A lot of readers have been asking me lately what kind of vitamins my kids take and the answer is…none at all. Vitamins aren’t necessarily harmful or going to cause medical problems when they’re used properly, but it’s not something we personally choose to deal with (or pay for). First of all, we pretty much rely on our steady diet of whole foods (including lots of variety and plenty of produce) when it comes to getting all the vitamins and minerals we need. No one does a better job than nature when it comes to creating the perfect delivery package for the nutrients your body needs. Secondly, in Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food he indicates that those who take supplements may be “healthier for reasons having nothing to do with the pills” because in controlled studies most supplements “don’t appear to work.”
Now a lot of doctors and nutritionists do recommend taking a daily multi-vitamin, and, since you should of course take your doctor’s advice over mine, I want to share some of the better vitamin brands that are out there. My doctor recently recommended that I take a short term Vitamin D booster, based on my most recent blood results, and when I was out shopping for this vitamin I couldn’t believe how many of them are full of junky additives! Vitamins, especially for kids, are oftentimes full of artificial sweeteners, colorings, and flavorings. I’ve found that there is a bigger – and better – selection if you shop at places like Amazon.com as well as stores that are dedicated to vitamins and health like Swanson Health Products or your local Vitamin Shoppe. I’ll warn you now to just forget Target when it comes to shopping for vitamins because the choices there are pretty slim.
So for all those that feel better about taking (or giving their kids) a regular multivitamin, here are a few “cleaner” options:
- For children: Yummi Bears Organics Gummy Multivitamin
– - For adults: Dr. Mercola Whole Food Multivitamin PLUS
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- For adults or children (dosage varies): Doc’s Best Ultra-Pure Naturals Multi-Plus Optimal Vitamins-Minerals-Antioxidants
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Remember that with most anything you get what you pay for, and this is especially true for vitamins! Do you use vitamins or not? What kind of vitamins do you recommend?
I’d love to know what vitamin D product you decided on. I usually supplement myself and my children with vitamin C and Vitamin D throughout cold and flu season.
I take a regular box box gummy multi vitamin. I am newer to learning about health related topics, so I”m not sure what’s good, what’s not. Anyways I have noticed the vitamins help my nails especially. My nails used to fall apart and chip off. I used to take vitamins individually, however I would get acid reflux and nausea associated with it.
****My mom has been taking calcium supplements for years with her coffee every morning, and she found out she had been receiving no benefit from that because the coffee and the calcium have a chemical reaction to each other.
I strongly believe in giving my kids a good daily multivitamin. I give them this one http://www.amztk.com/chewable-multivitamin and they absolutely love the taste of it. The quality and ingredient content is great and it’s a brand that I really trust. It is all natural with no additives in it. I would recommend this to anyone looking to give their kids a real good quality great tasting multivitamin.
I only trust Shaklee when it comes to supplements. They do their research. You can take a look at see.myshaklee.com
I have read and heard functional medicine doctors encourage certain vitamins and supplements for the prevention or treatment of chronic disease and even cancer….with proper doses of Vitamin D3 specifically being reported as critical to good health. Various reasons have been sited in the literature…but for one, the nutrient levels in our food (including whole foods) has been significantly depleted over the years.
As a dietitian and a researcher, I would not typically recommend that children need multivitamins. As a Canadian, I would suggest that parents and children both use vitamin D (like D-drops!) during the 8 months of the year we do not get enough sun (not a the proper angle) to manufacture vitamin D in our skin.
If your diet is healthy and your children eat a variety of foods, in truth they do not require a supplement. However, if you are raising your child as a vegetarian or vegan then you will need to choose foods that are fortified with iron and vitamin B12 as the iron in plant foods is harder to absorb and B12 is only found naturally in animal-based foods. you may also need to give them an omega-3 supplement containing DHA/EPA as well to promote healthy brain development.
Nobody in my family is taking multivitamins, since the supplement industry in the USA is not backed in science. Instead of synthetic multivitamins I have found a way to get more fruits and vegetables in our diet in the form of a capsule or a gummy and this is backed by 35 research studies! it has changed my families health picture!
Hi Annette, We do the same also. So grateful for whole foods and the security and confidence from the 35+ medical research studies. All documenting importance of a lifestyle flooded with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. It truly is so simple to help bride the gaps for all ages. ;-)
I look for 2 things in vitamins for my kids: Iron and Iodine (important for brain growth and many other things). But I’ve been struggling with finding vitamins that have those two things and taste good to my kids!
What about Floradix? As far as I can tell it would be considered a “whole food” vitamin/supplement.
Hi there. Since vitamins aren’t really our thing, we do not familiarize ourselves with details about various brands.
We take Juice Plus and have been much healthier! It’s not a vitamin or supplement,