Posted on: February 23, 2007

Get Your Vitamins Here

With countless supplements on the market, many consumers have forgotten to look no further than the end of their fork for vitamins

By Chad Rubel
CTW Features

In the realm of science fiction, people in the future get all their food through little pills. In reality, people try to get nutrition through vitamin pills, especially when they are on the run and don’t eat as well as they should.

But are these little pills the best way to get the vitamins we need?

Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, Northwestern Memorial Hospital Wellness Institute, Chicago, subscribes to the “food first” mantra to get vitamins from their source. “You get much more beyond the isolated vitamin,” says Blatner. “You get the whole network of nutrition.”

“When someone eats an overall balanced diet with fruits, vegetables and lean proteins, you can feel pretty confident you will get a balance of vitamins and nutrition,” says Blatner.

One concern with relying on supplements is the danger of consuming too high a level of a particular vitamin. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, can get stored in the body. Water-soluble vitamins, all varietals of B and C, are not stored in the body and must be replaced each day. “Supplement, by definition, means in addition to a healthy diet,” says Blatner.

Another concern emerged following a recent study by ConsumerLab.com, White Plains, N.Y. According to their results, the Vitamin Shoppe multivitamins, especially those geared toward women, contain about 10 times the amount of lead allowed in the state of California, the only state to regulate vitamins.

While the level is not considered toxic, it isn’t a health benefit. “But there’s absolutely no reason you should be getting lead from your multivitamin,” said Dr. Tod Cooperman, of ConsumerLab.com. “Lead is stored in your body. It is stored in your bones. If you become osteoporotic later in life, that lead can leach back out, and go back into your body.”

Cooperman also found lead within pet-tabs, which are supposedly daily vitamin-mineral supplement for dogs.

An unexpected surprise to Cooperman came from a vitamin for children.

Hero Nutritionals’ Yummi Bears contained double the amount of vitamin A as advertised and close to double what’s considered the “upper tolerable level” for children.

“Too much vitamin A is associated with bone weakening and a number of other potential effects,” said Cooperman.

Cooperman said all vitamins should dissolve in your stomach within 30 minutes, otherwise your body won’t absorb the full amount.

According to his test, two vitamins took almost twice as long to do so: “AARP maturity formula” and “Nature’s Plus, especially yours for women.”

Most people don’t get their vitamins from food because they get stuck in stereotypical thinking. Blatner points out that there is more vitamin C in a red pepper than in an orange. So if you are nursing a cold or the flu, a few strips of red pepper in a salad make for a nice way to get vitamin C, especially if you can’t stand to look at another orange.

The good news is that foods rich in vitamins are probably already on your plate. Here is a list of the major vitamins and the foods where you can find them:

Vitamin A

eggs, milk, cantaloupe, carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, apricots, nectarines

Vitamin B

whole grains, such as wheat and oats; fish and seafood; poultry and meats; leafy green vegetables; beans and peas; eggs; dairy products, such as milk and yogurt; citrus fruits, such as oranges

Vitamin C

citrus fruits, such as oranges and lemons; cantaloupe; strawberries; tomatoes; red peppers; broccoli; cabbage

Vitamin D

milk and other dairy products fortified with vitamin D; fish; egg yolks

Vitamin E

whole grains, such as wheat and oats; wheat germ; leafy green vegetables; sardines; egg yolks; nuts

Vitamin K

dairy products, such as milk and yogurt; leafy green vegetables; liver; pork

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