Easy on the Gummy Vitamins

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There’s no such thing as a perfect supplement.

I remember when I first learned about vitamin gummies. I was completely blown away; in my young, naïve eyes, some brilliant, warm-hearted nutritionist had finally found a way to make taking your vitamins a slightly less agonizing process. These days, gummy vitamins are everywhere, and you can get just about any essential nutrient in gummy. They’re great for both kids and the young at heart, but not unlike regular supplements, they’re not an absolute irrefutable good.

Consider this: what’s the main appeal of gummies? They’re sweet, right? Yeah, that’s because of added sugar, and gummy vitamins, purveyors of nutrition though they may be, are chock full of added sugar. Just one of those things can have up to two grams of the sweet stuff, which means six of them is around half your daily recommended intake of sugar.

The general composition of gummy vitamins can also mess with your digestive system. Gummies are made of stuff like gelatin and sugar alcohol, both of which are known to cause digestive distress in certain people. Even if they don’t, overdoing it on a particular kind of vitamin or nutrient is another great way to give yourself a nasty stomach ache.

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On that subject, the most important thing you need to remember about gummy vitamins is that, while they are pleasantly sweet and chewy, they’re only made that way to make them easier to take than regular vitamins. Gummy vitamins are not a snack, and should not be consumed as such. One or two a day is fine, but if you’re eating them consistently over the course of a day, you could throw your entire body chemistry out of whack. You wouldn’t guzzle an entire bottle of multivitamins, right? Same thing.