Vitamins and Minerals

What Vitamins and Supplements Should I Take?

This question comes up all the time, and is really dependant on the individual. Since everyone has unique needs, you should not follow a “one size fits all” approach to choosing the best vitamins and supplements for you either. Furthermore, it is always best to think, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food” (Greek physician Hippocrates), so to speak, and eat whole foods based on your needs for most of your core vitamin and mineral uptake. That being said today's food industry norms such as food storage, shipping, and processing techniques has lead some our once nutritious dense food to become less dense of these key nutrients for optimal health. Farming practices, particular non-organic practices also may play a major role in the nutritional profile of the foods your intake.

Lastly, sometimes it can be hard to eat enough fresh organic veggies, fruit, whole grains, meat, eggs, dairy, etc which further present a challenge for some. This may be due to time constraints, our busy lifestyles or even athletes that are expending high levels of energy requirements, requiring extra fuel... This leads us back to the question of “What vitamins and supplements should i take?”

Although everyone should consult a nutritionist or Naturopath for specific dietary/health considerations, here is a list of several vitamins and minerals that many feel are the best vitamins and best supplements to take.

Best Multivitamin supplements:

Although there are different opinions on which vitamin is best for you to take.... we like to simplify it down to what you feel is the most important to you. There tends to be two to three categories of vitamin and mineral supplements:

1.Wholefood derived Multivitamins – These tend to be derived from whole foods, and processed via natural processing techniques. Some of these companies may be vertically integrated, owning the farms (or a share it it), and providing local farmers a steady stream of cashflow. That being said, think of the process of taking the fresh vegetables and fruits and then processing them down, drying, freeze drying or extracting the then broken down foods into nutritients they can then use in a vitamin. Many of these are in tablet form, as it tends to be a pressed tab process. One thing to note, is that most of the vitamin and mineral content per capsule are lower then synthetic multivitamins. The concept is you will absorb higher levels do to the co-factors found in whole foods, and your using these as an insurance policy rather then overloading your body.

2.Synthetic Multivitamins – As the name suggests, Synthetic nutrients are dietary supplements made artificially in a laboratory setting or industrial process... now this may sound harsh, but there are several leading functional medicine and naturopathic doctors, natural medicine physicians, nutritionists and award winning scientists (Linus Pauling) that recommend these as ways to improve your health. Most of the vitamins and mineral supplements you will find on retail and practitioners shelves will contain these nutrients... Now many of them are not created equally and normally you pay for what you get, in a sense, due to the type of nutrient or form that is included. An example of this is the inclusion of B12 in Methylcabolomin form vrs B12 in the Cyanocobalamin form, which may be less expensive and may have lower retention rate. Other examples are the mineral forms such as Calcium, Magnesium, Selenium and Zinc in Oxide forms vs Bis-glycinate forms or “Albion mineral chelates”. Needless to say, they tend to offer higher levels of active nutrients, which may provide more of a support to nutritional deficiencies, or extra potency to get a result you are looking for.

3.Vitamin Packs for Men, Vitamin Packs for Women, and Vitamin Packs – These are combinations of Vitamins, Minerals, and other added nutrients like EFA’s, amino acids, trace minerals, nootropics, probiotics, and phytonutritients. The key with these is they provide and all in one solution for people that want to buy one product that provides many vitamins, minerals and added nutrients. Normally these come in an 30-day serving size, which makes it easy at one pack a day without much fuss. When choosing these keep in mind some are more focused on overall health, while others may be more focused on physical performance, or mental health.

At OptimizeNutrition.ca we try to source the best multivitamin supplements found in Canada, and choose each product we carry based on its merits to our customers. To make it easy to shop with us here are a few links to product categories containing vitamin and minerals we carry.

Vitamins and Minerals derived from Whole Foods

Vitamins and Mineral Supplements

Vitamin Packs

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