I’ve heard tell that cheap multivitamins are no good, but how expensive do they have to be to be worthwhile?
I’m on 2 Huel shakes a day but the rest of my diet is very haphazerd, so I know I need to have a multivitamin/mineral tab to cover the bases.
But are cheap ones any good? or is it worth going for the ‘reassuringly-expensive’? Any recommendations?
Thanks.
I don’t think you can judge multivitamins based on price. If you’re worried you’re not eating very well I’d always advise to adjust your diet first, it sounds like you know where these changes need to be made.
If you do still want to take a multivitamin then try and get a rough understanding of where you may be lacking and check the nutritional label so you aren’t taking something that’s widely above what you need e.g. 5000% of the iron RDA.
Thanks Dan, I get that everyone’s different and no two formulations are the same, so it’s impossible to compare like with like. But the price differences are huge, 5p each for a supermarket own-brand and 70p each for a health store premium one. Hard to imagine one’s that much better than the other, but perhaps it is.
Maybe I should try each for awhile and see if I can feel any difference.
You’ll want to check the back of the packs to make sure you’re getting the amounts that you need, and whilst sometimes there might be something coming from a “better” or more bio-available source, generally speaking you’re just paying extra for brand recognition.
Same thing happens in medicine, and it’s not changed a great deal since 2016 when this was written:
You’re absolutely right and I agree with Tristan that the premium product is not going to be 14 times better than the own brand.
Understood. I guess what I was getting at was if there was a sweet spot which anyone had settled on, particularly that would best complement a partial Huel diet.
I’ll experiment… 
Unfortunately people have different needs and and eat differently so blanket recommendations are tricky.
If you follow a plant-based diet there are specific multivitamins for this.
If you don’t eat much oily fish make sure you’re got omega-3 fatty acids in there.
Multivitamins can often miss out on calcium because it can make the supplement quite big, but it should be there.
Likewise iodine can me missed off but it’s an essential mineral.
In terms of forms go for vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) over vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) and for vitamin E D-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate over DL-Alpha-Tocopheryl Acetate.
Great, and thanks again, will try to factor that all in.
Hey Dan, would you able to recommed me anything?
For context I eat 2400 calories of Black a day, and the occasional bar here and there as a snack.
Thanks!
If you eat 2400kcal of Black Edition a day then I don’t think you need a multivitamin, happy days!
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