing your body to excrete what is not needed (poop, urine, skin) for 90 days of what you may have accumulated.

Understand that "vitaminology" and nutrition even is a soft science. It's very difficult to test what you are deficient or have an excess of until it manifests as disease or dysfunction. SO this is a "soft scientific" recommendation.

Anyway, 90 days of rest (I like the summer as my diet tends to be better). . .boom. . .90 days of saving $$$.

Good luck.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I just take an Equate (Walmart) version of an adult multi tab with no iron. Interesting that Scanner thinks one should take a rest from it. I do so periodically when I find my vitamin pill starts making me feel nauseated. Later, I go back onto it by taking just half of one every morning. If I feel very certain that I've been generally eating very nutritiously, I also feel free to stop the vitamin. So all, in all, I don't spend much.

By the way, I've often heard the claim that too many vitamin pill do not even dissolve in one's body. I've tried dropping different brands into a glass of water and never found one that did not collapse into wet powder in just a few minutes. I have't tried it with many brands, though.

When it comes down to it, we are trusting whoever makes these pills to actually even put in them what they say is in there and to leave out that which my be harmful.

[disneysteve]

I take the WalMart generic version of Centrum. I think it runs about $10 for 250 pills or something like that, so that's about $1/month or so.

As for baby, if I remember correctly, your child is under 2 years old. I see no reason to be supplementing his/her diet with the exception of fluoride if your local water isn't flouridated.

[ktmarvels]

By the way, I've often heard the claim that too many vitamin pill do not even dissolve in one's body. I've tried dropping different brands into a glass of water and never found one that did not collapse into wet powder in just a few minutes. I have't tried it with many brands, though.

Taking vitamins with a USP (United States Pharmacopeia) seal have gone through lab testing and show they disintegrate. If you aren't sure about your vitamins, or want to prove it yourself, there is a better "test" than just putting it in a glass of water. Heat an vinegar to body temperature and stir. Within 30 to 45 minutes it should have disintegrated.

[whitestripe]

have you had a blood test to see if you are low in anything? you may be perfectly healthy and not need anything.

i couldn't ever pay money for a supplement unless i knew i really needed it. i got a blood test and they detected low calcium, so i take that. simple solution.

[disneysteve]

[QUOTE=Joan.of.the.Arch;227702]I've often heard the claim that too many vitamin pill do not even dissolve in one's body. I've tried dropping different brands into a glass of water[/QUOTE]
Your stomach is not filled with water. It is filled with a very powerful acid. Whether or not a pill dissolves in water really doesn't matter. Drop it in a strong acid (vinegar is acidic though pretty weak compared to what's in your stomach) is what matters. Also, it isn't just about dissolving but absorption, how well it actually gets taken up into your system.

have you had a blood test to see if you are low in anything?

As Scanner noted, this isn't as easy as it might sound. We have dependable tests for a few things like iron, B12 and folate, but we really can't test for most things, trace elements, etc.

[Scanner]

I would like to add too, that hair analysis and other testing methods aren't really reliable either.

That's why I noted that "Vitaminology" is a soft science. It's not that vitamins are "worthless", like I have heard people say here. It's just very hard to apply them in a reliable clinical manner and get desired long term results. I watched Oprah yesterday and thought Dr. Oz did a great job on supplements to consider, as they have strong evidence behind them:

Omega-3 fatty acid
Vitamin D
Calcium/Magnesium complex
Baby aspirin (he recommended 2 interestingly to get a therapeutic dose. . .didn't know that and shoulda)
Multivitamin, half in the evening and half at night.

The one thing he forgot to mention was fasting being a powerful anti-aging practice along with it being tied to the release of human growth hormone. And it's free. (which means it must not be worth much, according to consumer psychology, right? )

But I can't expect Dr. Oz to be as good as me or for Oprah to recognize that and not give me a call and invite me as a guest.

Seriously though, I think Americans would do well to comprehend that most health problems in the US are from overnourishment vs. undernourishment/undersupplementation. But we seem endlessly addicted to the idea of "health in a pill" and drop too much money on it all around.

EDIT: I just wanted to add, while I was shooting my mouth off about my passion, fasting, I noticed the OP wrote "For baby and me" - you shouldn't fast if you are or plan to get pregnant. You could have gestational diabetes or another condition that would be exacerbated, along with the fact your caloric needs are higher. You should just be eating healthy. Thus the reason for my edit.

SO. . .go have a milkshake on me

[disneysteve]

The one thing he forgot to mention was fasting being a powerful anti-aging practice

Seriously though, I think Americans would do well to comprehend that most health problems in the US are from overnourishment vs. undernourishment/undersupplementation.

I totally agree with the second statement (still not sure I totally buy into the first). In fact, there was just a report this past week about another animal study showing slowing or even stopping of the aging process by putting animals on a restricted calorie diet. There is every reason to believe that this would apply to humans, too.

Sorry for going OT here, but Scanner, in your research on fasting, surely you've come across the data about restricted caloric intake and aging. Have you found anything suggesting that fasting is better, worse or different than a restricted calorie diet all the time?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

ktmarvels and disneysteve, I was not trying to say that the vitamin pills I put in a glass of water were no good. I was saying that I have all confidence that my digestive system will be able to make use of them, if even in a static glass of water they finely crumble. There are many claims out there that a lot of vitamin pills pass unaltered through the digestive system; I was addressing that. I thought others must have read that often.

