Veggies and vitamins

[GSV_Consolation_of_Dreams]

I have trouble physically eating some veggies, like broccoli and even small pieces of tomato. I get a quite powerful urge to gag and spit it out. This does not go down well if the meal has been lovingly prepared by your significant other, trust me on this.
If it’s really bad, I find that chewing until ready to swallow, then adding a sip of drink to my mouth, then swallowing the whole lot allows me to get it down.
I also make sure to eat the most horrible stuff first, quickly, while I am still hungry.

[HumanMonkeyGod]

@constanze

I also would advise against a veggie smoothie - the thought alone makes me shudder. I instead concentrate on more fruits instead.

Any reason for this?

[Zsofia]

Because it would be disgusting. Seriously, if you don’t like broccoli in little-tree form, I seriously doubt you’re going to like it liquified.

[Reply]

@Chronos

Not being a dietician or nutritionist myself, I’ll just link to Wikipedia on this one. And they’re not “magical”; they presumably function in much the same way as the vitamins that we know about.

Thank you.

[gigi]

@Broomstick

The fact he likes tomato sauce on his pizza rather than biting into a raw tomato makes me think he likes his tomatoes cooked and of one texture throughout. That’s not that peculiar a mindset - my husband doesn’t eat raw tomatoes, either. Nothing wrong with stewed tomatoes, or tomatoes run through a blender into a smoothie. They’re still tomatoes.

Or do what I do and stew the veggies in tomato sauce (last night was carrots, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, scallions, red pepper) and put it on whole wheat pasta. Or combine spinach with ricotta and bake in lasagna. I am not a cook by any means but I try to disguise the veggies in things I like. And I make a big casserole and freeze individuals portions, so it’s not a lot of work every day like I would find smoothies.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Duck_Quack_s_Echo

Campbell’s make a product called V8 juice which is available here in Australia. I don’t know if it is available in Ireland. It comes in both a fruit and a vegetable format. I buy the vegetable product. On the label it lists tomatoes, carrots, celery, beetroot, parsley, lettuce, watercress and spinach. That’s a pretty good range of veggies and I believe it tastes excellent.

It also contains very high levels of sodium; combined with the high levels of sodium consumed as part of a “normal” Western diet will definitely exceed the recommended daily allowance by a wide margin.

@Chronos

The thing with multivitamins is, there are some substances found mostly in vegetables that you absolutely need. Don’t get enough of them, and you’ll get very sick or die. We call those substances vitamins, and by now we’ve figured out what all of them are and can put them in a pill. But there’s also a wide variety of substances in veggies that, while not exactly essential, are still very good for you. We’ve managed to isolate some of them, but not all, and many we don’t know what they are. So you’ll get those things in actual veggies, but not in pills.

So you could survive on junk food and multivitamins, but you’ll probably be healthier getting your vitamins from vegetables.

It is also the case that many minerals and vitamins have to be consumed with other metabolized substances in order to be effective. For instance, calcium supplements (previously widely recommended for women past menopause) are of questionable value because most of the calcium is not readily absorbed without being taken in combination with soluble fats, and not properly utilized without Vitamin D. As such low fat dairy or plant sources of calcium such as soya, nuts, or some green leafy vegetables are a better source of dietary calcium supplementation. And of course, vegetables (and only plant matter) provides dietary sources of fiber, particularly soluble fiber which has been widely determined to reduce cholesterol and have other long-term health benefits as well as provide bulk for low calorie satiation.

@Reply

But how do we know this (that veggies potentially contain unisolated magical substances)? Is this just speculation? Got a cite?

There are a vast array of epidemiological studies which indicate that a diet high in flavonoid-rich fruits and vegetables (typically, as Chronos notes, brightly colored and diversely flavored) correlates strongly with lower rates of chronic disease and greater longevity. Because the study of the effect of particular metabolites is a fairly new field in nutritional science, and because it is essentially impossible to isolate the metabolic effects of any individual substance that does not have pronounced effects in absence (such as scurvy from a lack of Vitamin C), it is difficult to say anything definitive about the value of most particular flavonoids. But the essential fact that a diet that has a wide array of colored fruits and leafy vegetables has manifest health benefits.

