Are vitamin and mineral supplements nutritionally the same as fresh foods?

From our video partners

Sleep Apnea
Understand, identify and treat sleep apnea.

It depends. Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is identical in both supplement and natural form. Others are not. (Most synthetic vitamins are not recognized by the body and are flushed out). While you may consume 100% of your RDA of a nutrient in a vitamin pill, you are probably only absorbing 10% from most pills as the binders used to compact the pills make it hard for your system to dissolve them. In the end though, supplements serve exactly their purpose- to supplement the diet and prevent deficiencies. You might eat well, but even an excellent diet won't include 100% of everything, every day. A daily multivitamin can be seen as insurance of meeting those requirements.

Fresh foods provide many more nutrients than vitamins and minerals alone, such as fiber, antioxidants and many others.

Are the vitamins and minerals in supplements identical to fresh foods? No, but they are better than trying to get everything you need out of a can.

Vitamins and mineral are great however they are not broken down and processed in the body as easily as foods are. Some vitamins such as A,D,E,K are stored in the fat cells of the body and can become dangerous if these vitamins are abused. Vitamins A,D,E,K are fat soluble vitamins. These vitamins coming from a natural food substance can be easily flushed out of the body if they become toxic, however they are harder to flush out of the body if they are taken in a pill form! All the other vitamins are water soluble which means they are stored in water and can be easily flushed out. Minerals are great for your hair,skin and nails.

First answer by Redbeard. Last edit by Dana8778. Contributor trust: 0 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 63 [recommend question]