veggie vites

For today's Vegan MoFo post, I want to write about vitamins -- supplements, specifically. Now, I have always been more of a "get your vitamins from food" kind of person, but I also believe that taking a multivitamin can't HURT, and it can be a good insurance policy for days when I don't eat as healthfully as I'd like to, for whatever reason.

Many vegetarians have difficulty sourcing vitamins and supplements from "traditional" drugstores, because many commercially-produced, inexpensive supplements contain gelatin or other non veg-friendly ingredients. Because of this, I've looked at the vitamins from my co-op, and frankly, the prices make me CRY! WHY does being healthy have to be so damn expensive sometimes?

Or does it?

Nope! Enter Vitacost! This is one of my all-time favorite websites, and a place I frequently order huge amounts of stuff from. (Really. Like I even by toilet paper from Vitacost, because it's cheaper than buying it at the co-op, and buying recycled TP is important to me.)

Here's what I take:

I have been taking this once daily multi for several years, and am quite happy with it. Vitacost keeps it affordable, at 40% off the retail price, and it has a nice balance of vitamins and minerals, with the all-important calcium, iron, vitamin D, and B-12, four of the hottest vitamins for upper-midwestern women (and vegetarians,) if you ask me! However, I like that there's only 20% of my RDA of calcium and 33% of my RDA of iron, because I do feel I get these nutrients from my foods, too. (Insurance policy, right?)

Recently, I've also started taking this:

I had a helluva time finding a vegetarian omega-3 supplement! While we do use largely olive and canola oils in our house, (and I do add flax oil to salad dressings, and ground flax seeds to our granola,) I'm still not sure we get enough omega-3s. Dan takes fish oil, (since he's not a veggie, since fish oil is much cheaper, and since he has high cholesterol -- needs to take more than I do, with my low cholesterol,) but I have added this supplement to my daily routine, and have been very happy with it! It isn't nearly as awesome a deal as the multi I take, (this product is only 10% off retail,) but I seriously haven't seen it in a single retail store, and I order so much from the website anyway, the $4.95 flat shipping rate usually pays for itself in the first couple of items!

So, what's your take on veggie vites? Do you supplement? Why or why not?