Stranger

[DrDeth]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

It also contains very high levels of sodium; combined with the high levels of sodium consumed as part of a “normal” Western diet will definitely exceed the recommended daily allowance by a wide margin.

Good point. But for most dudes in good health, that’s not a problem. Of course, if your MD has told you to watch your sodium, then you need a low sodium version.

There’s a Odwalla product or two that might fit someones veggie needs.

[constanze]

@Broomstick

Yes, well, if you read the RDA’s and the label on a housebrand multivitamin you’d know that none of them are anywhere near excessive or extra amounts. If he’s not eating adequate fruits and vegetables then a basic multivitamin will help prevent deficiencies. No one is advocating megadoses here.

But it’s easy to overdose with artifical vitamins. As studies have shown.

A “science reporter” is… what? A journalism student with a passing interest in something other than which Hollywood idiot is in rehab? Who was this “expert” and what was his/her credentials?

Huh? A science reporter is somebody who has studied both science and journalism, of course. Do you not have journalists like that in the US? In this specific case, it was Ranga Yogeshwar, who has a diploma in physics. The show was Quarks, a popular science show from the national TV station WDR, but I can’t seem to find the link right now. The expert was a doctor for nutrition, whose name I don’t remember.

Multivitamins are not intended to cure ills - they’re intended to prevent deficiency diseases, under the assumption that the person taking them is actually eating some food in addition to the pills. People who can’t eat food are not given vitamin pills, they’re given other things and don’t need vitamin pills.

I agree with you that they should be taken only when indicated by specific deficiencies - which a doctor should measure with blood and prescribe only that specific vitamin.

The problem however is that the current advertising - in part because it’s such a lucrative market (easy to produce, expensive to sell) so the industry pushes it - convinces people that a handful of artifical vitamins in your cereals, toast, bonbons or whatever makes these healthy; that instead of changing your unhealthy eating habits, you just add a couple of multivitamin pills; and that eating a lot of vitmains will not only keep you healthy, but also prevent a lot of problems (cancer and colds with Vitamin C, aging and cancer with Vitamin E, etc.) Probably because people know that veggies = vitamins and veggies = good for you, but also veggies not part of my current eating habits so vitamins alone = healthy.

Again - the assumption is that people who use multivitamins are actually eating food as well as pills. You’re supposed to take vitamins with a meal, not as a snack unto themselves. And, by the way - spinach does not “naturally” occur with lemon juice, that’s also a manmade concoction.

The assumption you’re making. But I wonder how many of the average consumer are doing this? A lot of the multivitamin pills are made to dissolve into a fizzy drink with orange flavour.

So… because you don’t like it, it’s not a valid approach? If the only way the man likes his vegees are as a smoothie what the heck do I care?

I’m not saying it’s not a valid approach. I’m going by my own dislike of some veggies and trying to put myself into the OPs shoes, because somebody who loves veggies and therefore doesn’t understand the distaste the OP has will have a harder time with a useful tip. And going by my own taste, I think that the OP is underestimating how a bunch of veggies purreed together would taste.

It could work wunderfully for the OP - in that case, go ahead! But what I’m guessing is that he’ll have a big heap of awful instead of a small dose of moderately awful, and in that case, the OP shouldn’t give up because his only approach as smoothie didn’t work, but also try different methods.

The fact he likes tomato sauce on his pizza rather than biting into a raw tomato makes me think he likes his tomatoes cooked and of one texture throughout. That’s not that peculiar a mindset - my husband doesn’t eat raw tomatoes, either. Nothing wrong with stewed tomatoes, or tomatoes run through a blender into a smoothie. They’re still tomatoes.

Yes, of course. As was already said upthread, veggies don’t have to be raw. And tomatoes are a very good example because they contain a red colouring - lycoflavo something, I never can remember the correct name - that is activated by heat, so a tomato soup or sauce (with past, instead of Mac n cheese) is biologically better for you than a raw tomatoe.

