Eli5: Why are multivitamins inferior to fruits/vegetables?

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Every article I read says you should primarily get your vitamins through fruits and vegetables and other whole foods rather than multivitamin pills. But if you look at the nutritional facts on say, a bag of spinach or cup of fruit, the % daily value seems way lower than a regular multivitamin, and you’d need to eat a ton of fruits/veggies to get a comparable intake (a single serving of spinach is usually almost an entire bag).

What am I missing?

In: Biology

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

One reason is bio-availability.

Calcium is a good example of this one.  You never eat just straight Calcium.  It’s always part of a molecule, and it’ll be diff molecules depending on the food or vitamin.  Milk is CaHPO4, Tofu is CaSO4, and vitamins may be CaCO3.  Each of these is absorbed by the body differently.  So you actually get a different amount for each.  Milk is more bioavailable than tofu.  And tofu is more bio available than CaCO3.

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