Is taking a multivitamin a waste of money if already eat healthy??

Nancy Clark says you can get all the nutrients you need in a well balanced 1500 calories. Most runners will eat far more than that.

Tough to say. "healthy" is a very subjective term. If you get the necessary amounts of each nutrient in your diet, then you shouldnt need a multivitamin, but how can you be so sure you're getting all of them? Of course since vitamins are a multi billion dollar industry the companies will try to sell you all this propaganda about how our soil is depleted and you have to eat 50 pounds of vegetables to get the proper amounts. I personally take one each day (even though the label says to take 3 each day). I feel like I am just filing in the gaps anywhere I might be slightly deficient, the rest is just really expensive urine I suppose.

If your eating enough healthy food, you should be fine. The one vitamin that many people are deficient in is D3 so if your not getting any sunshine then you might consider taking some.

I personally don't like taking vitamins.

Waste of money ?

Probably about $.01/day.

Taking vitamins is most likely a waste of time even if you don't eat healthy.

People are just insanely lazy about this. To answer your question follow these steps:

1) record everything you eat every day for a week, and the amounts.

2) calculate the amount of vitamins and minerals in each. If it doesn't say on the box, consult a reputable source.

3) calculate the daily totals and compare them to the recommended daily amount for YOUR caloric needs (NOT the 2000 or 2500 on the label, unless you really eat that little)

4) If there are deficiencies, either modify your diet or consider a vitamin/mineral supplement.

Anyone who finished the second grade can do this, but almost nobody does, they just rely on vagueries like "lots of vitamins in spinach" or "plenty of B vitamins in meat" etc. Is your health not worth a bit of work?

Take a good multivitamin with extra B vitamins. It's the cheapest "life insurance" that you can buy.

If you don't have enough money to afford a multivitamin every day, you have much bigger problems to worry about.

If taking the multivitamin has, even once, allowed you to think, oh I eat this %UY(F*&)# rather than healthy food and the vitamin will keep me covered, then the multivitamin is a bad idea.

Yes, you are wasting your money.

Vitamins? I hear 'roids are better.

Short answer: A (generic) multivitamin is probably a good idea for most people on LetsRun.

Long answer: If you eat a varied diet that includes lots and lots and lots of vegetables (doesn't really matter if they are cooked or raw - salad is for chumps!), then it's unnecessary.

Vegetarian wrote:

If you eat a varied diet that includes lots and lots and lots of vegetables

Exactly what I was on about in the last post. Don't fly blind.

Make a list of a bunch of random vegetables and count up the vitamins. You'll find beta-carotene, vitamin C, sometimes K, and not much else. Do it before another vegetarian starts ranting at me about it and confusing you with misleading platitudes.

It's a waste of money regardless. Better to eat soup.

Red lean meat is also important for iron and vitamin C.

Yes but few people eat enough fruits and vegetables. Any brand will work, I recommend a multivitamin with minerals.

I knew a nutrition scientist once. He decided to have a go at the physical sciences. He was studying fire and made the observation that there is a 100% correlation between fire the presence of oxygen. Naturally he came to the conclusion that oxygen causes fire.

He isolated it, bottled it and sold it to boyscouts for starting fires. The boyscouts however discovered that isolated oxygen does not cause fire.

In any system there is a minimum level of complexity necessary to understand that system. If you attempt to reduce it too far you just end up with nonsense. Isolating vitamins, minerals and nutrients doesn't make any sense; they function as part of a system.

Fibre supplements are great if you think there is not enough farting in your life. Vitamin supplements are also great if you have a desire to convert your disposable income into bodily excretions.