But a tomato soup is different from throwing five or ten different veggies in a blender.

The OP says he (I’m assuming OP is a he) views food in a very perfunctory way and doesn’t even enjoy eating for the most part, and you want him to make this into a complex thing requiring memorizing lists and charts and stuff? Look, eating is simple: eat a large variety of things, but keep the individual quantities small. Eat the most colorful food you can. Do those two things and it’s hard not to eat well.

I didn’t say anything about memorizing lists. You put them up in your kitchen or eating area, and after a couple of weeks of looking and choosing which combinations you like, you have automatically a good selection.
Colourful eating is also simplified - McDonalds is quite colourful because of the artifical colouring, but that single piece of salad doesn’t make it healthy.
Besides, why shouldn’t food be enjoyed? Why not discover the different tastes of good food? Why only force something down in order to exist, instead of making an experience out of it? Try to get away from artifical stuff and give your tastebuds time to awaken again and eat pure, simple foods. That’s a pleasure you can have daily.

[Annie-Xmas]

Put equal amounts of tomato juice and vegetables into a blender and smooth out. Add whatever spices you like. Drink cold or hot. Add more juice and you have a good pasta sauce.

[constanze]

@Reply

But how do we know this (that veggies potentially contain unisolated magical substances)? Is this just speculation? Got a cite?

A german link says (relevant part contracted and translated)

Researchers interested in the cancer-fighting qualities of Vitamin C and E did a dobule blind study giving one group the real vitamin, and the other placebos, without nobody knowing who was getting which. To their surprise, after several years and thousands of participants, the isolated vitamins did not show any better than the placebos. Thus the scientists reasoned that other ingredients beside vitamins alone in the veggies and fruits must be responsible for the added health benefits.

They are still searching for those secondary plant beneficaries, discovering and testing their qualities.

[Lemur866]

The key to any diet change you make is compliance. That is, can you actually eat this way for the rest of your life? If you won’t actually drink your gazpacho soup then it doesn’t matter whether it would be good for you or not, you aren’t drinking it.

So you have to find something that you can actually eat.

And the example of pizza is a good clue. Think about the foods you do eat that contain small amounts of vegetables. Now try to figure out why the small amounts of vegetables in those foods don’t make you gag. Do you like onions on your hotdogs? Do you like tomato sauce on your spaghetti? Do you like pickles? Lettuce on your sandwich? Pumpkin pie? Sweet potatoes? Olives? Avocados?

So try to increase your dose of vegetables that you don’t hate, while minimizing the secondary stuff. For instance, if you like pumpkin pie you might like baked squash with a bit of cinnamon. It’s just a matter of taking out the extra sugar and eggs and milk. And even if plain baked squash doesn’t taste good at first you can slowly reduce the amount of other stuff…sprinkle a little butter and brown sugar and cinnamon on the squash instead of the full pie route.

If you like pizza or spaghetti with tomato sauce, increase the amount of sauce, try pureed fresh tomatoes, try adding bits of other veggies into the sauce.

And so on. If you really don’t mind drinking a veggie smoothie for breakfast every morning then you’re fine, but it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to stick with it.

And if it turns out you can’t stand any of this, then eating high-fiber grains and a multivitamin will at least prevent you from getting scurvy or rickets.

[Broomstick]

@constanze

But it’s easy to overdose with artifical vitamins. As studies have shown.

If you follow the directions that say “take 1 pill a day with food” you will NOT overdose on a multivitamin. Again, I am not advocating swallowing handfuls. That is YOUR assumption.

Huh? A science reporter is somebody who has studied both science and journalism, of course. Do you not have journalists like that in the US?

Probably, but most “science reporters” in the US are regular journalists who at some point are assigned to science stories and have no additional qualifications beyond (hopefully) some education in journalism. In the US the title “science reporter” can be adopted by anyone.

This may be less confusing if I know what country your from, since you imply you aren’t from the US. Would also be less confusing if your wiki link was in English, as I don’t read whatever it was in - German?

