[quote]Benway wrote:
Multivitamins may be a large waste of money. Natural foods contain dozens of micronutrients that are not found in a typical multivitamin. There may be a lot of underlying complexity with the absorption of these nutrients: what if your body couldn’t absorb “nutrient A” without the presence of several other nutrients that exist in the natural food, but are not in the multivitamin? If that were the case, then the naturally occuring micronutrients in food would be much more effective than the multivitamin.
You could conceivably be absorbing almost none of the nutrients that you are completely willing to eschew from your diet so that you can “grow”. How much growth do you think you’d be doing if your body was getting no micronutrients?
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But to play devils-advocate, we don’t know. And you must concede that they MAY be a large waste of money, and MAY NOT be. You COULD conceivably be absorbing almost none, but you COULD conceivably be absorbing what you intended on absorbing. There may not be so much underlying complexity. I know there are many many micronutrients in plant matter not present in vitamins which are likely just as important as the known vitamins and minerals, I’m just making a case against yours for the sake of doubt.