Vegan Multivitamins and Minerals Part 2

Vegan Products from Non-Vegan Exclusive Suppliers

Following on from the vegan companies supplying vegan multivitamins, we’ll now look at some of the vegan multivitamins available from companies that aren’t exclusively vegan but supply good supplements anyway!

Viridian

Viridian is a company founded in 1999 by previous employees of the Solgar company (now owned by NBTY who also own Holland and Barrett and GNC). They have a much firmer environmental stance than Solgar ever did and produce great quality vegan supplements including vitamin D2. They, unfortunately, have now introduced some non-vegan supplements into their catalogue, including glucosamine sulphate (rather than glucosamine hydrochloride). Most of their line is still vegan though, and of excellent quality.

My favourite vegan multivitamin, and the one I used to use exclusively when I lived in the UK, is Viridian’s High Five Multivitamin & Mineral Formula Veg Caps. With a decent amount of most vitamins and minerals in there, and a nice small capsule rather than a giant, throat-blocking tablet, it certainly gave me an energy boost and kept everything in good working order. It’s such a shame its not available in Canada or the US, as yet. Anyone want to start importing it for me?! One note on this one though is that it hardly contains any calcium, so either get that from good food sources of calcium, or top it up with a separate calcium supplement. The magnesium might, at first glance, seem low at 5mg, but it’s actually 105mg, due to its presence in the magnesium ascorbate vitamin C form at the top of the ingredients list. See what I mean about labelling? Tricky business.

Solgar’s Vegan Multivit however is pretty damn good, I used Solgar Vitamins before finding Viridian, simply because of where I lived and the accessibility to their products at the time. As Solgar are available in North America it’s worth checking them out if you’re not in the UK and can’t get Viridian. The Prenatal multivitamin is also vegan and I used to get some funny looks buying that one, but it’s great! Click here to visit the Natural Way Health website.

NOW are a good company with a huge range of products, a lot of which are vegan. They really seem to make an effort to provide good vegan alternatives to the usual gelatin-entrapped animal-derived substances. Having said that, it’s always a good idea to check their labels as it’s easy to assume that products such as flaxseed oil would be in vegecaps, often it’s not though, so be wary. They do have a pretty fab little multivit for men of a certain age (say 50 plus) who might need a little extra help to keep that prostate in top nick, and the brain ticking over nicely. The saw palmetto and gingko biloba in this vegan multivitamin for men are just two of the extras found alongside a decent amount of calcium, magnesium, and a huge 30mg of zinc (very rare to see such a good level in a multivit!), as well as the other vitamins and minerals necessary for optimum health. A great choice for men who are active and healthy and want to stay that way as they age gracefully!

NOW also have a couple of Multi-Food Complexes for Men and Women, which on a quick scan of the ingredients are a perfect example of high price, hyped-up, low-dose multis. These products contain 10mg or so of calcium and magnesium (compared to the suggested intake of 1000mg/500mg or so for most people each day), and just 2mg of B6, when there is evidence to show that 50-100mg can be really helpful for women suiffering from PMS symptoms. I’d not bother wasting my money on these, there are definitely better choices out there.

Nature’s Way Alive! Whole Food Energizer Multivitamin, Tablets
Vegetarian & HypoAllergenic Dietary Supplement is another vegan formula with D2 as ergocalciferol, a nice amount of calcium, magnesium, B vitamins, a huge amount of vitamin C, and a nice blend of green foods, and enzymes in there to help with absorption.

Another good vegan multivitamin is Quest’s Vegan Super One-A-Day Multivitamins & Mineral supplement. This one, again only available in the UK seemingly, and not in North America, contains good amounts of a lot of the microminerals but not much calcium or magnesium unfortunately, and no vitamin D. So If you’re going to take this one, which is a little cheaper than the Viridian High-Five multi, I’d top it up with a good bone-builder type supplement such as Viridian’s Vegan Vitamin D2 1000IU, and their Calcium, Magnesium, and Zinc Powder. Another option is Lifeplan’s Calcium and Magnesium tablets from Dolomite, which are vegan, but are not as easily absorbed as the Viridian product. If anyone else has found a goof calcium citrate, magnesium citrate, malate, or bisglycinate in the UK then let me know so I can update these pages. These are readily available in Canada but not in the UK and are detailed here for the discerning North American customer!

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