I agree with you that they should be taken only when indicated by specific deficiencies - which a doctor should measure with blood and prescribe only that specific vitamin.

How high a dose is in the standard multivitamin in your country? In the US it’s not uncommon for a multivitamin to have less than the recommended daily allowance of a vitamin or mineral because they are intended solely as a supplement.

that instead of changing your unhealthy eating habits, you just add a couple of multivitamin pills

The OP is someone who already acknowledges they have bad eating habits and IS trying to change them… but that takes time. Meanwhile, a multivitamin a day will help in seeing he gets what he needs on a daily basis. Of course, I am not a doctor nor should he take my word for it, but it’s not an uncommon recommendation.

The assumption you’re making. But I wonder how many of the average consumer are doing this? A lot of the multivitamin pills are made to dissolve into a fizzy drink with orange flavour.

What? I have never heard of that. Here in the US multivitamin pills are just that - pills that you swallow one at a time with your beverage of choice.

But a tomato soup is different from throwing five or ten different veggies in a blender.

But better than no vegees at all.

I didn’t say anything about memorizing lists. You put them up in your kitchen or eating area, and after a couple of weeks of looking and choosing which combinations you like, you have automatically a good selection.

How about we keep it even easier? Because what is this person going to do during lunch while he works? If he eats out in a restaurant? With his family? Lug a bunch of stuff everywhere he goes? The more awkward and difficult the less likely he is to stay with it.

Besides, why shouldn’t food be enjoyed? Why not discover the different tastes of good food? Why only force something down in order to exist, instead of making an experience out of it? Try to get away from artifical stuff and give your tastebuds time to awaken again and eat pure, simple foods. That’s a pleasure you can have daily.

You know, I normally cook from scratch and my tastebuds are fully awake, but there are some things I am NEVER going to like, whether due to taste or texture. Just not going to happen. So when I do find myself forced to eat them all I can do is just choke them down quickly. The OP finds that he doesn’t like vegetables. Well, maybe he doesn’t. In which case he may be looking for the quickest way to get them down.

We’re not going to change his eating habits overnight, and the greater the attempted change the more likely is failure.

[constanze]

@Broomstick

If you follow the directions that say “take 1 pill a day with food” you will NOT overdose on a multivitamin. Again, I am not advocating swallowing handfuls. That is YOUR assumption.

I don’t know if the composition of multivitamin pills in the US is markedly different from those in Germany, but because the general pills aren’t targeted to a specific persons needs, and each person eats differently, it is easy to already have e.g. sufficient Vitamin A with your food, and thus overdose with one type of pill, while still being deficient in rare mineral Selen, which isn’t included in normal pills.

Probably, but most “science reporters” in the US are regular journalists who at some point are assigned to science stories and have no additional qualifications beyond (hopefully) some education in journalism. In the US the title “science reporter” can be adopted by anyone.

Oh, I didn’t know that your journalists are so badly educated about the special subjects they write about. In Germany, serious journalists specialize in one area - science, foreign affairs, politics, economics - when they already have some background in this area (typically, people study the subject of choice at University and during this time find out they like journalism, eg. doing a student paper or radio or similar), and then do reports on this area for the future, so because he covers the current events, he’s up to date on developments in this field.

This may be less confusing if I know what country your from, since you imply you aren’t from the US. Would also be less confusing if your wiki link was in English, as I don’t read whatever it was in - German?

I’m from Germany, and I link to German links if I can’t find an english link e.g. with german TV shows. While they usually cite " a Harvard study" or " a study by American scientists", they never give details, so it takes a lot of time for me to search the english journals to find the original english research.

How high a dose is in the standard multivitamin in your country? In the US it’s not uncommon for a multivitamin to have less than the recommended daily allowance of a vitamin or mineral because they are intended solely as a supplement.

Then maybe your multivitamin pills have a different composition than here. But the problem is that “multivitamin” is not a protected or defined term - it only means “several vitamins” so it’s quite possible to have too much of one vitamin e.g C and not enough of others e.g. B12 (especially if they are of the kind the body has problems absorbing anyway.)
So you can come away overdosed in some areas and stil deficient in others.