[Scanner]

Sorry for going OT here, but Scanner, in your research on fasting, surely you've come across the data about restricted caloric intake and aging. Have you found anything suggesting that fasting is better, worse or different than a restricted calorie diet all the time?
__________________

To answer your question honestly. . .no, I am not sure and yes, I have come across the research.

In other words, let's say you need 14,000 per week (2000/day) to survive and maintain your BMI and you do that.

I am not sure there is a difference between dropping that to 1714/day x 7 days per week or 2000/day x 6 days with 1 day of fasting and whether 1 or both result in greater longevity or better health.

I would contend, in my opinion only (not evidence), that it is more comfortable to do the latter vs. the former and if the results are the same, go with the fasting. I am not sure most people want to feel "restricted and rationed" all of the time. I know when I was on a severe calorie restricted diet in the past (about 1100/day when a nutritionist put me on The Zone), I was miserable.

LOL. . .I know my fish in my aquarium who I never fed lived forever. Now research confirms my experiment.

Anyway, I am not saying it's a panacea and the foutain of youth - we all have to die sometime and something will get us. But I find my quality of life much higher thanx to fasting. And personally, I think it will prove more potent than anti-oxidant supplementation.

[disneysteve]

I know my fish in my aquarium who I never fed lived forever. Now research confirms my experiment.

Lots of pet fish die of being overfed, probably far more than die from being underfed.

Anyway, I am not saying it's a panacea and the foutain of youth - we all have to die sometime and something will get us.

Reminds me of an old joke: Years from now all the health nuts are going to be 100 years old, lying in bed dying of nothing.

[aurielle]

A timely topic for me and DH. DH was recently diagnosed with a severe vitamin D deficiency. He switched from a job where he was outdoors alot to a desk job due to back issues/surgery about 2 years ago. So he gets very little natural vitamin D production from the sun and there is very few natural food sources. He is now on a super megadose of vitamin D.

Last summer I started taking fish oil capsules and it's changed my life. I feel so much better mentally and emotionally. I did a little googling on it and read how the omega 3 bathes your brain cells and makes them grow in the region of your brain that controls mood. Believe it or not, I could actually feel a physical 'something' happening in my brain for about the first 3 months after I started taking it. I will never go without taking it now. I found a source that sells strawberry flavored fish oil capsules so I'm not bothered with the 'fish burps' (nasty)

I'm now also taking a calcium/magnesium supplement (liquid in a gelcap). I just ordered some more along with the fish oil, and due to what my DH is going through I also ordered some vitamin D. I don't get enough sun either and after watching what poor DH went through, I don't want to go through it either.

[disneysteve]

DH was recently diagnosed with a severe vitamin D deficiency.

He is now on a super megadose of vitamin D.

Vit. D deficiency is a hot topic right now and there is much debate about it. There is a simple blood test to measure your vit. D level, but widespread debate about what the results mean and how to address them, if they need to be addressed at all.

I spoke to one doctor who said that he had started testing all of his patients as part of their routine annual labs earlier this year. After a few weeks of doing that, however, he discovered that virtually all of them came back with below normal levels. He also realized that he had started doing this in February when people spend very little time outdoors and thus would be expected to have lower levels than they might in July or August. Bottom line was he didn't know what to do with the results. All of those people can't have clinically significant vitamin D deficiencies.

Until we know more about what the normal level should be, I think a multivitamin that contains D is fine. I'm not so sure I'd agree with high doses of D since D is one of the fat-soluble vitamins that can build up in your body if you take too much (A, D, E and K).

[aurielle]

Vit. D deficiency is a hot topic right now and there is much debate about it. There is a simple blood test to measure your vit. D level, but widespread debate about what the results mean and how to address them, if they need to be addressed at all.

I spoke to one doctor who said that he had started testing all of his patients as part of their routine annual labs earlier this year. After a few weeks of doing that, however, he discovered that virtually all of them came back with below normal levels. He also realized that he had started doing this in February when people spend very little time outdoors and thus would be expected to have lower levels than they might in July or August. Bottom line was he didn't know what to do with the results. All of those people can't have clinically significant vitamin D deficiencies.

Until we know more about what the normal level should be, I think a multivitamin that contains D is fine. I'm not so sure I'd agree with high doses of D since D is one of the fat-soluble vitamins that can build up in your body if you take too much (A, D, E and K).

Steve,
DH woke up in the middle of the night with screaming knee pains a few months back. We figured arthritis. He got an xray, doc said his patella was calcified. Sent him for bloodwork. It came back as hyperparathyrodism. Doc set him up to see a specialist. Specialist called his regular doc back and said he wanted DH to get his vitamin D level checked first so he did. Came back severely deficient in vit.D. So here we are. DH is supposed to get his blood checked again soon for vit.D level and hyperparathyroidism.

Looking back, DH was having alot of joint pain and fatigue and was slowly getting worse but he didn't do anything about it until the knee thing. He's finally starting to feel better and its nice to have him back to his old self again