BTW, this is also why I would recommend trying and find out which veggies and which method of preparation the OP likes, because if - as you said earlier - he sticks to fruits only, he might end up eating only apples, oranges and bananas, and that would mean he would miss out some minerals, phytho-colours and flavours etc. that’s present in other fruits or veggies.

You see, I can quite understand disliking the taste of some veggies like broccoli or cauliflower (Because I myself do) or disliking some method of preparation (e.g. cooked cucumbers I don’t care for, but cucumber salad I like, esp. with joghurt sauce).
But the OP seems to be convinced that he doesn’t like the taste of any veggies - although there are one or two dozens out there - in any method of preparation - from raw sliced as salad to cooked, fried, overbaked etc. - and that is hard for me to believe or understand.
So I would rather recommend trying out exotic veggies and different preparations.

In some forms of allergy-reduced diets or diets reduced for other reasons (like the phosphati-diet that was popular in the 80s), they advise against eating only four or five foods altogether, because you become bored of them after some months and stop liking them. So if the OP, by experimenting, finds out he likes 5 veggies in 3 different methods, and 7 fruits, he can switch around to avoid getting fed up of the taste.
If he instead sticks with only 3 fruits he currently likes, it’s easier for him to become fed up with the taste and give up on them, too.

What? I have never heard of that. Here in the US multivitamin pills are just that - pills that you swallow one at a time with your beverage of choice.

Interesting. In Germany, many kinds are sold as dissoluble tablets with lemon/orange flavour.

But better than no vegees at all.

Yes, of course. That’s not what I meant, however. I was trying to point out that if the OP dislikes veggies, puttting all veggies in a blender won’t make it automatically easier for him to get them down.

Switching to tomato sauce instead of Mac n Cheese would improve his veggie intake. Also eating tomato soup once in a while (with a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche and a toasted white bread mmmmm), even better.

To the OP: if you like Pizza, have you tried putting pineapple or bell pepper stripes onto your pizza instead of salami and ham?

How about we keep it even easier? Because what is this person going to do during lunch while he works? If he eats out in a restaurant? With his family? Lug a bunch of stuff everywhere he goes? The more awkward and difficult the less likely he is to stay with it.

I’m not saying he has to add everything correct together all the time the first weeks. The recommendation of “five handfuls of fruits/veggies a day, from each colour” is not a rule that has to be achieved every day or you fail, it’s a goal you try and aim for. Of course there are exceptions when you eat out, or there’s holiday season, or the Mensa /cafeteria you go to during work has a nice tasty raw carrot salad one day, but only boring useless lettuce next day which you skip, so not every day you get your five portions in the right colours.

You know, I normally cook from scratch and my tastebuds are fully awake, but there are some things I am NEVER going to like, whether due to taste or texture. Just not going to happen. So when I do find myself forced to eat them all I can do is just choke them down quickly. The OP finds that he doesn’t like vegetables. Well, maybe he doesn’t. In which case he may be looking for the quickest way to get them down.

Again, I’m not arguing that you have to like everything. My advice is if you don’t like something, to find replacements for it that you do, or experiment with other methods of preparation.
My hunch is that if the OP doesn’ like “any” veggies, he won’T be able to force a smoothie of concentrated veggie taste down, either. We could argue all day without getting resolution, but it isn’T important in the end what we think, but what works for the OP. If the smoothie idea works for him - wonderful! Problem solved. Pureeing the whole veggie without straining means he still has all the fibers and minerals and whatnot. If he stays away from those veggies that are dangerous while raw (eg. beans) when blending, and keeps in mind that some veggies like avocadoes have a lot of calories (because of the oil, just as some fruits like bananas are calorie-rich) so he doesn’t get too many calories, he will be better off than before.
However, there are several suggestions already in this thread, to which I added my thoughts. about what the OP can do if his smoothie idea doesn’t work for him.

Also, saying that you can’T eat some veggies is a bit different from saying that food in general should be eaten to keep the body running, but taste is not important, which was the impression I got from your earlier reply.

We’re not going to change his eating habits overnight, and the greater the attempted change the more likely is failure.

I don’t know about how much change the OP is willing. I think it also depends on how the change is made. Trying different kinds and methods of veggies once at a time*, starting to eat less fast food and ready-made meals by replacing one day a week with proper food - is that too much change? I don’t know.

• we’ve had several threads about “I don’t like veggies how do I eat healthy” before, and one poster who was a parent told about his three bite rule for his whole family - if you saw something you had never eaten before, you have to try three bites before saying “Ick, that tastes gross, I won’t eat that, I don’t like it”. He applied it not only to the children, but also to himself, and noted how difficult it could be to actually eat three full bites!

[fluiddruid]

It is possible to change your tastes if you are committed to it.

‘Vegetables’ are such a broad category that it gives you a lot of wiggle room. Rather than just trying to force it down in smoothie form (blech), why not get some V8 Fusion (tastes like fruit juice, has veggies in it) and a multivitamin and just start working on your palate?

There are probably a lot of vegetables out there that you do like and just haven’t tried or aren’t thinking of. Here are some thoughts for vegetables that don’t have any strong bitter flavors or weird textures:

• Butternut squash, either pureed or cut into small cubes, is sweet to the taste and very mellow. The texture isn’t ‘weird’ either.

• Sweet potato, same as the above.

• Jicama. It has an apple-like crunchy texture but isn’t sweet, it’s more like a water chestnut. It looks like a big round root vegetable on the outside. It doesn’t have much taste so it goes really well in salads or stir-fries where it can soak up flavor. I like it even just with balsamic dressing on its own.

• Sugar snap peas. They’re easy to find in the frozen section, though the texture isn’t as good as fresh. Most grocery stores have them fresh too. Slightly sweet taste, no bitter tones.

• Grape tomatoes: Don’t try these if you’re skeeved out by the ‘pop’ of tomato juice, but they tend to be much sweeter and more flavorful than other raw tomatoes.

• Beets. I used to figure that beets were nasty because pickled beets were nasty. However, cooked beets (while they can stain your fingers) have a sweet, mild flavor and an inoffensive texture. I like the greens too, but you don’t have to eat them. I like cooked beets chilled, cut up, and in a salad.

Once you find one you like, start incorporating it a lot. Yes, variety is good, but if you can get used to sugar snap peas, perhaps you can work up to steaming fresh green beans (which is miles and away better than frozen green beans), or lima beans, or other similar veggies.

There’s a whole world of things to try that a lot of people have never had: parsnip, bok choy, arugula, bean sprouts, etc. are all easily found but many Americans have never sampled. Look around your produce section every time and try something new, or try a different cooking method (I’m not a fan of raw carrots but love them cooked). Don’t forget flavor! Most vegetables need a bit of help. Buy a nice spice blend that you like (Penzey’s has a lot of choices) or start looking up recipes. I tend to enjoy adding green herbs or a bit of spicy heat to my veggies.

If you have friends/family that are amenable, try a little bit of whatever vegetable they are eating. If you go to a potluck or a buffet, just try a little bit of something new or something you don’t like. Don’t force it, but just keep trying it regularly. If you have one in your area, try going to a farmer’s market or Asian grocery to try some fruits and vegetables you’ve never had; since you don’t have any pre-formed notions, maybe you’d like it more. I found through experimentation that one of my favorite vegetables is mesclun lettuce, which has a spicy, peppery taste – I don’t like flavorless iceberg lettuce salads, though, which is the place a lot of people stop in the salad department.

For an example, I used to hate, hate, hate brussels sprouts but I now love them; my tastes changed as I aged. Bitter vegetables have become more appealing. Same with red wine and hot sauce, actually. Tastes tend to mellow as you get older and stronger flavors become less objectionable. I’m still working on olives; they’ve gone from abhorrent to occasionally enjoyable in moderation.

[Broomstick]

@constanze

I don’t know if the composition of multivitamin pills in the US is markedly different from those in Germany, but because the general pills aren’t targeted to a specific persons needs, and each person eats differently, it is easy to already have e.g. sufficient Vitamin A with your food, and thus overdose with one type of pill, while still being deficient in rare mineral Selen, which isn’t included in normal pills.

Here in the US, multivitamin pills tend to be categorized as “children”, “adult”, “women”, “men”, “women over 50” (which really means “after menopause”, whatever age that occurs) and “men over 50”. Most notably, the ones aimed at women tend to have more iron and calcium, and the ones for older people have more of some micronutrients. The thing is, eating doesn’t have to be an exact science. There’s some wiggle room and vitamins usually don’t have to be individually crafted.

Pre-natal vitamins are prescription items here.

I went and pulled my house-brand/generic multivitamin bottle out of the kitchen cupboard for your benefit. It’s fairly typical of the adult women’s vitamin category. Various brands tweak certain amounts of things (men’s vitamins tend to have less iron and calcium and more selenium, for example) but I choose this brand as a sort of “middle of the road” that was neither unusually high or low in anything.

Vitamin A (20% as beta carotene) - 2500 IU - 50% of recommended dietary allowance (RDA) which are believed to satisfy the needs of 97-98% of healthy individuals in a particular life stage and/or gender grouping. These would not necessarily be the level needed for optimum health, but what is required for basic needs.
Vitamin C - 60mg - 100% RDA
Vitamin D - 400 IU - 100% RDA
Vitamin E - 30 IU - 100% RDA
Vitamin K - 25 mcg - 31% RDA
Thiamin (B1) - 2.5 mg - 100% RDA
Riboflavin (B2) - 1.7 mg - 100% RDA
Niacin - 10 mg - 50% RDA
Vitamin B6 - 2 mg - 100% RDA
Folate 100 mcg - 100%
Vitamin B12 - 6 mcg - 100% RDA
Biotin - 30 mcg - 10%
Pantothenic Acid - 5 mg - 50% RDA
Calcium - 450 mg - 45% RDA
Iron - 18 mg - 100% RDA
Magnesium - 50 mg - 13% RDA
Zinc - 15 mg - 100% RDA
Selenium - 20 mcg - 29% RDA
Copper - 2 mg -100% RDA
Manganese - 2 mg - 100% RDA
Chromium - 120 mcg - 100% RDA

You’d have to take at least TEN of these pills before you’d start to approach recommended upper limits for any of the listed nutrients, and for most of them more pills than that.

Assuming anything like a normal diet (even an exceptionally healthy one) and just one of these pills a day you aren’t going to overdose on any of these nutrients. It is, as I said, a supplement and not a substitute for a healthy diet. Certainly, if one is exceptionally busy, traveling, or going through some situation where one’s diet is not ideal then this would ensure a lot of nutrients are taken in adequate amounts.

Now, individual vitamins and minerals are available as discreet pills in the US, and for certain medical conditions a doctor or nutritionist might recommend a specific nutrient or several, but people futzing with these on their own is where people get into megadoses here in the US, not with common multivitamin pills.

Anyhow, I hope you found the above information informative.

I’m from Germany, and I link to German links if I can’t find an english link e.g. with german TV shows. While they usually cite " a Harvard study" or " a study by American scientists", they never give details, so it takes a lot of time for me to search the english journals to find the original english research.

I used to work for medical researchers with access to things like PubMed and we had the exact same problem - it’s a problem with crap US journalism that they don’t cite the specific research. Sounds like it may be a problem elsewhere. Hence, my skepticism with anything the media says.

So you can come away overdosed in some areas and stil deficient in others.

Yes, but that’s exactly the problem people can have with a normal diet, too. The multivitamin I quoted above would tend to even things out for a lot of people with minimal risk overdose.

Yes, of course. That’s not what I meant, however. I was trying to point out that if the OP dislikes veggies, puttting all veggies in a blender won’t make it automatically easier for him to get them down.

Some people actually find something liquid they can chug quickly preferable to something solid. To each their own.